Great Coffee for a Reasonable Price, December 11, 2007

By 

Debra Chong “ECommerceMaven” (San Francisco, CA United States) – See all my reviews

  

  

I chose this grind and brew after reading all of the reviews for this and similar machines. Frankly, I am surprised by the negative comments. This is an easy to use machine once it is set up properly (the bean hopper takes a little of effort to snap in). The coffee tastes great and the parts are very easy to clean quickly. While the instruction book is not clear, Cuisinart was very helpful on the phone. The machine does not know how much water you put in, so if you set it to grind coffee for 6 cups and you have 8 cups of water in it, it will process all 8 cups of water. Other than this small quirk, the machine is a small wonder and I do not feel compelled to go out for coffee in the morning. The thermos carafe will keep the coffee quite warm for a few hours, even when the carafe is not warmed up with hot water. Wondering why it took me so long to go ahead and buy this machine. This is the best model; my neighbor has the first generation/second generation machine which is hard to clean and has a large footprint. Save your money and buy this model!

Now that I have had the machine for a month and a half: It requires some cleaning to get the fine grounds that compress and stop the grinder and ground coffee to get into the filter for brewing. I use a bamboo chopstick and a skewer to break up the compressed fine grounds that impede the machine from working properly. (Unplug the machine and put it over the sink area). I also use compressed air to blow out the fine ground particles. Still, this is a small maintenance to allow for great coffee in the AM.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (9)

Excellent coffee, convenience, and design; grind is a little coarse, January 26, 2008

I bought this coffeemaker after returning my Krups KM7000. Overall, I have been pleased with this model, save for a few quirks. The bottom line is that it makes OUTSTANDING, HOT coffee with great convenience in a design that appears very durable. I have NOT had any problems with getting the pieces together and I do not find it complicated on a day-to-day basis whatsoever.

PROS:
-Coffee is full-bodied and flavorful. I use the 4-cup setting with about 3 cups of water and the strength set to strong. This uses the aroma feature, and the coffee is perfect.
-Temperature is perfect, the hottest I’ve tasted from a model like this. The base WARMS THE THERMAL CARAFE when the machine goes on, then goes off when the brew is complete. This may theoretically be eliminating the effect of the cooling of hot coffee by a stone-cold carafe. On the other hand, the carafe is highly insulated and it may be doing nothing. The bottom line is that the temperature is perfect, the coffee is still hot even after adding cold milk. The coffee remains hot for quite a while in the thermal carafe.
-Design is quite nice- it is self contained as opposed to other mill & brew models that have parts that swing around. The design feels very robust, there are no wimpy plastic bits. There is a piece that fits over the grind basket that has a gear which appears to rotate, likely to keep steam out of the grinder.
-It could not be easier to use on a daily basis – all I do is put in THE RIGHT amount of water, put the cover on top of the brew basket, and press program (I have it programmed for the same time every day). After it brews and I pour the coffee, I swing out the basket, pour out the grinds & rinse the basket, rinse the carafe, and I’m ready to go.
-cleaning is simple; I notice others complain but I haven’t had any problems. See above for my daily routine; I’ve been using the brush weekly on the grind spout, it takes two minutes and is not messy.
-The brushed chrome looks great on the counter.
-3 year warranty is reassuring

CONS:
-The grind appears to be too coarse. Other models have a grind control to change the coarseness of the coffee, this one does not. This has improved a little after a few weeks of use, but not completely. Also, I’ve noticed that (through laws of physics) the coarsest part of the grind stays on top, then the finer grounds work their way to the bottom. This is probably wasting a bit of coffee, but once I worked out how much water to use it doesn’t affect the strength. Overall I have not noticed that I am going through coffee faster than before, so I think some of the “coffee wasting” reviews may be somewhat overstated. On first glance it does appear to use a lot of coffee when you are pouring out the grounds, but looking at how many bags I’m going through it doesn’t appear much different.
-The mechanism to pour coffee from the carafe is not perfect; it works ok when pouring out from a mostly full carafe, but to get the last cup or two from the bottom I have to take the top off. If I don’t it drips all over the counter. Taking the top off I can pour it without any mess.
-The water indicator level is on the right side near the back. If you are putting it against a wall on the left it will be fine, but on my counter it needs to be against a wall on the right, so if I need to look at the water level I need to pull the coffeemaker away from the wall. To get around this I have figured exactly how much water to put in from a measuring cup.

THE BOTTOM LINE (again):
The coffee is excellent, and HOT. The design is marvelous. On a day-to-day basis it is extremely easy to use and convenient. The grind is a bit too coarse, but I don’t seem to be going through coffee much faster than before, so this may be a little bit of an illusion. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO ADJUST THE STRENGTH OF YOUR COFFEE USING THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF WATER. I can strongly recommend this coffeemaker if you want hot, convenient, fresh-ground coffee every day. Enjoy!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comment

Wastes Coffee Beans – 60% increase in Bean Consumption, January 1, 2008

This unit wastes beans.

According to the user manual, if you fill the coffee bean hopper with 1/2 lb of coffee, you can expect “at least” two – 12 cup brews. I thought this was a bit conservative but it was confirmed when I made the first pot of coffee. I set the machine for 12 cups and watched as almost half of the beans disappeared on the first pot.

I figure it uses almost 1/4 lb of beans to brew a full pot (12 cups of 5 oz coffee). This is about double what would be used if you followed the directions when using a manual grinder (one scoop of beans per cup using the scoop that comes with this coffee maker).

I think Cusinart kept the grind at very coarse level to ensure proper grind flow in the machine. To compensate, they increased the amount of coffee ground. Thus it uses about 4 oz of beans versus 2.5 oz of beans per 10-12 cup pot. It doesn’t sound like much but works out to 60% extra per pot.

I’ve owned the Cuisinart DGB-600BC Grind and Brew Coffeemaker and Melitta Mill & Brew Coffee Maker so this is my third unit brew and grind unit. The two previous units has manual bean fill and comparatively good control on the grind. This unit always grinds very very coarse.

Pro: Large Bean Hopper
Easy to clean
Fill level on side (DGB-600BC did not)
Gold filter basket included
3 Year Warranty
Simple operation (for a grind & brew machine)
Seems well constructed

Cons: Grind is always very course
Uses twice as much beans
Carafe pours slow and tends to drip

The coffee tastes OK – its not as good as what you can get with a manual grind/brew but consistent with the other Mill & Brew machines I’ve had. It is well built and I think the 3 year warranty is key because our other Cuisinart grinder motor lasted about 18 months, but its going back because I make about 2 pots/day and this translates into a couple hundred dollars year. Going to try the Capresso 455 or 454.

Update
I’ve got the Capresso 454 and love it. It can grind from super fine up to coarse and makes a great cup of coffee.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

>Report abuse
| Permalink

 Comments (12)