Everything Else

I just replaced my Melitta One:One pod coffee maker with a Bunn MyCafe commercial maker. I had the Melitta since 2004 and I have enjoyed it but I wanted something that made the coffee a little hotter and that accepted a wide variety of pod sizes and brands. I found that in the Bunn MyCafe.

I got it Monday and so I have now had a couple of days to play with it. Aesthetically, this is not the prettiest machine IMO. The styling is sort of haute-Holiday Inn, so no fancy Euro-styling for me. But then again my kitchen is straight out of the 1950's so it kinda looks at home. Plus it is a commercial grade machine and not meant to be beautiful only ubiquitous.

But the preliminary results are - it makes better coffee. The coffee is hotter and it has all the features I could want or expect.

Likes:

200 degree coffee.
Pod drawer hold coffee pods of all sizes.
Slide selector for how large a cup you want in one ounce increments from 4 - 12 oz.
Coffee or Tea settings
Not a lot of dripping

Dislikes:

High price.

I am not big on all the cleaning, paring, cutting and preparation that goes into getting fresh veggies ready to cook. Of course then you have to actually cook them. Feh! Except I'm acutely aware that I really need to put more vegetables in my diet. So when Aaron mentioned a juicer and big light bulb went off in my little brain. I mean, what could be healthier than veggies reduced to a liquid state? Aaron mentioned a good juicer model that costs about $200. The only thing is that type of juicer is pretty much a single purpose machine. As I investigated juicers more I thought it might be worthwhile looking into something that could do more than just juice.

This is where brand marketing comes in: see back in the late 1960's and early 1970's I kept seeing TV commercials and magazine ads for the Vita-Mix machine. This is sort of a super heavy duty blender, grinder machine that can reduce whole fruits and vegetables instead of just squeezing out juice it also liquifies the pulp too. That just seems healthier to me. Anyway, all those ads on TV when I was a kid combined with full page ads in magazines like Popular Mechanics actually paid off 35 years later because I remembered the Vita-Mix name and a quick search brought me to their website.

Bottom line, they are not cheap but I ended up buying a refurbished model and I'm waiting for it to be delivered. This means I am going to have to make a serious commitment to using it. More when I get it up and running.

Recently I found a pretty neat website to learn about single serve coffee makers and coffees: Singleservecoffee.com. It looks like a good source for reviews and news of product releases.

There are so many new types of coffee pod makers, coffee pods and even newer systems I though I should re-examine my own modest single serve coffee maker the Melitta OneOne. I bought the Melitta well over a year ago, back before either Folgers or the Senseo machines were available in the USA. You never really hear much about the Melitta and there do not seem to be a lot of third party pods made specifically for it, whereas coffee pods sized to fit both Senseo and Folgers are everywhere.

So how does the Melitta machine stand up?

Quite well actually, depending a bit on your lifestyle. I've been very happy with my Melitta machine. The java pods available from Melitta are limited, or so I thought, until I looked at the Senseo varieties available at the supermarket and found that Melitta has as just as many if not more pods available. I like the Buzzworthy dark roast the best and I also use the Skip the Buzz decaf for after dinner coffee in the evening.

Pods Price and Availability:

Here we have a difference. Most grocery stores in my area do not carry Melitta pods. Which means I have to order them online. For me this is no hardship since I order most things online already. The Melitta pods seem to contain more coffee than the others (they are thicker and heavier although smaller in diameter). Each Melitta pod makes a good 8 oz. cup of coffee, whereas it takes two Senseo pods to make an 8 oz cup. So even with shipping, the Melitta pods are about the same cost as Senseo. If you can find an online retailer selling Melitta pods with free shipping you actually come out ahead on price. An added bonus is Melitta pods are individually sealed for freshness.

Moreover the Melitta has Cooper tea pods available and they make a very good cup of tea, quickly.

