Technivorm Moccamaster 53952 KBG, 10-Cup Coffee Maker, 40 oz, Sky Blue

If you love great coffee, buy this machine. When I say great coffee, I mean the kind of coffee you would expect and get from your favorite local coffee roaster/café or quality coffee shop (think Starbucks or Peet's, NOT the tasteless brown water that Dunkin' Donuts sells).I've wanted a Moccamaster since I first saw one and tasted the coffee it makes while a college student, way back in the 1980s. Owning one at the time was impractical and unattainable, so I moved on. Over the intervening thirty years, I've always lingered enviously over the store displays whenever I encountered them, but never made the plunge—the machine was just too expensive. That being said, I've owned the best coffee makers from Braun, Krups, Kitchen Aid, and Breville, all of which made decent coffee. In fact, the Breville made great coffee, although its cost was dangerously close the the Technivorm's. That machine was the no-longer-available  Breville BKC600XL Gourmet Single-Cup Coffee Brewer —the only Keurig system coffee maker the brewed hot enough for decent extraction. That machine lasted eight years, but finally shorted out due to perforation of the boiler element because of it's aluminum construction.WHAT DID I CONSIDER?I researched and considered buying two machines other than the Moccamaster: one from Breville, the  Breville BDC650BSS Grind Control, Silver , and one from Behmor:  Behmor Connected Temperature Control Coffee Maker . Both of these machines should make very good coffee, but I ultimately decided on the Moccamaster for several reasons, which I'll explain below. If the Moccamaster were't so much better, or not available, I think either of these machines would be a good option, but note that they're still expensive, so the choice was easy.WHY DID I CHOOSE THE TECHNIVORM MOCCAMASTER?1. Copper Heating Element—Almost all consumer coffee makers have aluminum heating elements. They will eventually corrode and short-circuit the machine. When this happens, cut the cord off and THROW IT AWAY. This assumes it's been plugged into a GFCI outlet. If it isn't, it will keep working despite the short. You're not only out of compliance with the local electrical code no matter where you live in the United States, but you're playing Russian roulette with your life. A copper element will heat virtually instantaneously, and it will last many years. Copper heating coils are customarily found in better espresso machines, and this quality feature sets the Moccamaster apart from the rest of the field.2. Replaceable Parts—The Moccamaster has a modular construction which makes most parts user-replaceable. Other parts, such as the copper boiler, switches, etc., will be replaced quickly and at minimal cost by Technivorm's US service facility after the warranty expires. The warranty is five years.3. Proper Brewing Temperature and Extraction Time—Good coffee require HOT, but not boiling, water. Most coffee makers just don't heat the water enough. The copper element in a Moccamaster heats the water to 196–205º, and has optimal flow-through for the best extraction. This results in coffee that is rich but not overpowering, with a "thick" body and smooth mouthfeel, and no sediment or separation.4. Optimal Hotplate Temperature and Duration—Coffee should be kept at ±180º. A Moccamaster hot plate can be set to warm at either 175º, or 185º for those who prefer it hot. Every other machine's coffee will taste lukewarm to you after you use this machine. The hotplate switches off after 100 minutes, preventing burned coffee. If you need to warm it up again, just turn the machine on again. When the water tank is empty, a float switch prevents the water heater from engaging, so only the hot plate will come on.5. Made the Way Things Used to Be Made—Technivorm has made these machines since 1964 with the same solid build quality, by hand, while incorporating improvements in materials and technology over time. The body is heavy-gauge extruded aluminum, and plastic parts are quality cast and attractive, with perfect fit and finish. I agree, in this price range one would expect some of the plastic to be heavier, or possibly the water tank be made of glass, but the plastic is toxin-free and unbreakable. Other parts are glass, rubber, and stainless steel. The heavy, removable, stainless steel showerhead has nine holes, which evenly bathe the grounds with hot water at the optimal rate of flow. Every part of the machine is recyclable, and the packaging is recycled corrugated cardboard, making it a champion of sustainability. The old-fashioned, heavy-duty rocker switches are the only adjustable controls. I'm as avid a technology geek as you can find, but perfect coffee means making it when you want it, which means timers, clocks and other electronic wizardry just shouldn't be part of the equation. Water will lose its oxygen and start going stale within two hours, and coffee will lose vital aroma within thirty minutes of being ground, so setting things up the night before