Cuisinart DGB-800 Fully Automatic Burr Grind & Brew, 12-Cup Glass, Silver

I just ordered this coffee maker as a replacement for an older model. So I guess this review is primarily about the older model. I have had it forever, I want to say 14+ years. Yes at lease fourteen beautiful coffee drinking years. I have LOVED the coffee maker and the quality of coffee it made. I will say initially there was a learning curb as I did not read my directions very well. The coffee shute did plug up and I had to switch to pre ground coffee. Once I learned that I had to remove all beans and remove the tray and lift the little door and use a knife and dig out all the compacted fine grinds. Boy did it ever work well after that. Of course there was a blinking light to clean the Shute but I ignored it until I was told how to do it. I also religiously used white vinegar to descale the maker every month and then run two cycles of water. I have well water. I also changed the water filter monthly. I think that is why I had the long beautiful life with my previous machine. The death happened last week when I tried to make coffee in the morning. I has cleaned it the day before. It ground beans perfectly then click click click no water. So with that I said goodbye to my beloved machine and ordered a newer model. I read very mixed reviews about this maker and similar models and I personally like a machine that holds a good amount of beans. I also really like the water filter. So here we are and the only thing I would change about the machine is I would magically make the warming plate a little hotter. I have noticed that the first cup is hot but not hot hot hot. I usually drink it fast and then my second cup it hot hot. I think the key to long life is to clean the machine regularly with a descaling agent (I like white vinegar) and changing the water filter. Oh and clean the Shute.

There are some negative reviews for this DGB-800 but all I can do is review it in comparison to the Krups. It is easier to setup, grinds faster and more quietly, brews in a similar time, and makes more and stronger coffee.You need to use decent quality filters of the correct size. If you happen to have some dirt cheap ones you got at the dollar store lying around, well those probably aren't the 10-12 cup size this requires. If we use cheap filters it overflows slightly. If we use Bunn filters it works fine with no overflowing issues. I guess the Bunn filters hold their shape more when wet, allowing coffee to drain down faster.Are there things I'd like to see different? The water filling flap is narrow, not too narrow, but they could have come up with a better geometry to make it easier to fill without spilling. The coffee reservoir is very wide and shallow, I'd prefer it taller and not covering most of the top of the machine. A regular shape would be nice too, then I could make a two pound extension like I did for the Krups. I don't like having to refill the bean reservoir every few times I make coffee, the beans are no worse off in the machine than in the bag.Definitely an upgrade.

UPDATE - This is a poorly made piece of junk. Since the review written below, coffee maker #2 broke with the same problem coffee maker #1 arrived with. I did a warranty exchange and got coffee maker #3, which eventually started grinding the same amount of beans regardless of setting and now will not brew at all. Three coffee makers, all broken despite being maintained properly. Not even 1 year. Next time I'm just buying a basic drip coffee maker and decent grinder.I'd normally have given this 4 stars but I ran into some quality control issues that isn't really acceptable for a fairly expensive coffee maker. I bought this to replace an existing all in one burr grinder coffee maker that had started giving up the ghost.When I first attempted brew a pot, the coffee maker didn't do anything other than hum and a couple drops of water dripped out. I thought maybe the burr grinder was jammed so I emptied the hopper and tried my best to get all the beans out of the grinder. Here's the first design problem - there's no way to really access the grinder in any meaningful fashion. If it's jammed, you're SOL, you can't get anything in there to clear it. Maybe it was jammed, maybe it wasn't. I have no idea.I kept trying to get it to work, and the coffee maker refused to even attempt to grind. It would keep alerting me that I hadn't cleared the basket from the previous attempt... but it was empty and I had opened and closed it multiple times. Attempts to just run a basic no-grind drip and maybe force a reset were met with the same sort of hum as if it was still trying to grind. I gave up, returned it, and got a replacement. This really annoyed me especially considering my previous coffee maker also required replacement (twice in fact) when I first got it.Coffee maker number 2, I ran a basic no-grind, no-coffee cycle to just flush out the system as suggested in the manual. That ran fine, and then I attempted to make a normal grind. Because I hadn't opened the basket between the flush and my attempt to make coffee, it refused to grind with it thinking the basket had not been emptied. Again, as suggested by the directions, I stopped the cycle opened the basket, reseated it, closed it and tried again. It still refused to grind. It was stuck in a state of thinking the basket was full. I tried many combinations reseating the basket, but nothing worked. I finally got it to work after resorting to unplugging and plugging it back in. Which brings up design issue #2 - there's no way to override what it thinks its state is. You can't just say "do it anyway". That's a relatively minor issue provided that a power cycle always resets it.So now it's been working fine. How does it work in normal operation? It's acceptable.Pros: 12 cup capacity is nice, and the hopper is decently sized. Grinder is also relatively quiet for an inexpensive burr grinder.Con: This is a big one for me, and what knocks a star off - you can't adjust the fineness of the grind. The coffee I like tastes best when it's more finely ground than the grinder is set to. That means I have to set the grind amount higher than the number of cups I'm making. So if I'm making 10 cups, I have to set the grind to 12 cups. I feel like I'm just wasting coffee when I could use less coffee if I could set a finer grind.This would be a really great coffee maker if you could just set the grind fineness.

I had the previous cuisinart grind and brew coffee maker and I loved it for9 years. This new edition of grind and brew cusinart coffee maker is near perfect. I did find it has a clock that gains about a minute a day so I returned it and got a second one and it too has a clock that runs fast. Rather than keep returning it I just reset the clock about every two weeks. I’ll set it about five minutes behind real time then when it gains enough to be 5 minutes ahead of real time I go and reset it again. It’s irritating but other than that it grinds and brews excellent coffee.

First, this coffee maker makes great coffee. The beans are evenly grinded and flavor is maximized. Second, the strength button and the number of cups knob allows you to easily adjust your brew to your tastes. Third, it is easy to keep clean. Sure the grinder is noisy but all are. It’s no worse than others. Lastly, the design is clean and good looking.