The 6 Best Electric Coffee Percolators, Everything You Need To Know

This article contains everything you need to know about a coffee percolator including a review of electric coffee percolators and how it changed my life, how electric coffee percolators works, and top rated and best electric coffee percolators.

This article has been revised, since the Hamilton Beach percolator (formerly top recommendation) has been discontinued. The top recommended electric coffee percolator in this article is now Moss and Stone.

How to choose the best electric coffee percolator

For those who are looking for which coffee maker makes the best coffee, please read on. Do percolators make good coffee? Maybe your coffee machine broke, or maybe you are looking for something better, something different, please keep reading and I will tell you all about electric coffee percolators.

This post does not cover stove top percolators, but you will find everything you need to know about electric coffee percolators and the joy of percolated coffee.

What kind of coffee pot makes the best coffee? I am going to tell you why I switched to a percolator vs. a drip coffee maker and give you a review of Moss and Stone 10 Cup Electric Coffee Percolator as well as some other top rated percolator coffee pots as well!

We used to have a drip coffee maker and we bought expensive coffee grounds, because that is the only kind of coffee that tasted good with our drip coffee maker. Our former coffee machine was a nice, name-brand coffee maker that was not cheap by any means!

Something was not right though. Our coffee always had a bitter aftertaste, even with small batch, craft roasted coffee. The thing that always annoyed me was the fact that I would pour my coffee, add a little spot of cream and immediately put it in the microwave because it was never hot enough.

Why use an electric coffee percolator

The cup of coffee that changed my life.

At Thanksgiving a few years ago, we were all sitting around the table about to have dessert. My mom offered us all coffee and I took her up on it. My first sip took me aback at the richness of the cup of coffee! It was smooth, delightful and piping hot!

Normally my mom buys cheap, bulk coffee so I wasn't expecting AMAZING coffee, so immediately my first though was "did she buy special coffee for the holidays?" I asked her what coffee she used, and she said she used the same kind, as always, but had recently switched to using a Hamilton Beach percolator.

I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT! What a shock that there would be such a difference between a drip coffee maker (with paper filters) and an old-fashioned stainless steel percolator!

FAST FORWARD to a few weeks later, my mom gifted us with a Hamilton Beach percolator (which is now discontinued) and it became our faithful friend for years. We even started buying a lesser expensive brand of coffee grounds because the stainless steel electric coffee percolator makes it so much better.

Since writing this article, our Hamilton Beach percolator kicked the bucket (it was old) and now we have the Moss and Stone 10 cup percolator.

Pros and cons of a coffee percolator

Pros, features of percolator coffee

If you are a coffee lover or aficionado, or in today's vernacular, a coffee snob, you will not be disappointed with a percolator. I love pour-over coffee, however it never comes out hot enough for me, and we need to make more than a single cup of coffee at a time.

The flavor, of course!

Percolator brewed coffee has an amazing flavor. The brewing process really brings out the depth of flavor and richness of whatever quality of coffee you buy. We actually switched to a cheaper ground coffee because we found that the flavor is sooo smooth with the percolator.

Pour-over quality while making up to 12 cups

The Moss and Stone 10 cup electric percolator is what we use and I think it is the best percolator out there. It is a pour-over quality of brew, but with the capability of making up to 10 cups of coffee at a time of brewing capacity. PERFECT for gatherings, and also perfect for making several cups of coffee in the morning.

It stays hot

Now this might not be for everyone, our percolator makes the perfect brew of coffee at a hot temperature and KEEPS it piping hot until the unit is unplugged, but it's features do have a stay-cool handle and a stay-cool bottom. ***Please USE CAUTION since it is a very hot cup of jo.

The aroma of delicious coffee throughout my house

Let's just get this straight, some coffee makers stifle the delicious aroma of coffee and you can't smell it throughout your house! The aroma is such an integral part of the whole coffee experience that can't be underestimated. An electric coffee percolator does an amazing job of dispersing the coffee scent as it brews.

Cons

No fancy settings or features

Most electric percolators don't have any fancy settings or features like auto-brew, where you can set a time that it will brew your coffee. It's not connected to a grinder either. What we do is we get the water and coffee grounds all measured out and ready to go the night before, and when my husband gets up in the morning he plugs it in.

Cleaning is a little more labor intensive

Cleaning can be a little more difficult if you are going from a drip coffee maker to a percolator. There is no disposable filter that can be thrown away, you have to dispose of the coffee grounds and clean it out in the sink. However I must say that the Moss and Stone percolator is easier to clean than my previous Hamilton Beach.

How does a coffee percolator work?

An electric percolator gets filled with the desired amount of water, there is a vertical tube that runs in the middle of the percolator up to where the coffee grinds are. The grinds are at the top of the percolator in a stainless steel filter basket with small holes in it.

When plugged in, the heating unit at the bottom, heats up the water to boiling, the hot water travels from the water chamber, through the tube in the center and out of the top, it then filters down through the coffee grounds and drips back into the bottom of the percolator and travels up through again.

This makes it so that the hot water goes through the grounds several times, not just once like on a drip machine, or a single serve coffee machine, making full use of the coffee grounds. Some people claim it has a bitter taste, but I bet to differ. I love the amazing brew that comes from our percolator.

The brewing time varies from percolator to percolator. Brewing a small amount of coffee will have a shorter brewing time.

How to make coffee in a percolator

Check out the video below to see how to use a coffee percolator

How to deep clean a coffee percolator

After use and time, even with daily cleaning, a percolator may need a deep clean. Dump about 2 cups of ground up ice chunks into the percolator (make sure it's unplugged, it should have an easy-store detachable cord), add several tablespoons of coarse sea salt, squeeze the juice of a lemon, or another citrus over the ice as well.

Let it melt a little bit then shake it around in a circle/swirl motion. Allow it to keep melting while swirling the ice/salt/citrus inside. This will help break down the build up inside.

Pour it out and take an abrasive sponge and scour the bottom of the coffee pot. Rinse out and repeat until it regains its shine again.

Take a bottle brush or something comparable and brush it through the spout. Doing these steps should throughout give your electric coffee percolator a good deep clean.

What kind of coffee grind should be used with a percolator?

You can use a standard, pre-packaged grind in a coffee percolator and be just fine, however the ideal grind is a coarse grind, like a grind that would be used with a french press. We use prepackaged most of the time, which is a finer grind, sometimes a little bit of the grinds filter down into the coffee.

If you are wondering how to keep coffee grinds from getting in the coffee, grind your own beans with a coarser grind.

The best electric coffee percolators 2023

Moss and Stone 10 cup Electric Percolator (MY FAVORITE and TOP RATED!)

I already mentioned Moss and Stone Stainless Steal Electric Coffee Percolator, which is what we use, and we love it. I think it is currently the best percolator on the market, it is certainly my favorite stainless steel coffee percolator! Detachable cord, stay- cool handle, indicator light, 1o cup capacity, and glass top (which I strangely like). Click the link below to shop more stainless steel coffee percolators.

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Presto 12 Cup Percolator

This is a top rated percolator, and it also comes in smaller sizes as well. Includes an indicator light

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Farberware 12 Cup Percolator

Stainless steel 12 cup capacity

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Cuisinart 12 Cup Percolator

Also top rated with cool touch handle

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Euro Cuisine 4 Cup Percolator - a small electric coffee percolator

If you are looking for a small percolator, here it is.

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Mixpresso 10 Cup Coffee Percolator

Brews up to 10 cups capacity also voted best value percolator

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Do you have any other questions or comments? Leave them below!