Tag: coffee maker

The Best Batch Brewer – Oxo Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker

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The OXO Brew 9 Cup Coffee Maker is a popular option that has a price point that lands it firmly between high-end and mid-range, however it’s build quality and features lean more toward the high-end. The brewer is SCA Certified, which is an important feature and brews by pulsing hot water over the grounds, rather than having a pre-infusion followed by a constant flow of water like many other brewers we have reviewed. This results in high levels of extraction which means you will likely need to refine your grind size. I noticed this when using the same grind size between my Ninja CM401 and the OXO Brew 9 Cup that the OXO tended to be much more extracted. OXO also makes an 8 Cup brewer that is non-programmable, however we liked the fact you could program the OXO 9 Cup to brew automatically at a set time. 

Other than setting the brewer for large or small brews, auto brew is the only programmable feature on this machine. You do not have the option to adjust brew temperature or length of brew. The operation of the machine is simple, but not intuitive. I had to refer to the manual to learn the basic features. I own other OXO products as well and with those, I am able to operate the machine intuitively. Brew temperatures were very good and held between 190F-195F, SCA certified machines need to brew within a certain range in order to obtain their certification. 

The brewer itself has a pretty large footpoint and is quite tall, if you are placing it under a standard height kitchen cabinet you will need to pull the machine out in order to open the water tank (non-removable) or filter basket housing, not a big deal normally, but I like to keep them open to air dry, however on this brewer you cannot open both at the same time and opening either would interfere with opening/closing of your kitchen cabinets. 

The included thermal carafe feels high quality compared to the Zojirushi carafes that I have. However, as is the case with many thermal carafes, it is hard to pour out the last bit of coffee without removing the lid and turning it almost all the way upside down. The carafe includes a silicone straw to help prevent stratification in the brewed coffee to mix the coffee as it goes through the #4 size cone filters. The brewer has an auto drip stop so you can only brew into the provided carafe.

Overall, a solid brewer at a good price point. If I mostly brewed larger batches, I would definitely consider this machine. I normally only brew 1-2 mugs worth of coffee at a time so I use the Ninja CM401 quite a lot to brew directly into a mug or small server. This machine will brew until the water tank is empty, so have a look at our recipe charts for how much water and coffee to use with this machine. This brewer’s cup units are 5 oz of water so you can brew a maximum batch size of 45 oz.

Click here to read the manual.

Best Mid-Range Brewer – Bonavita Connoisseur

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The Bonavita Connoisseur BV1901TS Coffee Brewer is the lowest priced SCA certified home brewer at around about half as much as a Moccamaster. It offers bare bones, no frills one touch operation with great results and, like the Moccamaster, has an almost cult like following. It only offers one setting and cannot be programmed and also cannot be used with a timer switch due to the spring-loaded power button that cannot be left in the “on” position.

This is their latest model that offers a hanging basket which is easier to use than their older models where the filter basket awkwardly sat on top of the carafe. There is no drip stop on the filter basket so watch out for dripping when rinsing the filter paper or dumping the grounds, what I do is just leave an empty mug under the dripper after I remove the carafe and then dump the grounds when it fully stops dripping.

The Bonavita Connoisseur has a 1.3 liter (just under 44 fluid ounces) capacity and comes with a thermal carafe. It uses standard type flat bottom basket filters. Moccamaster, Braun MultiServe (review) and the Cuisinart PerfecTemp (review) all use #4 cone filters. You can read all about the latest research here into flat bottom vs. cone filters.

It has a showerhead for even water distribution over the grounds and the only thing you can set on this machine is the pre-infusion option which mimics the bloom process we do in pour over. Hold the power button down for 5 seconds until you hear two beeps and the LED flashes. You will know it is working because the light will flash during brewing if pre-infusion is enabled, the light will be solid if it is not. It will keep the pre-infusion setting until the machine is unplugged. This is highly recommended if you are using fresh roasted coffee to help the grounds degas as part of the brewing process. If your coffee was roasted 6 months ago it won’t make a big difference.

With a 700 ml (about 24 ounces) brew size the coffee temperature was 178F in the carafe and the coffee tasted great and well extracted. The carafe has a little bit of the same issue as the PerfecTemp with pouring the last bit of coffee, but it wasn’t prone to dripping which made this a non-issue. The PerfecTemp issue was that you had to turn the carafe almost all the way upside to get the last bit of coffee out, which caused coffee to drip all over.

Another machine I took a close look at was the OXO Brew 8 Cup Coffee Maker for and I almost bought it. It has roughly the same capacity as the Bonavita Connoisseur at 40 ounces, however it uses a combination of a flat bottom basket filters and a specialty filter for single servings (20 ounces or less). Excuse my nickel and diming, but a standard basket filter is about 1 cent each, a #4 cone filter is about 3.5 cents each, a Hario V60 filter is about 6 cents each, the Kallita Wave 185 that you need to use with the OXO is 13 cents each. I started this process with cost in mind and just felt 13 cents per brew for a paper filter seemed high and I also didn’t want to deal with two different filter types with two different filter baskets. You can check out a video comparing these two machines here.

Check out the Bonavita Connoisseur manual here.