Greg Who Cooks
Executive Chef
My coffee maker broke, one that uses Melitta style coffee filters. A relative had an extra Mr. Coffee coffee maker not being used and gave it to me. I've been using it a while since it came with a 250-pack of filters but I don't like it and I'll replace it when the time is right.
Melitta style filters are conic shaped after you push them into the filter basket, and come flat in the package. Mr. Coffee style filters are circular with a flat bottom and pleated edges, and come stacked. (This is just to get us all on the same page--most people understand the difference between the two styles.)
The main reason I don't like the Mr. Coffee style is that the pleats are sometimes not quite uniform in their folding (generic brand, not made by MC, name brand could be different). Usually this makes no difference but every now and then (perhaps a few or several weeks between incidents) the side folds down and gets wet and the coffee grounds and some of the hot water flow over the edge of the filter and flow directly into the pot. The result is an imperfect pot of coffee, and often with me taking a last sip and getting a mouth full of grounds.
I suppose I could monitor the process, peek in the filter basket and make sure everything is going okay, maybe I could look at the carafe and check for no grounds after brewing. But heck I'm drinking the coffee to wake up! If I were already awake to do these intellectual tasks I wouldn't need the coffee. I prepare the filter, ground coffee and water the night before. All I want to do is wake up in the morning and hit the switch, and I expect a perfect cup of coffee in about 3 minutes.
I know I could get a different type of coffee maker--Keurig comes to mind but I don't like all those different flavors. I buy bean Colombian and grind fresh every few days. It's what I like to drink, and anyway I'm sure a lot cheaper than the Keurig single servings... I could get a wire basket insert, they work fine for coarse grinds but I grind my coffee pretty fine and some sediment always passes through the wire and ends up in the pot.
Plain and simple, I liked my Melitta just fine and it always made a perfect pot of coffee. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was broke!
I'll probably buy another Melitta whenever I get around to it.
The Melitta filter makes more sense to me. It doesn't matter how much coffee you're making, the coffee always centers itself in the filter because of gravity. The water trickles down on top of it and presume it makes a kind of coffee-water slurry that rises up a bit as hot water flows in and brewed coffee trickles out. When coffee is finished brewing the grounds in the filter are slightly lower in the middle, higher around the edge, but more or less evenly spread out--indicating to me that the brewing process was uniform. With the Mr. Coffee filters I almost always see bare spots across the base of the filter where I presume water dripped out more quickly rather than mixing uniformly with the coffee. And then there's the problem with the occasional dropped edge and imperfect coffee result.
So the question is: Melitta style filters look better than every way to me. I can't think of one single thing that Mr. Coffee style filters do better than Melitta, other than fit in the coffee maker it was designed for.
I'm curious what other folks think about the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different style filters used for Melitta and Mr. Coffee coffee makers.
Melitta style filters are conic shaped after you push them into the filter basket, and come flat in the package. Mr. Coffee style filters are circular with a flat bottom and pleated edges, and come stacked. (This is just to get us all on the same page--most people understand the difference between the two styles.)
The main reason I don't like the Mr. Coffee style is that the pleats are sometimes not quite uniform in their folding (generic brand, not made by MC, name brand could be different). Usually this makes no difference but every now and then (perhaps a few or several weeks between incidents) the side folds down and gets wet and the coffee grounds and some of the hot water flow over the edge of the filter and flow directly into the pot. The result is an imperfect pot of coffee, and often with me taking a last sip and getting a mouth full of grounds.
I suppose I could monitor the process, peek in the filter basket and make sure everything is going okay, maybe I could look at the carafe and check for no grounds after brewing. But heck I'm drinking the coffee to wake up! If I were already awake to do these intellectual tasks I wouldn't need the coffee. I prepare the filter, ground coffee and water the night before. All I want to do is wake up in the morning and hit the switch, and I expect a perfect cup of coffee in about 3 minutes.
I know I could get a different type of coffee maker--Keurig comes to mind but I don't like all those different flavors. I buy bean Colombian and grind fresh every few days. It's what I like to drink, and anyway I'm sure a lot cheaper than the Keurig single servings... I could get a wire basket insert, they work fine for coarse grinds but I grind my coffee pretty fine and some sediment always passes through the wire and ends up in the pot.
Plain and simple, I liked my Melitta just fine and it always made a perfect pot of coffee. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was broke!
I'll probably buy another Melitta whenever I get around to it.The Melitta filter makes more sense to me. It doesn't matter how much coffee you're making, the coffee always centers itself in the filter because of gravity. The water trickles down on top of it and presume it makes a kind of coffee-water slurry that rises up a bit as hot water flows in and brewed coffee trickles out. When coffee is finished brewing the grounds in the filter are slightly lower in the middle, higher around the edge, but more or less evenly spread out--indicating to me that the brewing process was uniform. With the Mr. Coffee filters I almost always see bare spots across the base of the filter where I presume water dripped out more quickly rather than mixing uniformly with the coffee. And then there's the problem with the occasional dropped edge and imperfect coffee result.
So the question is: Melitta style filters look better than every way to me. I can't think of one single thing that Mr. Coffee style filters do better than Melitta, other than fit in the coffee maker it was designed for.
I'm curious what other folks think about the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different style filters used for Melitta and Mr. Coffee coffee makers.
