KitchenAid Drip Coffee Maker, 12 Cup, Matte Grey

Pros:

– Hot brewing temperature. Seems to be right at the 200 deg. F sweet spot.
– Removable water tank
– Decent pour spout (much better than previous KitchenAid models)
– Auto brew timer
– 12 cup carafe
– Spiral spray head. Gets good coverage on grounds. I find I can add quite alot of grounds without them being sprayed outside of the filter.
– The lid is well designed so that, when you lift it up, moisture on the spray heads is diverted down into the filter basket. Some coffee makers just let it drip everywhere.

Cons:

– Warmer shuts off after 2 hours, and you can’t turn it back on (unless you know the secret workaround – which is to put about 1 cup of water in the tank and start the brew cycle again. You have to trick it into thinking it brewed another pot). Seems like KitchenAid went out of their way to make this annoying by not allowing you to simply turn the coffee maker back on. That’s lame KitchenAid.

– Cone filter has a little handle on it for pulling it out. It’s more annoying than helpful. You have to hold it out of the way when dumping the old filter. Otherwise, the filter drops right into it and slings old grounds everywhere.

For me the pros far outweigh the cons, so I’m pretty happy. Though someone at KitchenAid needs to be slapped for not making it easier to turn the warmer back on.

I absolutely love this coffee maker. My last KitchenAid lasted over 10 years. This one has great functions. It has a 2 hr warming timer to let you know how much time is left on your coffee before it turns off automatically. The controls are dummy proof. There’s no specific carbon filters you have to buy for this guy, just do your normal clean cycle when the time comes. It does take a #4 paper filter, but you can use the gold strainer if you have a more coarse bean. Definitely happy with my buy!!

Year Year Review:
Still like everything about this pot, highly recommend.
..
Two Month review, what we’ve learned. This is an above average coffee maker. We have owned everything from Mr. Coffee to Cuisinart.
Removable water reservoir – Nice lift handle to remove and replace. Lid is an exact fit, tilt it up just a bit and it will sit right in place. Easy to clean.
Basket – Use the lift ring to put the basket back in place, it will line up perfect and drop in place, it does not like the get close and release method.
Pot – No plastic taste others reported, but we did run the clean cycle before first use, read the manual for cleaning instructions, cleaning proportion was a surprise vs. other brewers.
Daily Cleaning – No issues for us, let the pot cool down, one drop of dawn, sprayer used to mix up dawn/water then a wash rag around and around, pot is as clean as the day purchased.
Cleaning – an icon will lite up after 100 brews to clean the appliance, use the manual. We really like this feature. In the past we did our best to remember to clean the brewer once a month…most of the time we remembered. 🙂
Alarm – When the bottom is pressed to set the alarm to brew based on the alarm time, it will display the alarm clock time for about ten seconds, this allows you to review the am/pm (who hasn’t gotten that wrong after resetting time after a power outage). The alarm is in edit mode so making adjustments is easy pease.
Pot – Oversized spout is GREAT helps prevent the drool/drips on the counter when the pot is full.
Burner – It is oversized but not greatly just enough to allow for expansion and contraction, brewer this is replacing was an exact fit after six months of use, the pot no longer sits flat on the burner, pot will not stay warm.
Reheat – if you drink coffee most or all of the day, the two-hour keep warm timer with auto shut off that most brewers have can be a pain. This brewer shows a count down, nice, very nice feature. Important note!! This brewer is engineered to monitor for no water in the heating “pipes” and it will auto shut off to prevent damage to the heater/burner etc. At first this was a pain, a real turn off, thought about returning the product. Then I got to thinking, what was the problem with previous brewers, they start leaking or the warmer burns out….Hmm…To avoid the auto shut off mentioned above…before turning the warmer back on because you still have half a pot to drink, add about a finger of water (1/2” ??) to the water reservoir. This is not enough to change the taste of the current pot but its enough to fill the “pipes” and the timer will set for another two hours.
Beep – Yes it beeps when it is ready and when the warming timer runs out and it turns off. Nope don’t think there is a way to disable it. If there is absolutely no noise in the house and doors/windows are closed, I can hear it in the next room, but not two rooms away where my home office is. In fact, it is quieter than others we have owned. I like hearing the beep ten minutes before its time to get, I wake with a smile on my face knowing the coffee is ready.

I have been very happy with this coffee maker. It is easy to use, looks great, and makes good coffee. The timer on the hot plate is a great feature so that I don’t have to worry about forgetting to turn it off.

Previous coffee maker died. My house drinks a lot of coffee. 2 pots a day easy. This works perfect and looks perfect. Love the removable water thing to fill up. Easily the best coffee machine to grace my halls so far.