reviewer
MrChiGuy
Oak Park, IL

A truly great coffee maker

5 star rating

practical, picking up after pets, married
Pros

    Fast brewing, Consistent flavor, Solidly built, Can use your own coffee

Cons
    Pricey

JUN
14
2008

Breville Breville BKC600XL Stainless Steel Coffee Maker — 

My wife and I make coffee all the time, but seldom do we drink an entire pot. We had a Cuisinart Grind and Brew and found that we were wasting coffee most of the time. The single-cup coffee makers have been around for quite some time now, but nothing we have seen compares to the Breville.

This machine uses the K-Cup system, for which coffee, tea and hot chocolate cups are widely available. One K-Cup makes one cup, mug or travel mug size beverage. The nice thing about K-Cups is that there is no cleaning required. Just pop in the K-Cup, brew your beverage, and then throw the K-Cup away. The coffee maker stays clean. The K-Cups are available from many brick and mortar merchants, such as Linen's 'n Things, and Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are also available online at places like Amazon.com. For an idea of the cost, you can purchase 50 coffee K-Cups on Amazon.com for $20, which is 40 cents a cup.

This is a well-made machine that weighs in at about 17 pounds. It is constructed of high quality stainless steel with a die-cast locking arm. The reservoir has a replaceable filter and holds enough water to make about 10 cups. Two blue LEDs illuminate the reservoir so you can always see how much water it contains.

The LCD display is large and backlit in blue with very easy to navigate menus. Controls for selecting your cup size and starting the brew cycle are just below the LCD and are also illuminated in blue. The LCD provides information and instructions, which include telling you when to refill the reservoir, when to open the K-Cup chamber, and when the machine is ready to brew.

The blue illumination is always on when the machine is turned on, and only the clock stays visible in the LCD display when the machine is off.

You can program the machine to come on and brew at a specified time and to turn off at a specified time. While the machine is on, the brew temperature is constantly maintained so you can have a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate on a moment's notice.

It takes only a couple minutes for the water to reach brewing temperature and about 30 seconds to brew an average size cup.

Other options include setting the brewing temperature, but I am perfectly happy with the defaults that came with the machine.

One of the most valuable options of this machine is called
the "My K-Cup" which allows you to use your own coffee or tea instead of the pre-packaged K-Cups. Tucked into the top of the machine under a spring-loaded lid is the "My K-Cup" holder and a coffee scoop. Just dump a scoop of your favorite ground coffee into the machine-washable My K-Cup filter, pop the entire assembly in place of the K-Cup holder, and brew away.

I found that from the very first cup, brewed from either a pre-packaged K-Cup or from my own coffee in the My K-Cup, this machine has brewed as perfect a cup of coffee as I have had from a consumer coffee machine. I use it to brew directly into a travel mug every morning so I can enjoy coffee on my way to work. My wife and I now enjoy coffee more often, and the flavor is always predictable and consistent. We are no longer wasting coffee by making a pot that we do not finish.

I never thought I would spend this much on a coffee maker, but this is definitely a case where you get what you pay for. We hope to have this machine for a very long time.

Last edited on Jun 14, 2008



I_thumb_up Breville Breville BKC600XL Stainless Steel Coffee Maker is recommended by MrChiGuy

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