Bottom line:

For me, I think I did pretty well in choosing the Melitta. The machine has stood up well to a year and a half of daily use. Is easy to clean. While I can't buy pods in my local supermarket, I can order them online.

(Actually, in a pinch, you can use a Senseo pod in the Melitta machine and use it to make one 4 oz. cup. You have to just mash the Senseo pod down into the holder. I tried making an 8 oz. cup with the Senseo pod but it was too weak.)

I know myself well enough that I'm not going to pay $200+ for a coffee maker. For day to day coffee, I'm not going to pay any more than what I'm paying now for coffee pods, which is at the low end of the scale. I actually like the Melitta coffee pods I have tried, they make a nice big mug of coffee, quickly, with little fuss or mess. So if my machine broke today I think I would still buy another Melitta machine. I was tempted by the Senseo machine because friends of mine love theirs but I don't see it as being any better than the Melitta. Even though you never hear much about it, I still think the Melitta is a great machine to own.

I just polished off my third loaf of bread machine bread. This was the Honey Wheat Berry mix by Krusteaz, which I found at my local supermarket. It produced a nicely shaped and thoroughly competent loaf of bread. The bread reminds me as being like the mid-level premium brands of bread like Sara Lee might produce.

The package did not say anything about whole grains so that is a minus. If I'm going to bake bread at home I really want it to be whole grain bread and better than most of the store bought breads. The Krusteaz matches some of the store bought breads, but I didn't think exceeded them.

Feh! My first couple of loafs didn't rise so good. I am investigating.

Loaf #1: This was a 9 Grain mix. I think it was because the house and also the water was too cool the house was at 68 degrees and the water only slightly above room temp. This mix uses the Whole Wheat setting which lets all the ingredients sit for 1/2 hour so there is plenty of time to cool off. Ended up with a very moist dense loaf.

Loaf #2: This is a Bob's Red Mill 100% Whole Wheat. I cranked the furnace up to 72 and used warmer water. This loaf uses a white bread setting so it just starts mixing right away. It looks like it rose a bit better than the first loaf but it still didn't rise enough to really fill the oblong pan with a nicely shaped loaf. I have not tasted this loaf because I'm still working on eating the other. I let it cool, sliced it and then put it in the freezer for later in the week. I think I have enough bread till next weekend for now so no more experiments till then.

Both of the mixes above make a 1.5 pound loaf. I am not sure what I am doing wrong but I'll keep at it - this is pattern recognition just like optimizing for search engines so it is solvable.

Yesterday, I decided to buy myself a present, a Breadman Ultimate breadmachine. It's not like there was a lot of choice, the one Breadman model was the only bread machine carried by the store I went to. Its a sign that the big bread machine craze of several years ago is over. The important feature of this machine is the oblong pan which makes a more traditional size and shape of loaf which in turn helps control portion control (the slices on the square pans are just to big for me.) I have a sandwich at lunch everyday so this will add some much needed variety to my otherwise dull diet.

The other manifestation that the breadmachine craze got replaced by the lo-carb craze (pay attention in the back there) - both supermarkets I visited had only a few bread mixes, whereas just a few years ago they had shelves full of competing brands.

I have not made bread with it yet since I'm using up some store bought bread I have first. I tend to prefer whole grain, whole wheat breads so first up will be a couple from Hodgson Mill which I can buy at one of my local stores. I might also send away for some multi-grain mixes from Bob's Red Mill. The machine did come with a nice recipe book and I might try some bread recipes but I'm a lazy bum at heart and I will probably use mixes because they are so easy.

Of course this will give me something to blog about as I conduct mandatory taste testing of the different breads I make.

I bought a Christmas present for myself, a box of Yorkshire Gold Tea. It is quite good, far better than the store bought stuff here in the US. The tea bags a very generous in size and you can make a nice strong mug of tea without it tasting bitter. For us Americans, Amazon carries it.

I'm no expert on tea, but I also like Melitta's Zen in Black tea, which works with the Melitta pod-type coffee maker I currently have.