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best grind and brew coffemaker?

14 years ago

We are looking for a grind and brew coffee maker, but we have one specific condition: we don't want to have to measure the beans before grinding. We currently have the Cuisinart DBM-8 stand alone grinder and a Cuisinart coffee maker. We go through coffee reasonably quickly so as long as we have freshly roasted beans we can get away with basically 'storing them' in our current grinder and then we just grind as much as we need each morning. We have found that if we set the grinder to "6" and add in water up to the '6' in the carafe we get good coffee. We basically want this feature in the new machine but we want the grinder and coffee maker to be combined. We just want to be able to dump the beans in the top and then, when we are ready to make coffee measure out water, pour in, push a button for the number of cups and let the machine decide how much to grind. I may be wrong, but the machine my mother has will grind ALL the beans that you add so you have to measure the beans and I can never make good coffee at her house. Maybe it's only her machine but my impression is that most grind and brews are like my mother's. Please correct me if I'm wrong - since that opens up our options!

Currently we are looking at the Capresso 464.05 CoffeeTeam GS 10-Cup Digital Coffeemaker. Does anyone have this machine or any other recommendations?

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Comments (2)

weissman
14 years ago
You're better off getting a separate grinder. The combined machines don't usually give you control over the grind and are difficult to clean. The "convenience" you get when brewing is lost when it comes to cleaning.
mrblandings
14 years ago
If you absolutely must have a grind-and-brew combo, the Capresso at least has a burr grinder rather than a blade-style bean chopper. And Capresso is also highly rated for having higher (i.e. better) water temperature relative to many other brands.

On the downside, the built-in grinder is adequate but not great, though it's probably comparable in quality to your Cuisinart grinder. A better quality burr grinder, such as a Capresso Infinity or a Baratza Maestro, would improve your coffee, but you won't find find a grinder of that quality in any grind-and-brew combo.
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