Yama Glass 8-Cup Stovetop Siphon Coffee Maker, 24 Oz Vacuum Brew, Heat-Resistant Borosilicate Glass

I was looking for an alternative method. I was tired of the inconsistent results from my Melitta manual that I've been using for twenty some odd years. Still, the Melitta produced superior coffee compared to most drip machine I had sampled. If you went from Mr. Coffee to Melitta you'd be in coffee Heaven. The main gripes I had with that method is that the coffee seemed to fade to luke warm halfway through the cup, and my husband was forever getting the water way too hot resulting in bitter coffee. It isn't impossible to get a really good cup in the Melitta, but the the results are inconsistent for whatever reason. Enter my search for a superior cup of coffee without spending a fortune. First I started with a grinder. After hours of research I ended up purchasing the Capresso Conical bean grinder. Going from a cheap Krups blade grinder, I am now grinding coffee like a pro. After reading gobs of info, complaints and praises, I decided to take the plunge and purchase the Yama 8 cup. I had a feeling that with so many happy people toting the accolades of syphon coffee, perhaps those that groaned and complained had not figured out how to make it work properly,..granted it takes a bit of mad scientist experimentation to achieve java euphoria, unlike said no-brainer "load up the machine with coffee and water then flip a switch" convenient machines. The "difficult to clean" review people are so over the top to the point of just plain silliness, in my opinion. It's about as easy to clean as it can be, other than the fact that you can't lift a paper filter out and toss it. Walk out in the yard and use your hand to scoop out the grains and feed the worms! As far as the filter goes, I give mine a run through the pot with no coffee once in a while and leave it in water in the fridge. Frankly I could care less if it's stained as long as I know that there's no bacteria. A little splash of vinegar (rinsed out before use) will do the trick of keeping nasties at bay. Without writing a book about all the different ways I have experimented and failed, I will say that I put the beans away after 4 or 5 attempts resulting in much too bitter coffee, and started experimenting with just water so that I could understand better when to position the top chamber (bubbles in water plus temp) as well how best to adjust my flame. I highly recommend spending some time experimenting with just plain water first to get acquainted with the science. After quite a bit of online snooping I finally managed to nail an excellent pot, but I did make a few that were pretty darn bad. If you are new to this method, I would recommend that you go buy a cheap can of coffee from the grocery store to do experiment with. I use Pete's coffee and ruined a few pots that I threw out! ($$$) I would like to suggest to all of you considering this pot/method of coffee brewing not to listen to the bad reviews and just know that there will be a learning curve! Once you "get it" you're gonna get a GREAT cup o' coffee! My husband at first was,.."eh...not so great" but has gone to "Wow,...this is really great coffee"! I would post a link to an outstanding video here but it would probably get erased, so if you would like to see it you can view a very good 5 minute video by googling "Syphon, Intelligentsia". It answered a lot of questions I had as well as offering excellent tips. For instance: the reason for letting the top compartment rest in the lower compartment while the water does it's thing... Good luck! Good coffee! UPDATE AUGUST 6 2011: Well I know this is turning into a really long review but for the sake of all who've tried and failed, I have finally reached what we feel is the perfect cup for our tastes. First the beans and the grind: I am using the scoop that came with my Capresso burr conical grinder and measuring one scoop per cup. (8 scoops) I'm grinding on the coarsest setting. Come to think of it the scoop may have come with the Yama but can't remember because I bought them at the same time. My scoop holds a tad shy of 1/8 cup of beans for those of you without a scoop whom would like to try this method. I've tried different grinds and coarse gives the smoothest cup for us. If you like more bitter coffee, try a bit finer grind. For the water and rest of the process: I heat the water in a kettle until boiling, pour into yama to 8 cup setting and turn smallest burner (gas in my case and a very small burner) to medium. If you don't have a tiny burner, you're probably going to use low. I place the top of Yama so that it is resting loosely on bottom,... with the rubber section at the top of the glass tube resting in the pouring spout of the bottom carafe. (it will be leaning) When bubbles start to cling to the chain or a few bubbles start to rise, I engage the top with a little twist. This takes only a moment for those bubbles to appear if your water is already boiling. DON'T get the water too hot or you will have bitter coffee. While the water is rising, I grind my coffee and set my timer for 45 seconds. The water will rise slowly at first and then faster with a burst of bubbles when the last of it comes up. After it's all up north I turn the burner down to medium low and stir the water a little to cool it off a bit, then I pour the coffee in and give a quick stir. (I mean QUICK if you don't want bitter coffee). I then start the timer. After 45 seconds I give another very quick stir and move it off the burner. After it falls I pour it into my Nissan thermos. The coffee is outstanding. Smooth, ...packed with flavor, and perfect strength. WAY better than our old Melitta! FINAL TIPS: I've found that stirring too much results in bitter coffee. I use the flat handle of a wooden spatula (1-1/2 inches wide) to stir. If you have a failure and it starts to drop too soon it is because you lowered your heat too much. Thus the need to experiment with cheap coffee. I have tried to use this on an electric stove and found it near impossible but with some experimentation would have figured it out sooner or later. If you have an electric stove it will be more challenging but hang in there. Another great tip I incorporated into my routine is to use a little bit of bleach each time you clean the filter. Just use a cup of water and splash some bleach in there. Let it sit for a few minutes (it will turn white again) and then rinse well and store in clean water in the fridge.

