When I tested my clarity and my Presto, the Presto reached the optimum
temperature range sooner than did the Clarity, and it reached a higher
temperature by about three or four degrees than did the Clarity.

I will note that neither of my two samples are now exactly stock original.
The Presto has a showerhead style drip nozzle with nine spout areas, three
of which were open to the flow when I got it. Now, all nine of them are
open, even though the six additional holes are slightly smaller in diameter
than the three factory-drilled ones.

The Clarity hadc one aprox. half-inch diameter hole through which water
could drip out of the channel formed in the two parts of the head cover.
There is not really any kind of showerhead, just a 1-inch wide path where
the water is pumped in until some of it falls out through that single hole
over the center of the brew basket. I added about six much slammer holes
around the original one, but made no attempt to try to stop up the original
center opening as was described in the "Ted mod" posted here back in
NOvember or December of last year. I think that speeding up the exit of
water from the top of the Clarity may have bought me a minute or so of
earlier coffee saturation at the expense of possibly one to even three
degrees Fahrenheit of maximum brewing temperature in the Clarity. Because
the Presto's business end is more like a real showerhead, I would guess, but
can not prove by measurement, that my modification to the Presto probably
gave me a bit less of a temperature drop.

My little temperature testing experiments convince me more than ever that
you may be fooling yourselves if you think you are really brewing at 200
degrees F. or better if you are using a manual pour-over brewing method.
YOu'll have your hot water at its highest temperature right when you take it
from the separate heat source, and it will begin cooling, surprisingly
rapidly as soon as all that container surface comes in contact with
room-temperature air. By the time you get that water over to the cone which
contains your ground coffee and begin pouring, the pouring action will lower
the brew temp even faster. You'll get your high temp at the beginning, and
probably temps below the optimum brewing range well before you're done
pouring, stirring and dripping, unless you start with a fairly large volume
of water, and brew only about one cup, like maybe ten ounces or less, at a
time.
With the a good drip brewer, you'll get cooler water at the start, but
optimum temperature water through most of the brewing cycle. The machine
releases heated water just a couple inches above the top of the coffee in
the basket, and continues to heat as it pours, and both the top of the brew
basket and the top of the carafe or mug in the machine are covered, reducing
heat transfer out to the surrounding air. The better brewers will trump the
manual pour-over every time, especially when brewing larger amounts of
coffee in a single brewing session. The only way you'll come close with the
manual method is to use twice as much or more coffee per amount of water as
you would need with the automatic method to get the same strength of brew.

I notice that when the manual pour-over brewing fans here trumpet the ease
of use and low cost, they conveniently forget to talk about what goes into
heating up the water before they can start pouring it over the coffee in the
cone. Having used both ceramic and plastic Melitta pour-over cones, various
sizes of Chemex pour-over cone/carafe combinations, including back in the
1970's and early 1980's before their overly-thick and overly-oil-absorbing
fliters were degraded, and having used various cheap, no-name knockoffs of
both Chemex and Melitta style pour-over cones, and having used at least
three dozen automatic brewers of various capacities from over a dozen
different manufacturers, all in the past 35 years or so, when it comes to
drip brewing, I'll take a good automated electrified brewer any old day,
even for an amount as small as 16 ounces or so.

On 2005-07-04 said:
Newsgroups: alt.coffee,rec.food.drink.coffee
Temp
Interesting obsrevations.
I've noticed, quite casually and anecdotally that my Presto produces
better coffee than my Clarity. I know that goes against the
conventional wisdom here, but I think a lot of that is driven by the
obsessive aquisition of Claritys a while back more than any
objective reality.
The Presto is in my office and the Clarity is in my cabin, so it's
impossible to do a head to head comparison. However, when brewing
the same coffee a day or two apart, I consistently think the Presto
produces a more flavorful cup. Then again, it could be that I
appreciate a decent cup of coffee more when stressed out at my desk,
where it's an essential survival item, than I do when I'm totally
relaxed.

Between my Clarity and my Chemex, I will say that, using the same brand and
blend of coffee beans, the same grind, and the same ground coffee to water
ratio, my Presto produces a more flavorful cup than does my Clarity. The
Clarity emphasizes that sharp, acidit, estringent bite, especially from more
darkly roasted beans. I like that acidic bite, and I tend to prefer darker
roasts overall than most of the east-coasters and former east-coasters who
seem to be the majority in this group. I'm not a fan of Starbucks, not for
most of the same reasons as I usually see as criticisms here, but because
I think they do over-roast all their coffees, and they roast them all the
same, so it doesn't matter at Starbucks whether you're drinking a Sumatra
Mandheling, a Colombian Supremo, a Kenya Double-A, or a Kona blend, because
you'll never taste any difference among them.

My Presto brews a much smoother pot of coffee, and the resulting brew
highlights more of the suble characteristics of a bean/roast combination.
With the Eight O'clock 100-percent Colombian Whole Bean Coffee, mixed with
Eight O'clock 100-percent Arabica Whole Bean French Roast coffee, more of
the fruity and floral characteristics of the Colombian beans showed forth in
the brew from the Presto.

My experience tells me that, between these two machines, if you like it
strong and estringent, and you prefer roasts done much more toward the
darker end of the spectrum, go for the Clarity. If you like your roasts
more toward the New York City light end of the spectrum, and especially if
you like to drink a lot of unblended single origin, single cultivar coffees,
you might prefer the output from a Presto.

If nothing else, your data do support a difference between the two
(at least between your two) coffee makers.
On Mon, 04 Jul 2005 21:43:58 GMT, wrote:
>The first victim in my possibly statistically insignificant, and
>admittedly somewhat non-rigorous brewing temperature test was the
>Melitta Clarity drip coffeemaker.
>The second victim, tested a little over an hour ago as I write
>this, is the Presto "Scandinavian-design" programmable automatic
>drip coffeemaker.
----SNIP----

Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA USA
Email: Phone: 1-404-814-0768