Melitta Look Timer review

Filter coffee machines are largely about flexibility and being able to produce a lot of coffee conveniently. It’s great to see that the Melitta Look Timer encapsulates both of these goals, and it’s one the best built and most flexible coffee machines that I’ve reviewed. As it’s available in both black and white models, you can easily find the one that fits into your kitchen the best.

Build quality

The Look Timer is a very neat looking filter coffee machine that doesn’t take up too much space, with the water reservoir fitting neatly around the funnel and the glass jug sliding into the gap underneath. It’s ruggedly constructed, with the funnel neatly swinging on its hinges, pulling away from the machine so that you can easily fill it with coffee. Cup measurements are listed on both sides of the funnel on the reservoir and are also notched on the jug’s handle, although they’re a little hard to read there. It at least means that you can get the right amount of water at the tap.

Making coffee

After you’ve added water, you need only drop in a paper filter and then fill with the right amount of coffee for your tastes. I like seeing machines with paper filters, as I’ve found that you get better results and you can vary your coffee’s taste by trying out different filter types. With coffee in the filter, you just have to click the funnel back in place and slip the jug underneath the spout. Hit the button and you’re away, with coffee soon dripping through the filter and into the jug underneath.

As with most modern machines, there’s an anti-drip system, so that you can remove the jug without coffee continuing to drip through, and a hot plate to keep your coffee warm: I don’t recommend that you leave coffee for too long, as constantly heating it makes it more and more bitter. By default the machine keeps the hot plate warm for 40 minutes, although you can change this to 20 or 60 minutes instead.

That’s the simple version of coffee making, but the Look Timer has a couple of extra tricks. First, it has an aroma selector on top, which lets you control the strength of your coffee from light to intensive without having to manually adjust how much coffee you use. It makes a more subtle difference than using different filters or adjusting the amount of coffee used, but it’s a setting that’s worth playing with until you get the right results.

Secondly, there’s a clock and timer mode, so that you can set your coffee machine to turn on at a set time, delivering fresh hot coffee when you want it. If you find that you don’t have a lot of time in the morning, this feature could be really useful.

Coffee quality

I measured the coffee at a decent 68C in the cup. It was rich and dark in colour, with an examination of the used coffee grounds showing that the machine had evenly wet them, extracting the full flavour. The taste was excellent as a result, with the coffee tasting clean and smooth, with the subtle nutty notes from the Expert Reviews test beans coming through. Experimenting with the aroma selector and varying amounts of coffee meant that I could easily produce lighter or more intense coffee.

Maintenance

This is one of the easiest machines to maintain. Aside from being easy to clean on a daily basis, when it needs to be descaled, the Calc button on the front will light up. The machine’s set as though it’s being used in a hard water area, but if you know your water hardness (a testing strip can be used), you can change the water hardness setting and, thus, how often the Look Timer prompts you to descale it. Descaling is just a matter of adding cleaning solution into the water reservoir (following the instructions on the cleaning solution) and the hitting the Calc button on the front to descale it.

Conclusion

With its aroma selector option and paper filters, the Melitta Look Timer is one of the most flexible and powerful filter coffee machines that I’ve reviewed. Throw in the great build quality, easy maintenance and great price and the Look Timer is a great all-round filter machine for every-day use.

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