Cuisinart Automatic Grind & Brew 12-Cup Coffeemaker

I just ordered this coffee maker as a replacement for an older model. So I guess this review is primarily about the older model. I have had it forever, I want to say 14+ years. Yes at lease fourteen beautiful coffee drinking years. I have LOVED the coffee maker and the quality of coffee it made. I will say initially there was a learning curb as I did not read my directions very well. The coffee shute did plug up and I had to switch to pre ground coffee. Once I learned that I had to remove all beans and remove the tray and lift the little door and use a knife and dig out all the compacted fine grinds. Boy did it ever work well after that. Of course there was a blinking light to clean the Shute but I ignored it until I was told how to do it. I also religiously used white vinegar to descale the maker every month and then run two cycles of water. I have well water. I also changed the water filter monthly. I think that is why I had the long beautiful life with my previous machine. The death happened last week when I tried to make coffee in the morning. I has cleaned it the day before. It ground beans perfectly then click click click no water. So with that I said goodbye to my beloved machine and ordered a newer model. I read very mixed reviews about this maker and similar models and I personally like a machine that holds a good amount of beans. I also really like the water filter. So here we are and the only thing I would change about the machine is I would magically make the warming plate a little hotter. I have noticed that the first cup is hot but not hot hot hot. I usually drink it fast and then my second cup it hot hot. I think the key to long life is to clean the machine regularly with a descaling agent (I like white vinegar) and changing the water filter. Oh and clean the Shute. UPDATE TO ABOVE REVIEW: I was very excited with the arrival of my new coffee maker. I used it two days and it was PERFECT. However the third, fourth and fifth time I encountered problems. The machine would grind the beans stop and then grind a second round of beans and then it would turn off. I then had to open and close the coffee grounds basket and select no grind and start the machine again. I tried cleaning the bean area and encountered the same problem. I tried to make four cups and the machine ground beans twice and when I checked the ground basket it was packed full of beans. I am so disappointed with this new machine I am returning it and I have found a new machine to replace it from a different company. I have always trusted the brand however in making any future small kitchen appliances I am going to go with another manufacturer.

I bought this grind-and-brew coffee maker a couple of years ago, and from the very first morning it felt less like an appliance and more like a small enchanted creature living on my counter. Each dawn, before the sun has fully stretched its golden fingers across the kitchen, my noble little machine awakens. With a mighty whirrrrrr—loud enough to rattle the castle gates—it grinds the beans like a determined dragon guarding its treasure. Yes, it is noisy. There is no gentle woodland whisper here. When it grinds, it announces itself. If you’re hoping for silent sorcery, this is more “battle cry at sunrise.” But honestly? That bold roar is part of the charm. It means magic is happening. And oh, the magic. The aroma that follows is rich and comforting, like stepping into a cozy tavern after a long quest. Freshly ground beans brewed immediately into a warm, perfect pot—every time, as long as I uphold my end of the royal bargain. Now, here lies the cautionary tale. This noble machine is loyal—but it expects respect. Should you forget to empty the used grounds from the previous brew, or neglect to pour out yesterday’s remaining potion from the pot, it may stage a dramatic rebellion. And by rebellion, I mean… it will overflow. Spectacularly. This is not a flaw of the kingdom’s machinery; this is entirely the absent-minded wizard’s fault (that would be me). So heed this warning: dump the used grounds and empty the pot before starting anew, and peace shall reign. After years of faithful service, it still brews beautifully. Strong, fresh, flavorful coffee at the push of a button. Despite its enthusiastic volume and its intolerance for skipped steps, I would absolutely choose this trusty countertop companion again. If you seek convenience, fresh-ground flavor, and don’t mind a little morning fanfare, this grind-and-brew hero is well worth inviting into your castle. ☕✨