to awaken to the smell of coffee guarantees you a mediocre cup.In any case, this machine is FAST—faster than you've ever experienced. An entire 10-cup (1.25 liter) pot takes just under five minutes. Enough for a large thermal travel mug (4 cups on the water indicator), takes two minutes. The copper heating element is so oversized and efficient that the water will begin boiling and percolating up the glass tube in about five-ten seconds—you have to see it to believe it. A slick an old-fashioned feature is how the power switch physically rocks back to the off position after 100 minutes rather than the power just being cut off. It also features an orange neon-looking, but I assume LED, power indicator.BOTTOM LINEIt's expensive. But consider that it's made by hand, over-engineered, parts are replaceable, and it's manufactured in the Netherlands by people earning a fair wage. Other machines are manufactured in Chinese, Mexican, or southeast-Asian factories alongside many other brands and models at a low cost with inferior materials. They are then marked up many times because the market will bear the inflated price. This coffee maker not only has superior build quality, but like other American- and European-made goods, the price is dictated by the cost of manufacturing, not excessive markup. I chose the copper finish to treat myself after waiting thirty years, but you can save up to $40 by choosing silver aluminum, and there are many painted and anodized colors available at different price points. The machine has two separate heaters with discreet circuitry, so when the water is done boiling, the coil switches off and the hotplate switches on much more durable and efficient.HOW DO I MAKE PERFECT COFFEE?1. Buy Whole Beans—Buy the best you can, from a reputable supplier. Resist the urge to buy your coffee pre-ground unless you're making a lot of it for a large event or party in a coffee urn. Coffee flavor and aroma degrades quickly after grinding.2. Use A Burr Grinder—A conical burr grinder won't overheat the beans and burn the coffee like a cheap blade grinder will. It will also make the grind uniform, allowing the best and most consistent extraction. My grinder of choice is from Kitchen Aid:  KitchenAid KCG0702OB Burr Coffee Grinder, Onyx Black . Mine has been going strong even after over ten years of daily use. Use the "6" setting for a Moccamaster or any other drip coffeemaker.3. Weight, Not Volume—Just as in baking it's preferable to weigh dry ingredients rather than use measuring cups for the most exact portions, coffee should be weighed. Your chosen grind fineness, humidity, barometric pressure, and other factors make using a spoon very inconsistent. Use 14 grams of whole beans for each 8 ounces of water. This means 7 grams for each cup marking on a Moccamaster, since they use the European standard of 4-oz. cups of coffee. Grind the beans right before you put them in the filter basket.4. Speaking of Filters…—I was always a firm believer in gold-plated stainless steel mesh filters. They last forever and there's no waste or mess. Technivorm specifically reccomends against them, and so I was skeptical. I bought a good quality #4 mesh filter separately and made two pots, one with the reusable filter and one with a paper filter supplied with the machine. There was no comparison. A paper filter is designed to give the best filtration and optimal steeping time. Buy #4 filters made from bleached white paper. The brown ones give the coffee a taste and aroma overtone faintly reminiscent of cardboard, and the bamboo filters may be sustainable, but they make coffee almost as bad as the metal mesh filters. No need to use Technivorm filters; a box of 100 white Melitta #4 filters will cost you about $3.50 at any grocery store.5. Measure the Water—Don't use the carafe to pour water into the tank. Use a clean glass or cup or other container. If your tap water is sweet and soft and doesn't smell like chlorine, go ahead and use it. If you have hard water or smell anything when you turn the faucet on, use filtered or bottles water. DO NOT use distilled water. Minerals are necessary for good coffee for taste, aroma, and pH. I live in an area blessed with some of the purest reservoir water in the world, but I use water from my refrigerator dispenser for purity and consistency. Plus, cold water works better than room temperature or warm water. The filtration means better-tasting coffee and longer burner life, with more cycles between descaling.This machine makes coffee as good as any I have ever had in a fine restaurant or craft coffeehouse. Buy it and enjoy it. Technivorm says a Moccamaster should be the last coffee maker you'll ever buy, and I believe them.Rereading this review, I've realized that I've practically written a marketing piece. I'd like to make clear that I have no proverbial axe to grind. I'm not affiliated in any way with the manufacturer or any vendor, and I haven't received any sort of compensation from anyone. I waited decades to buy this machine, and I wish I had done it sooner.

