“Great brewer! I’ve been using one now over 5 years. Easy to use easy to clean. Brewed out Daily Rise Coffee just the way we like it.
Bought this one for my parents.”
“OXO Barista Brain 9-Cup Coffee Maker.
I will start by saying that I am writing this review as a coffee professional that needed a solid brewer for our home. We are a coffee roaster that actively sells and services commercial coffee equipment. I have become insistant that our home coffee equipment demostrate similar performance.
Any SCA Certified brewer will get my attention primarily because they only certify brewers that heat water properly. A 200 deg F brewing temperature is ideal for most coffees. After brewing a batch of 'test' water through the machine, the temperature in the carafe was 194 deg F. Accepting a few degrees loss as it made it's way through the process, I was happy with that result. Admittedly, I was initially scepitcal about a brand of product that was sold at major discount retailers. Using this brewer changed my mind.
Pros:
- Heats brew temperature water to near 200 deg F.
- Uses common #4 cone filters. I did not like the 'natural' brown filters that came with the machine out of the box. If you like your coffee to taste like cardboard, certainly continue to use brown 'natural' paper filters. If you prefer to taste all of the beautiful nuance of you coffee, use white, oxygenated filters. Nearly all white coffee filters are made that way by using a 100% natural oxygenation process and you don't have to live with paper bag flavored coffee.
-Quiet operation during brewing cycle. Watching the water gurgle up the supply tube is cathartic. Our cat really liked it at first, but has grown bored more recently.
-Has a natural pulse brewing delivery as water is being heated. Assures that really fresh coffee doesn't 'bloom' over.
-Brew basket easily removes for cleaning.
-Brew spray head easily removes for cleaning.
-Full stainless carafe. Comfortable handle. The lid for the carafe has a silicone tube that circulates coffee inside the carafe similar in concept to commercial thermal servers. At first I didn't think much of this feature, but I kind of like the idea of it. The brew cone and server do have a flow stop feature to remove the carafe mid brew cycle. Don't ever use this! Let the full brew cycle finish before enjoying your coffee. The first half of a brew cycle does not have the same flavor and the last half. To get a true representation of the coffee you're drinking, the entire brew cycle needs to complete before pouring.
-Has a timer to alert you to run a de-scaling cycle to keep the boiler clean.
-Good value. $200 is not cheap, but with the overall quality and performance of this brewer, it's worth it.
Features I more Neutral about:
-Clock and timer feature. We don't use the timer, but I can see how some would like that if you don't mind pre-grinding and having you coffee wake you up in the morning.
-Single knob/toggle button is a clean build feature, but for some reason is kind of annoying to me for general operation and accessing features.
-I don't like that condensed water from the brew delivery tube, drips back down into the reservoir when you open the filter side lid. Minor issue.
Cons:
-None really”