UPDATE - This is a poorly made piece of junk. Since the review written below, coffee maker #2 broke with the same problem coffee maker #1 arrived with. I did a warranty exchange and got coffee maker #3, which eventually started grinding the same amount of beans regardless of setting and now will not brew at all. Three coffee makers, all broken despite being maintained properly. Not even 1 year. Next time I'm just buying a basic drip coffee maker and decent grinder. I'd normally have given this 4 stars but I ran into some quality control issues that isn't really acceptable for a fairly expensive coffee maker. I bought this to replace an existing all in one burr grinder coffee maker that had started giving up the ghost. When I first attempted brew a pot, the coffee maker didn't do anything other than hum and a couple drops of water dripped out. I thought maybe the burr grinder was jammed so I emptied the hopper and tried my best to get all the beans out of the grinder. Here's the first design problem - there's no way to really access the grinder in any meaningful fashion. If it's jammed, you're SOL, you can't get anything in there to clear it. Maybe it was jammed, maybe it wasn't. I have no idea. I kept trying to get it to work, and the coffee maker refused to even attempt to grind. It would keep alerting me that I hadn't cleared the basket from the previous attempt... but it was empty and I had opened and closed it multiple times. Attempts to just run a basic no-grind drip and maybe force a reset were met with the same sort of hum as if it was still trying to grind. I gave up, returned it, and got a replacement. This really annoyed me especially considering my previous coffee maker also required replacement (twice in fact) when I first got it. Coffee maker number 2, I ran a basic no-grind, no-coffee cycle to just flush out the system as suggested in the manual. That ran fine, and then I attempted to make a normal grind. Because I hadn't opened the basket between the flush and my attempt to make coffee, it refused to grind with it thinking the basket had not been emptied. Again, as suggested by the directions, I stopped the cycle opened the basket, reseated it, closed it and tried again. It still refused to grind. It was stuck in a state of thinking the basket was full. I tried many combinations reseating the basket, but nothing worked. I finally got it to work after resorting to unplugging and plugging it back in. Which brings up design issue #2 - there's no way to override what it thinks its state is. You can't just say "do it anyway". That's a relatively minor issue provided that a power cycle always resets it. So now it's been working fine. How does it work in normal operation? It's acceptable. Pros: 12 cup capacity is nice, and the hopper is decently sized. Grinder is also relatively quiet for an inexpensive burr grinder. Con: This is a big one for me, and what knocks a star off - you can't adjust the fineness of the grind. The coffee I like tastes best when it's more finely ground than the grinder is set to. That means I have to set the grind amount higher than the number of cups I'm making. So if I'm making 10 cups, I have to set the grind to 12 cups. I feel like I'm just wasting coffee when I could use less coffee if I could set a finer grind. This would be a really great coffee maker if you could just set the grind fineness.

Very nice coffee maker and I’m impressed in the quality. Just one big issue for me is using the same coffee beans I got inconsistent grinds. I would get 3 different grinds medium course, medium and what looked like a medium fine grind. I don’t understand why but my guess is it has something to do with the amount of beans in the hopper because in just 4 days I made different amounts of coffee with different grinds. If you don’t use or care about the grinder and only use the the filter then this is nice. But NOTE for each pot of coffee you will need to turn off the grinder a feature I didn't like. It is an impressive coffee maker but for the inconsistent grids I must return it.

This is an excellent grind and brew coffee maker. I owned an earlier version that had a carafe rather that a warming plate. It worked well for 16 years and is still going strong. So, I knew that a new Cuisinart coffee maker would be long lasting. Fresh ground beans make the best coffee, but you have a little more work in cleaning the grinder. It is worth it for the improved taste of coffee. I use revere osmosis water (or purified) for my coffee, so there is no clorine or contanmints that affect the taste of your coffee. The coffee maker works well and makes really good coffee. If you use ground coffee, simply turn off the grinder.

Makes good coffee at a good price. The instructions are ass but otherwise I like it. I had to call the 1 800 helpline for instructions on how to work the unit. All is good.

