There’s an easy way to make the water hotter, January 16, 2011

By 

Wendy E. Gauntt (SAINT LOUIS, MO USA) – See all my reviews

  

I first used this coffee maker at my parents’ house and was impressed with the flavor. For a drip coffee maker, this brews excellent coffee (I used to use a French press daily).

I was surprised to see all the comments about lukewarm coffee, as I hadn’t noticed this problem. I do use cream so it concerned me – you have to have hot coffee if you are going to add cold cream.

Turns out, reading the manual gave me the answer I needed: that button for 1-4 cups “provides doulbe heating of the water, so coffee is piping hot.” You can use this button no matter how many cups you brew to get the water hotter. I’m having no problems at all.

Hope this helps!

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Buy It, December 5, 2010

I read every review anybody ever wrote for a coffee maker. Conclusion: Somebody doesn’t like something about every coffee maker that’s ever been made.
What I’ve found in the month that I’ve had it: The carafe keeps the coffee hot for at least 3 hours. It pours without going all over the counter. I can’t make the thing drip one drop. I still pour my cup over the sink from years with a different pot where about half of the coffee went down the drain. Not this one. Not a drop. I measured the brew temp. with a meat thermometer stuck in the grounds at 202 degrees. Any coffee maker will overflow all over the counter if the pot isn’t correctly positioned. It’s easy to position correctly and a quick peak at the pot:drip hole makes it obvious if it’s where it belongs. Some reviews complain about difficulty in pouring water from carafe to the water tank. Could be, I’ve got a kitchen faucet that lets me stick the faucet right into the tank so it’s not a problem for me. It’s probably time you get one of those anyway. It is a little hard to read the water level scale on the tank, but I’m old. I put a black dot with a magic marker at the 6 cup mark. Problem solved.
Summary: It brews hot, stays hot in the carafe, easy to pour with no mess. That’s really all I was looking for. I’d recommend and I buy another.

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Great Coffee Maker — Always Follow Instructions; Always Heat the Pot!, February 26, 2011

I’ve been using this coffee maker for about a week. I bought it as an upgrade over a Black and Decker coffee maker that was generally good, but I wanted a new one with a cone filter. The cone filter gets more flavor out of the coffee than the basket filter: it’s a must.

The other must, for me, is the thermal carafe. I wake up earlier than my wife and if we’re both drinking out of the same pot the coffee can’t continue to cook on a warming plate. The coffee quickly turns bitter. The thermal carafe keeps it near the brew temperature for a couple of hours, and you can keep it hot longer if you heat the pot before brewing the coffee. If you brew it into a room temperature pot, the coffee is 177 degrees. If you brew it into a pot which you’ve filled with hot water (and emptied, of course) the coffee will be 182 degrees. Both temperatures were hotter than my old pot.

I tested the heat degredation and found:

182 — fresh
174 — 1.5 hours later
168 — 3 hours later
162 — 4.5 hours later

I’ve read a lot of reviews of this product, and it’s clear that some buyers didn’t follow instructions. Thermal carafes punish you if you don’t. You have to position the carafe properly or you’ll have a mess to clean up. I’ve done it a few times with my old coffee maker. It’s always my fault, never the coffee maker’s.

This is a well designed thermal carafe since you can pour without having to open it and letting too much air into it. This is a good product, and at a good price compared to more expensive models from Bunn or Zojirushi. It is more expensive than the Black and Decker but worth the cost because you get more out of your coffee beans.

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