If you must have hot coffee from an automatic brewer, and don't care to microwave a cup of last night's brew, no need to read further. Five stars, because it does what it's supposed to do, and does it well. I've read many negative reviews based on the product arriving broken or missing parts. This did not happen here. Careful packaging, nothing broken - check. Carafe (bottom) with handle - check. Brewing chamber with good rubber seal - check. Filter contraption, one filter already mounted + one additional filter in plastic bag - check. Wire "grid" (really a piece of wire bent in a zigzag, similar to the ones for the Chemex product) for use on electric stoves - check. Plastic "lid" or base to hold the brewing chamber (right side up AND upside down) - check. Long-handle measuring spoon - check. The following should help in making correct use of this product and avoiding pitfalls: 1. ALWAYS boil your water separately, for two reasons: First, the less time your carafe (bottom) has to spend on a flame or electric stove element, the longer it will live, the fewer the chances that it will scorch and break. Second, the quality of the brew will be much better - if you try to boil water in the carafe, some COLD water will seep into the coffee grounds, which will result in poor-tasting coffee. 2. How much water? I'm using the 40-ounce product. The carafe is labelled with tick-marks indicating a maximum of 8 cups - this deserves some attention: The official measurement is 1 cup = 8 ounces. If you do the math, 40 ounces is only 5 cups. So, when the manufacturer says 8 cups, they mean 8 "traditional" coffee cups, not the mugs we're used to today. Their "cup" would only be 5 ounces. My coffee mugs are extra-tall, I get about 3 nice full mugs out of the 40 ounce carafe. Use the carafe to measure the amount of water you will boil. I fill mine to about 1-inch above the 8-cup mark, since some of that water is going to be lost to steam while you boil it first, and some will be lost in the coffee grounds. 3. While the water is busy reaching its boiling point on the stove, prepare the brewing section (upper container with the long glass tube). Put the filter in it, pull on the spring and hook it up to the bottom edge of the tube, set it on the base right-side up - the round base has a short plastic tube in the middle, that accepts the bottom of the brewing chamber's glass tube and holds it securely, with the chain/hook that hold the filter tight against the chamber's bottom. If you are a purist who must grind the coffee only seconds before brewing, you might want to wait until the water boils before you start grinding. 4. How should you grind your coffee? I grind it to slightly finer than I would use in a drip coffee maker. Your mileage may vary. There is a bit of a learning curve here. 5. How much coffee? The instructions read "one heaping spoon per cup" - so initially I used 8 spoons, and you can use your own judgement as to exactly what "heaping" means. For me, it resulted in a delicious cup of coffee, but much too strong. I ended up reducing it to 4 "very heaping" spoons - each of us will have individual taste for his/her coffee, so you probably will experiment. 6. Once the water boils, DO NOT turn off the stove, BUT REDUCE THE HEAT to medium, or medium-high. Again, stoves vary so much that you will need to experiment. Put the carafe on a ceramic trivet, because it will absorb the heat from the carafe and prevent it from cracking, if it was sitting on a cold surface. Pour the boiled water in the carafe (I use a plastic funnel), up to 1/2-inch above the 8-cup mark, because some of the water will be lost to the coffee grinds at the end of the process. If you've boiled more water than you need, so what? Discard it. Don't try to over-fill too much. 7. As quickly as you can without dropping or breaking anything, put the "wire grid" on the stove if you use an electric stove, otherwise don't bother with it. Insert the brewing chamber's glass tube in the water, and lock the rubber seal in the carafe's mouth. Then carefully carry the whole assembly (by the handle) and put it on the stove, MAKING SURE YOU HAVE REDUCED the heat to medium or medium-high. 8. Now, you must watch the process. You will see the water level in the carafe go down, and the water going up into the brewing chamber and mix with your coffee grounds. Wait until the chamber is about half-full, and give it a few good stirs. Be careful not to hit it too hard with a metal spoon - I use a bamboo stir-stick (also available here on Amazon). 9. When the water level in the carafe reaches the bottom of the glass tube (about 1/2-inch from the bottom of the carafe), you will see some bubbling in the brewing chamber (top), and some steam and water going up and down in the tube. Do not turn off the stove yet, do not remove the assembly from the stove yet. This is safe, because there is still a small amount of water in the carafe, AND because you have REDUCED the heat to medium or medium-high. You did reduce it, right? Start timing - no need for a stopwatch, the clock on the stove (if you have one) is good enough. This is where the bulk of the brewing takes place. Give the coffee in the brewing chamber a few good stirs. I leave the whole assembly on the stove for about 2 to 2.5 minutes. Again, your mileage may vary, experiment. Don't worry too much if you see the small amount of water at the bottom of the carafe bubbling (you probably won't), because remember, there is now a moderate vacuum in the carafe, and water will boil at a lower temperature in a vacuum. 10, Remove the whole assembly from the stove, put it back on your trivet. Now, just watch. The coffee should begin to pour down the glass tube and fill the carafe. Simple gravity draws the coffee back down, but don't forget, there is also a mild vacuum in the carafe, which helps. At some point, you may notice some bubbling activity in the carafe - where does it come from? The carafe is no longer on the stove, no heat acting on it, right? That's the vacuum being filled with air drawn through the coffee grounds in the upper chamber. If you see that, you've done everything right. If not, as long as you see the coffee filling the carafe to the target mark (in this case, 8 cups or maybe just a tad more), you're done. Pour yourself a cup and enjoy. 11. Last, cleaning up the filter. I use a "heaping" teaspoon of OxyClean in half a tall coffee mug's worth of water, and hook the bottom of the spring to the rim, so the filter is in the OxyClean liquid, but not touching the bottom. I leave it there about 30 minutes or more, it comes out as white as it was before using it. Also, before you pour the used coffee grounds out of the brewing chamber, MAKE SURE the spring is hooked to the bottom of the glass tube or it will go into the garbage with the grounds, and MAKE SURE you break up the grounds first with a spoon or bamboo stir-stick, because the vacuum that drew the water out of them left them so dry, they won't just fall off on their own. DO NOT shake the chamber over your garbage pail, this is strong glass, but you don't want to take a chance and break it. Sorry for the lengthy review, I just hope this prevents negative reviews due to lack of knowledge on how to use the product. UPDATE: Replacement filters: In the product description for Yama replacement filters ( Yama Vacpot Replacement Cloth Vacuum Pot Filters (5) ) which appears in the "other customers have looked at..." section for this product, it is stated that these are replacement cloth filters for this coffee maker, and that they are "By Yama" - I don't know of that means made by Yama, or by Northwest Glass (which makes this coffee maker), but they are definitely not the same. My coffee maker (this product being reviewed here) came in a box that included one filter already mounted on teh metal disk, and one replacement filter. The "for Yama" ones in the product link above are larger, and I believe thicker. I recommend against them, because as soon as I started using one of them, my coffee maker started to stall: When the coffee was returning from the top brewing bowl to the bottom carafe, it would only allow about 2/3 of the coffee to return, then stopped aspiring the coffee down. The vacuum was too weak. I spent some time readjusting my brewing time, the coarseness of the coffee grounds, no go. I then experimented with the same filter with water only, no coffee, it worked perfectly. This is an insignificant factor - what good is a coffee maker that won't make coffee? The only other significant change was the filter. So today, I experimented with a paper filer: The simple Melitta coffee filter (brown, unbleached), available everywhere. I used just one layer, wrapped it around the metal disk, hooked the disk to the bottom of the glass stem as usual, made sure all the edges were tight below the metal disk. Success. No more stalling. Mine was #4, you can probably get away with using a smaller one. One layer only. One use only. You may want to contact Northwest Glass and ask them, I hear they're pretty good about providing replacement parts, and filters. The filters may be more expensive, so ask them if they are truly the same as what comes in the box, and not what is described in the "by Yama" link above. I'm not saying the filters (in the product link above) are not made by Yama or by Northwest Glass, I'm saying they are definitely different, based on my factual experience.

