Love it but learning process!
I was looking for an alternative method. I was tired of the inconsistent results from my Melitta manual that I've been using for twenty some odd years. Still, the Melitta produced superior coffee compared to most drip machine I had sampled. If you went from Mr. Coffee to Melitta you'd be in coffee Heaven. The main gripes I had with that method is that the coffee seemed to fade to luke warm halfway through the cup, and my husband was forever getting the water way too hot resulting in bitter coffee. It isn't impossible to get a really good cup in the Melitta, but the the results are inconsistent for whatever reason. Enter my search for a superior cup of coffee without spending a fortune. First I started with a grinder. After hours of research I ended up purchasing the Capresso Conical bean grinder. Going from a cheap Krups blade grinder, I am now grinding coffee like a pro. After reading gobs of info, complaints and praises, I decided to take the plunge and purchase the Yama 8 cup. I had a feeling that with so many happy people toting the accolades of syphon coffee, perhaps those that groaned and complained had not figured out how to make it work properly,..granted it takes a bit of mad scientist experimentation to achieve java euphoria, unlike said no-brainer "load up the machine with coffee and water then flip a switch" convenient machines. The "difficult to clean" review people are so over the top to the point of just plain silliness, in my opinion. It's about as easy to clean as it can be, other than the fact that you can't lift a paper filter out and toss it. Walk out in the yard and use your hand to scoop out the grains and feed the worms! As far as the filter goes, I give mine a run through the pot with no coffee once in a while and leave it in water in the fridge. Frankly I could care less if it's stained as long as I know that there's no bacteria. A little splash of vinegar (rinsed out before use) will do the trick of keeping nasties at bay. Without writing a book about all the different ways I have experimented and failed, I will say that I put the beans away after 4 or 5 attempts resulting in much too bitter coffee, and started experimenting with just water so that I could understand better when to position the top chamber (bubbles in water plus temp) as well how best to adjust my flame. I highly recommend spending some time experimenting with just plain water first to get acquainted with the science. After quite a bit of online snooping I finally managed to nail an excellent pot, but I did make a few that were pretty darn bad. If you are new to this method, I would recommend that you go buy a cheap can of coffee from the grocery store to do experiment with. I use Pete's coffee and ruined a few pots that I threw out! ($$$) I would like to suggest to all of you considering this pot/method of coffee brewing not to listen to the bad reviews and just know that there will be a learning curve! Once you "get it" you're gonna get a GREAT cup o' coffee! My husband at first was,.."eh...not so great" but has gone to "Wow,...this is really great coffee"! I would post a link to an outstanding video here but it would probably get erased, so if you would like to see it you can view a very good 5 minute video by googling "Syphon, Intelligentsia". It answered a lot of questions I had as well as offering excellent tips. For instance: the reason for letting the top compartment rest in the lower compartment while the water does it's thing... Good luck! Good coffee! UPDATE AUGUST 6 2011: Well I know this is turning into a really long review but for the sake of all who've tried and failed, I have finally reached what we feel is the perfect cup for our tastes. First the beans and the grind: I am using the scoop that came with my Capresso burr conical grinder and measuring one scoop per cup. (8 scoops) I'm grinding on the coarsest setting. Come to think of it the scoop may have come with the Yama but can't remember because I bought them at the same time. My scoop holds a tad shy of 1/8 cup of beans for those of you without a scoop whom would like to try this method. I've tried different grinds and coarse gives the smoothest cup for us. If you like more bitter coffee, try a bit finer grind. For the water and rest of the process: I heat the water in a kettle until boiling, pour into yama to 8 cup setting and turn smallest burner (gas in my case and a very small burner) to medium. If you don't have a tiny burner, you're probably going to use low. I place the top of Yama so that it is resting loosely on bottom,... with the rubber section at the top of the glass tube resting in the pouring spout of the bottom carafe. (it will be leaning) When bubbles start to cling to the chain or a few bubbles start to rise, I engage the top with a little twist. This takes only a moment for those bubbles to appear if your water is already boiling. DON'T get the water too hot or you will have bitter coffee. While the water is rising, I grind my coffee and set my timer for 45 seconds. The water will rise slowly at first and then faster with a burst of bubbles when the last of it comes up. After it's all up north I turn the burner down to medium low and stir the water a little to cool it off a bit, then I pour the coffee in and give a quick stir. (I mean QUICK if you don't want bitter coffee). I then start the timer. After 45 seconds I give another very quick stir and move it off the burner. After it falls I pour it into my Nissan thermos. The coffee is outstanding. Smooth, ...packed with flavor, and perfect strength. WAY better than our old Melitta! FINAL TIPS: I've found that stirring too much results in bitter coffee. I use the flat handle of a wooden spatula (1-1/2 inches wide) to stir. If you have a failure and it starts to drop too soon it is because you lowered your heat too much. Thus the need to experiment with cheap coffee. I have tried to use this on an electric stove and found it near impossible but with some experimentation would have figured it out sooner or later. If you have an electric stove it will be more challenging but hang in there. Another great tip I incorporated into my routine is to use a little bit of bleach each time you clean the filter. Just use a cup of water and splash some bleach in there. Let it sit for a few minutes (it will turn white again) and then rinse well and store in clean water in the fridge. Read more