BUNN Coffee Maker

The Bunn Coffee Makers are produced by the Bunn-O-Matic Corporation, a company with its headquarters in Springfield, Illinois that make a range of coffee makers as well as tea making equipment.

The company was founded by George Bunn, inventor of the fluted coffee filter, and produced the first automatic drip-brew coffee maker in 1963, followed by the first commercial quality drip brewer for the home in 1972.  The company supplies primarily to the food service industry but have a range of home products including those making single cups of coffee or tea as well as using coffee pods.

Single Cup Machine

This is a single cup coffee maker than not only uses ground coffee, soft coffee and tea bags but can also use tea pods, loose tea and K-Cups so gives you a vast range of products to use with it.  It produces a drink in less than a minute and makes drinks from 4oz to 14oz as well as having a Pulse Brew that adds extra, bolder flavours.  It works using four interchangeable drawers depending on what product you are using: cup drawer, ground coffee drawer, pod drawer and a hot water drawer.

Multi Cup Machine

If you like to have coffee on hand all the time, then this is the machine for you.  It can brew between 4 and 10 cups from one pot in around 3 minutes, depending on the size of the cup you require.  The machine features a glass carafe and a porcelain coated warming plate with a lighted on/off switch for ease of use.  It also has a unique spray head that means the best flavour coffee and the stainless steel hot water tank keeps the water at the ideal 200 degree F.

Basic Tips

Using any of the BUNN coffee makers is a simple enough process but there are also some tips to make sure you get the best from the machine.

Use good tasting water – if the water you put into the machine has a funny taste, this will carry through to your coffee.  For example if you can smell or taste chlorine in your water, this is will make the coffee have a gentle swimming pool flavour.  Therefore if you water has a taste to it, consider using a water purifying or bottled water for best results.

High Altitude machines – if you live at a high altitude, above around 4000 feet, you need a special machine to get the best coffee from a lower boiling temperature.  When looking at the Bunn coffee makers, any with the designation (D) are pre-set for these conditions.

Multi-cup Tips

While single cup coffee makers need little in the way of tips as you simply add the ingredients in the required drawer, getting good coffee from a drip coffee maker can be a little more though provoking.  One of the top tips for anyone using these machines is to use good quality beans and get them as fresh as possible.  The longer coffee beans sit around, the less flavour they have and the less flavour they will bring to your coffee.

If you are using ground coffee, then it is important to get the right grind for your machine.  For example, flat bottom filters are best with medium ground coffee while cone shaped filters are medium to fine for the best results.  This is because if the water passes through the coffee to quickly it will be too weak but if it takes too long, the coffee can be too strong.

Another top tip when using a drip coffee maker is to have a thermal carafe handy when your machine uses a glass carafe.  This is because when the coffee is left on the heating plate for a while, there is a risk it can burn and spoil the flavour.  If you aren’t going to get through the coffee you have brewed quite quickly, transfer it to a thermal carafe that will maintain the temperature for you and avoid the chance of the flavour being spoilt by overheating.

Finally, don’t forget to regularly clean your machine and the carafe; there will be instructions in the booklet with it as this means you get a consistently good coffee every time you use it.