Reading some of the other reviews, I was hesitant to order this. Glad i did! Some say it's flimsy, but this is not the case at all. Very well built & easy to use. Yes, it takes longer to brew than drip or perc's, but the quality of coffee more than makes up for it. Yes, it's a bit of a process cleaning it, handle it nicely & it'll probably last forever. Yes, there's an art to brewing with it. Don't be in a hurry. Resist the temptation to speed things up by increasing the heat; use medium high heat until the water begins to move up the siphon, then reduce to medium, leave it there for a couple minutes, then just turn the heat off & walk away until the brew has descended back into the lower chamber. Simple, but the entire process take about 10 minutes. Go hug your dog while you're waiting ... UPDATE: I broke the first one, & ordered a 2nd one. It arrived missing a part, so I wrote to the seller, who replaced the entire thing in 2 days! I highly recommend them!

ガスコンロで使えるタイプのものを探していたので購入。初めて買ったサイフォン型なので他製品との使用感の比較は出来ませんが使った感じは良いです。毎日使ってます。ただyama glassのサイトでは50ドルで売ってたんで高すぎです。

I liked this product and can be used with a gas stove. It came in good condition without issue.

5* Simple y funcional. Hay que tomarse el tiempo para vigilar el proceso- pero el resultado es excelente. Alta calidad, con la excepción de la tapa que funciona también como base cuando se remueve la parte superior ¡No se balancea muy bien! Hay que tener cuidado.

Excelente sifón, sin duda el mejor precio, hecho de policarbonato de origen japonés.