Pretty but cleaning grinder is a daily chore

I bought the 700 model last weekend after reading reviews of the model with the carafe (900 model I believe). Since I tend to drink coffee over the course of a few hours, I decided I’d rather have a burner to keep the coffee warm rather than have to use microwave every time I wanted a warm cup. My old pot finally bit the dust and since I grind beans every day, I decided I'd rather buy an all-in-one machine this time.

The first thing I did was watch the short video on how to use the machine. I popped the DVD into my laptop and had it playing while I unpacked and inspected the parts. I ran a pot of fresh water through the machine as suggested and readied it for my first pot the next morning.

The instructions say to adjust the grind control for the number of cups you are brewing and the strength of coffee (mild, medium or strong). Unless you like really strong coffee, you are in for a rude awakening. I put the strength control on for 12 cups and put it on mild. I know I like my coffee a little more mild than most brew houses so I figured this would be OK. Wow, talk about some sludge! OK, not really but it was very strong. It used almost an entire hopper of beans (1/2 lb.) for one pot and the basket was nearly overflowing with grounds. So the next day, I changed the grind selector to 4 cups but that was too weak. I’ve settled on the 6 cup Medium strength for a 12-cup pot and this seems to fit my liking. Just beware that it could take several pots before you find the strength selection that suits your taste. Also note that the cup selector does not have any bearing on how much water is used from the reservoir. If you only want 4 cups of coffee, only put 4 cups in the reservoir. If you put in 12 cups of water and select 4 cups on the grind selector, it grinds beans for 4 cups and uses all the water in the reservoir. This is great if you're like me and only want it to use beans for 6 cups but brew 12 cups of coffee.

The things that I’m not so fond of so far include the fact that the reservoir is at the back of the coffee pot behind the bean hopper. The machine is very tall so when it’s sitting on the counter, I have to pull it all the way to the edge and turn it at an angle in order to fill it (and when it gets to the bottom of the pot, I have to stand on my tippy-toes in order to lift the pot high enough to drain it all). I’m about 5ֹ” so I’m not tall and if I could get my husband to make the coffee this wouldn’t be such a problem. Also for years I’ve been using an under-cabinet mounted pot that has a removable water reservoir that just slides in so I haven’t had to pour water into a coffee pot for many years. If you’re short though, you might want to consider using a step-stool.

Secondly, the shoot that leads from the bean grinder into the basket really has to be cleaned daily (not sure how the previous reviewer gets away with doing it only once ever couple of weeks). Ground beans like to stick to each other although this seems a bit excessive to me. I'm wondering if the seal between the basket and grinder is letting some moisture through. I didn’t clean it one day and the next day the coffee was really week. Turns out that a lot of the ground beans didn’t make it to the basket due to the previous day’s build up. This wouldn't be such a big deal except that in order to clean this out, you have to remove the bean hopper. The whole point of the large bean hopper to me was so you didn’t have to mess with it constantly. But every day after I put the water in, I have to open the bean hopper, unlock it, put the lid back on so I don’t spill the bean that are in there, set the bean hopper aside, clean out the bean chute, put the hopper back on, open the lid, lock it into place and replace the lid. Doesn’t seem to save me any time over having a separate grinder and coffee pot which was one of my main reasons for buying this machine.

Thirdly, the basket doesn’t seem to drain completely. Every time I take the filter or basket out, the beans are still pretty wet and there’s some water/coffee in the bottom that never drained into the pot. I’m not sure why because the pot usually sits there for a few hours before I dump the beans and I would think it would have time to drain completely.

The going price seems to be $169.99 at most stores. I purchased the machine at Kohl’s. All their kitchen appliances were on sale 15% off and I had a coupon for another 15% off so I got it for about $123.

I won’t restate the parts (please read the previous review). The only thing I am concerned about it where to get the water filters. It comes with one but I haven’t exactly seen replacements at the store; although I haven’t specifically looked for them. Hopefully they aren’t terribly expensive either.

The grinder is noisy but what grinder isn’t? Plus, you don’t actually have to stand next to this and press the button while it grinds so to me, it’s actually less noisy.