bitter coffee HELP!

[bluestank]

Hey everyone, i'm relatively new to the "make your own coffee" scene, but few months ago my girlfriend gave me a Mr. Coffee drip maker:

http://www.mrcoffee.com/productdetail.a ... y=&Search=

I guess at first I didn''t really notice much, but recently i''ve found it makes pretty bitter tasting coffee. Even after coming home from a cup from McDonald''s ive found IT even tastes way better then my coffee.

I''ve tried
- Lots of different types of coffee
- Cleaning it multiple times
- Varrying the amount of coffee
- Even using bottled water.

It still has this strange bitter taste however, no matter what. Has anyone had similar experiences with this type of thing, and is there any way to fix it? Or is it just a crappy maker?

-Thanks!!

 

[CCafe]

I think it's time we have Demetri slap a Faq of the top of Coffee Machines page.

Your question has been asked many times! You are correct in assuming it is your machine. Trying not to get too deep in thought, I like to think of this as becoming aware. Before this you drank your coffee and thought every thing was peachy. Then one day it hit you and now it will never taste as good or the same again.

So your problem lies in how it is prepared. Coffee can be made at any temperature of water, but for most drip machines it won't start tasting good until around 200 Fahrenheit.

A heads up for some coffee brewers that can hit 200 would be Technivorm, Bunn, and Capresso to name a few. I'm not willing to vouch for all the product lines of Bunn and Capresso, so I would say not all of their machines could properly hit 200 while brewing.

 

[demetri]

I think it's time we have Demetri slap a Faq of the top of Coffee Machines page.

"slap" seems a little hard boiled but I'm certainly up for putting up an FAQ. Anyone have any input for some Q and A? Maybe we should start up a thread on this.

 

[La Crema Coffee]

http://www.bunnomatic.com/retail/brewing.html

 

[paulc35]

Bunn

The Coffee Maker is definetly one of the most important ingredients..Water Temp, The internal plumbing of the coffee maker..is it aluminum,Stainless Steel...Contact time, but anyway My las to makers where Cuisinart, & Capresso...Loved them both. I went back and bought a bunn, which I hadn't owned one in over 10 yrs...Man I was in for a surprise...You have to use more coffee and I don't believe the temp is even close to 200 degrees that they claim and I took one back and got another..The Bunn is more expensive and the Carafe,Lid,Housing have all went ele cheapo..I went back to my storage building and got My Cuisinart Brew Central....It had developed a little problem with the cleaning mode that is why I bought the bunn...Never again...I can vouch for the Cuisinart,
or Capresso they are both great machines..
YMMV