I've owned 3 grind and brews now, the Cuisinart DGB-625, DGB-800, and a Krups. All of these machines are useful tools for combined grinding and brewing, but grind and brews are a mechanical challenge to design. If you come into this expecting a magical machine that is just going to work how you want it with no effort, you are going to be disappointed. If you come into this expecting it to be a tool you experiment with and learn how to use to accomplish what you're after, you may find what you're looking for. The DGB-625 was great. It was half the price of the others, easy to use, and made a decent cup of coffee. I don't think the burr grinder is any better than the blade grinder, unless you care about the noise and want something quieter. The grinds from all of these are very coarse, far too coarse for my taste, but I make it work by using more coffee. Both of these machines got the grounds perfectly distributed in the filter basket for me with water hitting all the grounds. The same can't be said for the Krups, which was an absolute failure. The Krups had half the grounds get stuck in the chute and predominantly put the grounds on only one side of the filter. It was unusable and went back quickly. The big benefit of the DGB-800 over the 650 for me is that the 800 is so much easier to clean. I quickly got tired of the steam filling the grinding compartment and needing daily cleaning. If that didn't bother me, I would have stuck with the 650. The 800 lets you adjust strength and number of cups. What you have to understand is these are really just controls for how many beans you want it to use. I might only use 4 cups of water but set it for 8 cups to get more grounds so I can have stronger coffee. Using these machines to get what you want is a learning process, and you may have to tweak what you do over time. I've also seen lots of reviews where they say that the carafes spill when pouring. I have not had this problem. The carafes seem very poor at pouring (carafe, you had 1 job!), but I am able to pour coffee from it without spilling. The Krups actually had a nice carafe that poured the heavily diluted coffee water it brewed perfectly. Overall, the Cuisinarts are good machines. The controls are very easy to understand. If you like coarsely ground coffee beans they are wonderful machines. I really wish they had the option for finely ground coffee, but I believe that would make the already complicated grind and brew machine even less reliable than it already is. Update: the grind on the DGB-800 actually seems a bit more coarse than it was on the 650. I use twice as much coffee as recommended and a very dark roast and it's still very watery and diluted. I'm a fan of very fine almost espresso grinds to get the most flavor. I'm going back to the 650 because it seems to grind it just a little finer. Otherwise, the 800 was better in almost every way. Update: Amazon is hassling me about returning this. This product is really not great and Amazon does not like you returning it. I would buy something else.

This has been quite a journey, this is my third coffee maker and I couldn’t be happier with the result! But let me just tell you how I got here: First of all, I’m a Colombian woman who absolutely LOVES a good cup of coffee (I bring my own gourmet coffee from Colombia) so one morning I woke up as usual, got ready for work, went downstairs to make my coffee just to find out my coffee maker was broken!!!!! Don’t panic I had a French press ! Lol so anyways, I started my journey trying to find a good machine that had a built in grinder, so I order a cuisinart DGB550, tried it for a couple of times but I was extremely disappointed: the grinder would only hold 2 cups at a time, on top of that you have to take it a part every time to clean it before making a new cup, but the problem is that all the steam gets in to the grinder and make your beans wet and soggy making it impossible to use it multiple times. I requested a refund and sent it back. Then I found the Cuisinart DGB 800, I ordered it and received a refurbished machine!!! I could not believe it when I opened the box and the machine was dirty, scratched and clearly used before, so guess what? Yes! I had to send it back again and wait 3 more days! I finally got my new baby and I couldn’t be happier! This one holds up to half a pound of coffee beans, it self cleans, the steam never reaches the compartment and you have the option to choose the strength of the coffee and the amount of cups, the reservoir holds 12 cups. The coffee is always hot and fresh and the smell of fresh grounded coffee is just amazing! All I can say is that all the hustle was totally worth it! I super recommend this machine, just make sure you get what you paid for!

It’s a well made coffee brew/grinder combination. However, like many of the glass pot coffee makers on the market, the hot plate isn’t adjustable.

¡Me encantó! Tarde un poco en encontrar el punto exacto para mi café porque antes lo molía aparte. Pensaba que igual tenía que poner solo la cantidad que iba a moler pero no, hay que tener el suficiente café para que salga según lo deseado.

Have used several Cuisinart coffee machine and love the Cuisinart grind and brew options. The top compartment holds several cycles of beans. This one is simpler than the previous model because of the filter is one piece unlike the previous one with a wheel that had to be lined up. Auto timer works well and has a fill line on water tank for convenient filling. Grinds well and fresh coffee beans always tastes bolder than the coffee grounds option (which this machine will do with a button to turn off the grinder option)

ミル付き珈琲メーカー、なかなか使いやすいです。豆からでも、粉からでも、淹れたて美味しかったです。この製品、ガラスビーカー式なので洗いやすいところがよく、保存は別売の魔法瓶を使ってます。注文つけたい所は、引いた珈琲をドリップする時に、ミルの部分に蒸気が通る為に、水蒸気が溜まっていちいち拭き取らなければならない点が残念です。

Estoy muy satisfecho con esta cafetera. La calidad es excelente, el café se prepara rápidamente y el aroma al momento de hacerlo es delicioso. Su molino integrado garantiza frescura en cada taza. ¡Una gran compra para los amantes del buen café! El tiempo para hacer 10 tazas de agua es de 10 minutos aproximadamente, incluye el tiempo de moler el café.