What to do When the Pot to Your Coffee Maker Breaks

Sometimes there is an accident that results in the pot or carafe to your coffee maker breaking. Some people will just go out and purchase a new coffee maker, however, there is a more affordable solution, especially if your coffee maker is still working great.

Replacement Coffee Carafes

There are several different sizes and brands of replacement coffee pots:

One All Replacement Coffee Carafes fit nearly any coffeemaker, they come in many different shapes and sizes:

There is also a Bunn 12 Cup Carafe, Bunn 10 Cup Carafe, several Mr. Coffee Replacement Coffee Pots, a Cuisinart 12 Cup Carafe, and the Melitta Carafe.

With so many various replacement coffee pots on the market, you are sure to find one to fit your coffee maker, so don't replace it just yet, it may have a few more lovely years with you each morning. Just revive it with a new coffee pot.

What do you Know about Coffee Filters?

Anyone who drinks coffee has at one point or time either owned or used a coffee maker that used coffee filters. So how did coffee filters come about?

Coffee filters were invented to filter out the oily part of coffee, also known as diterpenes. Melitta Benz created the first coffee filter in July of 1908 (Happy 104th birthday to the coffee filter!)

Does the name Melitta sound familiar? If so it is because Melitta Benz created the company that makes the Melitta coffee makers.

The original coffee filter was created from blotting papers, now, most standard coffee filters are made from crepe paper. This type of paper is strong enough to not tear when the hot water passes through, but weak enough to allow the water, now coffee, to pass through.

Many coffee maker companies created their own filters to go with their coffee makers. Such as, Bunn Coffee Filters, there are also off brand coffee filters made in specific sizes, as well as permanent coffee filters, for those who do not want to continually purchase and throw away coffee filters.

What other neat facts do you know about coffee filters?

Looking for a Personal Coffee Pot that is Affordable?

There are some amazing one cup coffee brewing systems on the market, however for a one person household, apartment, or dorm room, they may be considered a bit pricey. Luckily, there are some coffee makers on the market that are quick and ready to go, the ones that we are sharing are less than $50 each.

The Black and Decker Brew 'N Go brews straight into a travel mug so it is ready to travel out with you to face the day. This personal coffee maker comes with:

• Permanent filter, no need to worry about running out of filters or finding the right size.
• 15 oz. Travel Mug, with lid

The Hamilton Beach One Cup Pod Brewer brews straight into the mug of your choice. This personal coffee maker uses pods, so there are no coffee grains to spill. It comes with:

• 18 Senseo coffee pods
• Dishwasher Safe Brew Basket

Melitta Coffee Makers offer a unique way to brew a single cup of coffee. Their personal coffee makers come with a sample pack of filters. (How to Use a Melitta One Cup Coffee Maker)

History of Mr. Coffee Coffee Makers

Sometimes it is fun to revisit the past, to get an idea of where the companies that we love came from. Mr. Coffee has been around for 40 years now. That's a lot of history behind the Mr. Coffee Coffee Makers.

In 1972 Mr. Coffee introduced their first coffee maker, which was the first automatic drip coffeemaker designed for household use. Quickly after, in 1975, Mr. Coffee invented their own coffee filter, this was the first of many of their product inventions.

In 1977 a frost that killed nearly all the coffee plants drove coffee prices to $4 a pound. (Which translates to $14.80 today) Some states decided to allow people to only purchase 1 pound of coffee per household. To help people stretch their coffee, Mr. Coffee created a brewer that would make the same amount of coffee, while using less coffee grounds.

For those that have trouble getting up in the morning, Mr. Coffee introduced their first line of programmable coffee brewers in 1980. Hello effortless morning coffee! Shortly after this introduction, Mr. Coffee created the first Pause N' Serve coffee maker, allowing you to have a cup of coffee before the entire pot has finished brewing.


Mr. Coffee decided that they should look into helping people who like tea, but maybe not coffee, in 1989 they introduced the automatic Iced TeaPot to their product line. They continued upon this line in 1995 when they introduced the Mrs. Tea hot tea maker.

After 30 years, Mr. Coffee celebrated in 2002 with an ad that featured Carson Daly and Chris Klug.

After many years of coffee pots, that when making coffee for one were wasteful, Mr. Coffee designed their first one cup brewer, or single serve brewer in 2004.

For more Mr. Coffee info visit: http://www.mrcoffee.com/AboutUs.aspx

Coffee Rubs for Steak?

For many summer is just too hot for firing up the coffee maker to enjoy a hot cup of coffee. Summer is the time for grilling out. And steak is always amazing on the grill. Did you know that there are many coffee rub recipes floating around? You can still enjoy your coffee without drinking it.

The easiest way to make a coffee rub is to add 1 tsp of dry coffee for every 1 cup of your typical rub recipe. However, this works only if your regular rub flavor is one that could be accented with the coffee flavor.

A quick online search for coffee rub recipes will lead you to a plethora of various rub recipes that feature coffee grounds. Your best bet for deciding is to go with a recipe that is similar to one that you know you already enjoy, then branch out and experiment from there if you decide you enjoy the coffee rubs.

How to Cold Brew Tea

We recently went over how to cold brew coffee, and we decided to find out how to cold brew tea for these warm summer months, because not everyone enjoys coffee. And some days even coffee drinkers want a little something different. Hence tea.

So what do you need to get started?
A clean jar or pitcher with a lid (you could even use a tea pot, this may help you with the measurements for the tea since you know how much you usually use in your own tea pot)
Your tea of choice
Cold water

How do you make it? 
Get your container of choice, put 1.5 times as much tea as you use for a hot brew into your container. Fill the container with cold water and place the lid on top. Now place in the refrigerator. Now you wait, for about 10 hours. (Feel free to go do other things while you wait) You will need to wait less than 10 hours for some white teas and more delicate teas, and black teas will take a bit longer. You will just have to experiment with how long is good for your tea and your preferred tastes.

Strain your tea.

Enjoy.

Keep Iced Coffee from Diluting

In the past we have shared a blog on making your own iced coffee. Iced coffee is a great way to enjoy this type of beverage during the warm summer months. But since it is warm, those ice cubes can start to melt down rather quickly and then you will be left with a diluted coffee that, well, if we are being honest, doesn't really taste all that great.

So what can you do to prevent this?

Make coffee ice cubes. Making your own coffee ice cubes is a fairly simple process:

1. Brew your coffee.
2. Wait for coffee to cool some.
3. Carefully pour coffee into an ice cube tray.
4. Place tray into freezer.
5. If you will not be using the ice cubes right away, you may want to put them into a zip-lock bag so that you can use them later and free up your ice cube tray.
6. Use in your iced coffee.

Fairly simple process right? And this will keep your iced coffee from becoming too watery as the ice cubes melt.

So fire up your Black and Decker coffee maker (or your coffee maker of choice) and create some coffee ice cubes and let us know what you think!