Cons: Length of time to brew the coffee, no on-off switch.
The Bottom Line: This makes great coffee despite what experts say about percolated coffee. My parents had this same model for many years without any performance issues.
krus54's Full Review: West Bend 58002 42-Cup Coffee Maker
I love coffee! Not enough to drink up to 42 cups a day, but most of my friends know that I regularly grind my coffee beans and I'm always looking for the best coffee.
We were having a large family gathering at the house last weekend so I needed to be able to make a lot of coffee. My Braun 12 Cup coffee maker just wasn't going to be able to handle coffee for 60-70 people.
I looked around on the Internet and found that percolated coffee is not looked upon very favorably because the urns or percolators boil the water and then keep recirculating the water for a period of time. I had read that the coffee can then taste bitter and burned. Very disappointing as I wanted everything that weekend to be perfect.
As an adult I have learned that my parents give good advice. They told me that the coffee from a coffee urn would be fine and that no one would care. I listened and ordered the Westbend Party Perk from Amazon.com.
I was quite disappointed when the package arrived as the unit seemed VERY cheap; flimsy, actually! The coffee basket was plastic and the aluminum seemed so thin. I was about to return it when my parents came to visit and remarked that this was the same model they had for about 15 years or more and they had given away since they didn't use it anymore BUT they had used it dozens and dozens of times and it made great coffee.
OK, they convinced me. Keep it!
Making the coffee
The instructions say to use 2 and 1/2 cups of coffee grounds and cold water for the full 42 cups. The inside of the Party Perk is marked to indicate the number of cups. I used slightly more coffee because I like a stronger coffee. Also this is a 12-42 cup coffee maker. The instructions tell you NOT to make less than the minimum 12 cups of coffee.
Make sure you use coffee that is NOT only auto-drip. And it's also probably not a good idea to grind it yourself. The reason is that auto-drip coffee grounds are usually very fine and the grounds can slip through the holes in the coffee basket. Home ground coffee is often also ground too fine. I'm sure you don't want to be giving your guests coffee with grounds in it (unless it's your mother-in-law).
Give it time!!
I read that you should allow about 1 minute per cup. That means about 40 minutes to have the coffee ready when you're making a full pot!!! Wish I had started the coffee sooner. I ended up having to make several pots of drip coffee before the other coffee was ready. People showed up early begging for caffeine!
Taste Test
I'm really particular about coffee. I generally am VERY hesitant to drink coffee from these pots as coffee usually seems to taste almost as bad made in these things as coffee tastes made in the office coffee makers.
I bought an inexpensive can of Berkley & Jensen coffee which is a brand available at BJ's Wholesale Club. I have to say I was VERY impressed with the final result! The coffee, while not the best I had ever had, was very good. There were lots of compliments on the taste.
How Long did the coffee sit before it tasted like mud?
Well, ya know! That coffee was there from about 11:00 AM until about 5:00 pm. It was kept warm and I didn't detect any real change in flavor (except for the cream which curdled after being left out all day...but that's another story).
Clean-up, Clean-Up, Every body do their share....
OK, even years later, Barney the dinosaur's songs still haunt me.
I used a dish sponge cleaner with dish soap and rinsed out the pot. It was pretty easy to clean, though because the pot was so tall I had to use some big measuring cups to pour water in to rinse out the pot.
Complaints?
Well, yes, a couple. One complaint I have is that there is no on-off switch. You plug in the coffee urn and wait until the serving light glows to indicate the coffee is ready.
Also there is no way to know how much coffee is left, but then this unit only costs about $35 so I wouldn't it expect it to have one of those glass fluid level indicators.
Large-capacity coffee urn brews 12 to 42 cups at cup-a-minute speed Aluminum interior; 2-way dripless faucet for single-cup or continuous filling Cool...More at Amazon
highly polished aluminum finish for casual or formal occasions. automatic temperature control keeps coffee hot for hours. quick brewing - one cup per ...More at UnbeatableSale, Inc.
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