Why on God's green earth would you spend this much money on a coffee maker?That's the question I was asking myself right before hitting the "Buy Now With 1-Click (r)" button. And two days later, I understood why.The simplicity of this coffee maker makes it a joy to use, the beautiful design makes it a unique piece in your kitchen. However, the taste of the coffee far exceeds what I was getting from our previous coffee maker. The temperature is consistent, and it's a HOT cop of coffee.If you are like us and spend good money on quality beans (we use Charleston Coffee Roaster's Dark Roast), you owe it to yourself to use a machine that will get the most out of your money. Sure it's expensive, but you are spending more than that already on beans I bet!I give it 5 stars only because I cannot give it 10...

I wanted to not like this because I am not a coffee snob. I just got tired of spending $40+ every 18 months to buy a new coffee maker so I decided to try and find something with replaceable parts. I found this, read millions of reviews, bought it grudgingly, and then watched in fascination as the water went through the middle tube thing and brewed my first pot of Moccamaster coffe. Then this crazy thing happened...my coffee was good. REALLY good. Is it the placebo effect of spending this much money on a coffee maker? I don't know and I don't care. Just get in my belly.

The media could not be loaded.  This is a work in progress and in all fairness the people at Moccamaster have been nice, concerned and responsive.So I will update this again when the issue is resolved.. or not.I was impressed with the quality as far as it goes, when i set it up it seemed to work great, but when I went to remove the old grounds I noticed the grounds on the right side were dry. So then I kept the filter cover off to watch the outlet arm theoretically distribute the hot water evenly over the grounds. But as you'll see the water only came out of the first 2 of the 9 holes. I called Moccamaster, again very nice very concerned and their first thought was my counter was not level. Well, I happen to have a very precise level and my counter was absolutely dead level. I then put a level on the base of the machine and it was level. I then put one on the top of the outlet arm and it was a full 1/2 bubble off. The customer service people sent me a new outlet arm and it looked better, just 1/3 bubble off level. But still not enough to get the hot water past the first couple holes. I'm curiouscurrent owners when you watch a typical brew cycle for a minute does hot water flow evenly out of all the holes in the outlet arm??? Honestly to me it seems that the holes are so large that its unlikely they flow out of the last holes as well as the first. Possibly a design flaw. Maybe the nearer holes should be smaller and the further out holes should be larger. Keep in mind there will be an initial blast of tepid water with the first perk. This is because the cooler water in the glass tube isn't boiling but being forced up by the boiling water below it. That first perk has a larger volume of water than the remaining perks, the initial blast on mine does reach the far side of the outlet arm but none of the perks after that.Update 2-27-17 they saw my video and confirmed there was an issue, they have asked me to send them my unit and they are sending me a new one.Update 3-21-17 Once again the folks at Moccamaster were very nice and responsive, they acknowledged the issue shown in my video and I received the new unit, it may be slightly better than the first one but after now watching two units function its clear to me there is a basic and kinda dumb design flaw. The outlet arm has so many large holes in it that only the first 3 really flow water. the remaining holes seldom show any discharge of hot water...maybe a drop occasionally. Do not think the first perk with its higher volume of tepid water is typical of the rest of the perks. The coffee is not beig brewed by this high volume low temp initial blast of water. its being brewed by the subsequent high temp perks of boiling water. Why with all this thought and hand assembled engineering wouldn't they make the first few holes smaller. or have less of them so that every perk sprayed/distributed hot water evenly over the grounds like a Bunn or Cuisinart or many other mid level coffee makers. i'll bet most folks who have given this 5 stars never really tuned into how it really functions.

This coffee maker makes excellent coffee, and I can offer some comparison with other SCAA certified brewers, namely the Bonavita 1900 and the KitchenAid Pour over KCM0801.These brewers typically brew at higher temperatures to get optimum extraction of the coffee. However slight variations will give either excellent or average results depending on the roast. For example, the Bonavita I had (and returned) simply brewed too hot and even most medium roast beans tasted burnt and bitter. The Moccamaster brews slightly lower, and the KitchenAid a bit lower than that.The KitchenAid works a little differently than the other machines, in that it cycles between heating the water and distributing on the grounds. This gives optimal extraction and a very delicious cup for most medium to medium-dark roasts, and seems to be calibrated for that. Using Kicking Horse 3 Sisters gave a very full bodied and smooth brew, and this was my go-to for this machine. I would have kept this machine, however I broke the carafe and a replacement from KitchenAid would have cost as much as I had paid for the machine!The Moccamaster using the same beans gives a much stronger brew, tasting more like a dark roast, but not bitter. This machine does deliver a superb cup with medium to light roasts.Some tips I have learned using the Moccamaster:The water distributor arm is not the best design. I found mine was not level and water only came out of the back hole and didn't properly soak the grounds. This was an easy fix with felt sticky things under one side of the machine. However the nice people at Moccamaster have dispatched a replacementRinse your filter and preheat the machine by running 500 ml water through it. I use the resulting hot water to preheat my thermos mug.Start with 60g of coffee for 1 litre of water and adjust your grind until you hit the sweet spot. Generally I find that finer grinds work best for medium to light roasts, and going coarser for darker roasts. Use the same ratio for smaller or larger pots, e.g. 30g for 500ml water, or 45g for 750ml water.When the machine starts brewing, stir the grounds after 15-20 seconds.This Moccamaster model does not have the manual brew stopper like the other Moccamasters, which is a useful feature for brewing smaller pots. I just leave out the carafe and let the grounds steep for a minute before placing it (don't walk away, the basket will overflow!). Also going a bit finer can slow things down enough to get optimum extraction. Brew time should be 5-6 minutes no matter how much water you use.This seems like a lot of fiddling for an "automatic" machine, and course you can set everything up cold and walk away and still get an excellent pot of coffee. But if you want mindblowingly amazing coffee, follow these steps!Is this machine worth the extra dosh? If you consider it is built to last, that it is user serviceable and replacement parts are inexpensive, and the 5 year warranty, it will probably be the last coffee maker you will buy. If you prefer this approach rather than buying machines that only last a couple a years and are thrown away, then the Moccamaster represents excellent value.My only quibble is the water outlet arm seems to be less than optimally designed and could be improved.

