Home made coffee suddenly weak?

[JimmyFlair]

The last few pots of coffee that we’ve made at home taste like - nothing. Formerly fine brands of coffee now have zero taste, it’s just like a hot cup of water with milk in it (ewwww!). Even adding more grounds to the basket isn’t helping. The “coffee” coming out is the same temperature that it was before, so the water is presumably getting hot enough to get the flavour goodness out. I suspect it should be cleaned (this has worked in the past with other coffee makers, but in those cases the “yuck” appeared gradually, not one pot tasting fine and the next one virtually flavourless)

It was a pretty inexpensive coffee maker (<$30), maybe it’s just crappy and gone kaput? Any thoughts?

[Unintentionally_Blank]

@JimmyFlair

The last few pots of coffee that we’ve made at home taste like - nothing. Formerly fine brands of coffee now have zero taste, it’s just like a hot cup of water with milk in it (ewwww!). Even adding more grounds to the basket isn’t helping. The “coffee” coming out is the same temperature that it was before, so the water is presumably getting hot enough to get the flavour goodness out. I suspect it should be cleaned (this has worked in the past with other coffee makers, but in those cases the “yuck” appeared gradually, not one pot tasting fine and the next one virtually flavourless)

It was a pretty inexpensive coffee maker (<$30), maybe it’s just crappy and gone kaput? Any thoughts?

How are you storing your coffee? and just because the water in the caraffe is hot, doesn’t mean it’s getting hot enough in the brewer.

[toadspittle]

Give it a cleaning. Run a pot of one of those “better brew” coffee-maker cleaners through. Or else just some white vinegar. The thing may have built up some a clog somewhere. And scrub the brew basket by hand.

[AskNott]

@toadspittle

Give it a cleaning. Run a pot of one of those “better brew” coffee-maker cleaners through. Or else just some white vinegar. The thing may have built up some a clog somewhere. And scrub the brew basket by hand.

That’s right. When it delivers water to the grounds too slowly, some of the grounds never really get brewed.

[Ponder_Stibbons]

@AskNott

That’s right. When it delivers water to the grounds too slowly, some of the grounds never really get brewed.

I must also concur. I’ve run across the same behavior and fix myself.

[JimmyFlair]

@Ponder Stibbons

I must also concur. I’ve run across the same behavior and fix myself.

OK, I’m going to try this one. Will report back!

(off to perform some coffee science now…)

[Geobabe]

Have you actually measured the water temperature? My old coffee maker started having the same problem, not being able to make a decent-tasting pot, and I checked the temp of the brew, and it was only 160, not nearly hot enough for good extraction, but I couldn’t really tell the difference in temp when drinking the brew.

I ended up getting a Melitta manual coffee maker, the kind where you pour boiling water over the grounds, and it’s SO much better than coffee from an automatic maker.