Coffee Maker – My Review of the Technivorm KB-741 Clubline

As I’ve been learning more about coffee making, I found out that even the temperature can affect the flavor. I’ve been grinding my own beans for years but could never quite get the kind of flavor from them, even though they were Starbucks beans, that I’d get if I bought the same coffee at Starbucks.

I even tried a french press, before reading recently that for some reason, french press coffee raises the bad cholesterol, while drip coffee doesn’t.
It must be all that sediment gunk that comes out into the coffee with the french press.

We’ve had a solid carbon block Multipure water filter for years, so I knew it wasn’t from using bad water or anything. But always use filtered ( not distilled though ) water to make your coffee, for the best flavor.

So I’ve been using this $35 Kontakt ( from Starbucks ) drip coffee maker for a number of years and not getting much satisfaction from it. But recently I did some research and found out why.

That temperature thing. It seems that the best coffee is made with water that’s 195-200 degrees. Some experts say 203.5 to be precise, but water boils at around 203 degrees here in Denver, so that’s out. 🙂 They also say not to make it with boiled water because it removes the micro-bubbles of air that normally exist in the water, and changes the flavor.

The higher temperature, it’s said, brings out all the flavor of the coffee that you don’t get with lower temperature brewing.

So having worked as an Electronics R&D; Technician in the past, I did some experiments. I ran some water through the Kontakt coffee maker and measured the temperature of the water when it poured into the pot. 153 degrees. Ahah!

The reason for this, is that the cheaper machines use only the plate heater below the pot, to heat the water that bubbles up to make the coffee, and it just doesn’t make the water hot enough that way. It seems that the better machines use an additional heater, but those machines are few and far between and of course they cost more.

So I asked around to find out what was the best coffee maker for home brewing, period. The experts kept saying it was the Technivorm Clubline KB-741. So I went and read up on it.

The coffee maker sells for around $185 plus shipping. That was a bit stiff for our budget, so I sold a vintage Heathkit FM Tuner that I built about 25 years ago ( and it still works ), for exactly enough money to pay for it.

The KB-741 gets incredible reviews from the experts, usually in the range of 8-10 on a scale of 1-10. Why?

Well first of all, the Technivorm ( which is made in Holland ) has a dual stage heater that heats the brewing water to 200 degrees. It’s one of only a few that is certified by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) to brew at the correct 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

But it also has a basket that has a flow rate switch. It allows you to let the water flow through slowly, more quickly, or completely shut the flow off. Some people use that later setting to allow the hot water to soak the ground coffee for a few minutes, before opening the flow back up, and they love the results that way.

I only brew two, eight ounce cups a day and this is a “10 cup” brewer, so I had reservations about whether it would even make my two cups that well. Some machines don’t do so well at making less cups than they’re rated for. But realize that the “10 cups” it’s rated for, are actually about five U.S. ounces each, not eight ounces like we think of “cups” as being. So my two cups goes up to a little over the three cup line on this brewer.

They recommend that for a smaller number of cups, you close the control valve half way, so I did.

So I unpacked the machine today and set it all up. It’s fairly intuitive, despite the minimal directions, and poor grammar from the dutch manufacturers.

First I rinsed it well and ran some plain water through it the first time, to test it and wash everything out, then tossed that water out.

Then I ground up my usual amount of Starbucks Sulawesi, my bold favorite coffee. I ground it the same way I usually do for the Kontakt drip maker, 20 seconds in the Starbucks blade grinder.

One tip for people who aren’t used to making this kind of coffee: Always use whole beans and grind your own at home. Coffee starts losing its flavor within hours after being ground, so I grind it right before brewing, and I never buy more than I can use in about a month. I go through about one pound of this Starbucks Sulawesi whole bean every 4-5 weeks.

So I put two cups of filtered water into the reservoir on top and switched it on, watching the water rise up the clear center column quickly. ( fun to watch if you’re like me, and like “cat toy” kinds of things ) Another feature of this machine is that it makes the coffee in what the experts consider the perfect amount of brewing time too, which is around three and a half minutes for the entire brew cycle.

Well let me tell you that this is the very best coffee I’ve ever had in my life, that was brewed at home. I’m enjoying a tall mug of it iced, with some 2% milk, as I write this. Culinary orgasm, people. On a scale of 1-10, I’d rate this coffee maker a 10. The flavor is just incredible, full and rich. It tastes like what you might expect to drink at a restaurant where the dinners cost $100 and the place is packed. A “10” in coffee flavor.

And like other reviewers have said before, you wonder how it can make such good tasting coffee with such a simple machine. Like so many other things, it doesn’t take complicated machinery, just doing the right things with simple machinery, and this machine does them so well.

If you want the best coffee you’ve ever tasted at home, I highly recommend this machine. Like others have said before me, it’s worth every penny and I’d buy it again if I had the choice. It’s also said to be a very reliable well built machine and I believe it from the looks of this one, as it came out of the box.

I bought the chrome model with the glass carafe from Boyd’s ( http://www.boydscoffeestore.com/brewing/kb741.php ) for $184 plus shipping, ( around $192 total ) and it’s extremely nice looking on the counter top too.
http://www.boydscoffeestore.com/brewing/product-details/kb741-DETAIL.jpg

If you simply want the best, I don’t think you could get any better than this, even if you paid a lot more money for it.

Melissa Rhiannon

Melissa Rhiannon is a free lance writer, teaches self defense ( martial arts ) for women in Lakewood, Colorado, at http://www.AerobicSelfDefenseClubsOfAmerica.com/ , is the author of the Planetary Bill of Rights Project at http://www.PlanetaryBillOfRights.org/ and with Colorado Process Servers at http://lakewoodcolorado.net/process-server.htm

Copyright 2006 Melissa Rhiannon – All Rights Reserved