I purchased the stone gray KBG with the glass carafe and auto drip-stop to replace my 20+ year old Mr. Coffee Accl that was still in operation! The color looks classy and I was surprised that the unit took up less counter space than my old brewer, though it is a touch taller. I haven’t experienced any of the major issues other reviewers report, such as water not trickling from all the spray arm holes or the grounds basket overflowing, but I’m also not packing the basket with grounds either. The lack of automated features and abundance plastic lids didn’t bother me too much as my previous Mr. Coffee was similar in form and function.Potential buyers should be aware that these various parts are not dishwasher safe, so you’ll be hand washing if you care about longevity. The carafe is a bit thin and light. I found that my pot was already showing some small chips and light scratches on the bottom and around the lip after just a few weeks of normal use. Part of this is probably due to the fact that the pot only fits into the compartment in one direction, and even pushing it in that way often results in bumping it on the edge of the hotplate. These are minor issues to be sure, but worth mentioning nonetheless.All in all, the Technivorm brews a nice cup of filter coffee - nothing sour, nothing overly bitter or burnt. Expect to get about 4 to 4.5 “American”-size mugs out of the full 10-cup European-sized pot. This is fine for me since I usually brew only two mugs in the morning (filling about half the pot), but you might consider getting a larger capacity machine if you know you need 12-mug pots on demand.If I’m being honest as a Seattle native who has had his fair share of coffee, the coffee from this machine is good, but nothing earth-shattering. My sense is that certain drinkers *might* be able to taste a bit more of the subtle nuances of the beans / roast if they have a sensitive palate. But, for others, like my girlfriend, you may not notice much of a difference from conventional machines at all. I had assumed that the finished cup would be piping hot given the copper heating element, but I found the resulting brew to be happily drinkable and similar in temp to my previous maker. Though, be warned that it does heat up considerably if left on the hot plate, particularly on the high setting. One minor issue is that escaping steam near the handle of the carafe has the potential to burn your hands when pouring, particularly if the coffee has sat on the hot plate for a while.I have no major complaints with the Moccamaster so far. It makes a nice cup of coffee simply and consistently. Will it change your life? Probably not. Is it worth the ~$300 USD / ~$400 CAD price tag? Again, I would say probably not, but it is still a nice machine to have in your kitchen if you are a drip coffee drinker.

I am a french press kind of person but with 2 kids under 3 the french press became a pain in the morning so I sought out the best drip coffee maker I could. I got the Moccamaster with the hotplate because I cannot stand lukewarm coffee and, after a lot of research, determined that even the best drip machines that use carafes can't keep coffee hot for very long at all.People say the hotplate detracts from the flavour - that may be true but not within the first half hour or so which is when I need it to stay hot while running around after toddlers. This machine is great - I have only had it for a couple of months but I love it. It makes wonderful smooth, hot coffee, very quickly. It is incredibly simple to clean and it looks awesome (I got the bright orange model to jazz up my modern kitchen). It costs a lot of money - that is the only downside. But so far I have no regrets.

Only had this machine for a month, and so far it works fine. It does come apart easily in order to rinse and clean the necessary parts.The durability seems to me that it will be good in the future. As far as value for the money, I personally don't think it's worth almost $500 Canadian. I get that it's assembled by hand in the Netherlands, but I don't think the quality of the brewed coffee is that much better than our $100 Cuisinart coffee maker. It definitely is better tasting brewed coffee, just not $400 better.

- Very good coffee - gets the most out of whatever coffee you buy- Convenience is not its strong suit - carafe is small and seems to spill easily but it does have the auto-stop feature and it brews (admittedly a small carafe) VERY quickly- Very well built - and attractive- We like that it lacks annoying beeps to tell us when the coffee is ready- Vendor is strong - good communications, fast shipping, and well-packed.On balance, this is worth the price for those who like good coffee