Great coffee, fast and a thoughtful design
Written: Dec 09 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent coffee. Very user-friendly design. Sleek.
Cons: Bit pricey for a non-programmable model.
The Bottom Line: Excellent coffee. The user-friendly design and good looks round off a nice product.
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| msncookie's Full Review: Braun AromaDeluxe KF 550 10-Cup Coffee Maker |
This model (KF550) is referred to here as the "AromaDeluxe Time Control", however, that is actually the name for its more expensive counterpart (KF580) which includes a programmable digital clock. The picture shown is accurate, however. Clock aside, the two models should be functionally identical.
I've read the typical dichotomy of positive and negative reviews for this line, but thus far I've found myself with a great coffee maker that brews excellent coffee, fast. Some reviews have complained that it brews too fast and produces weak coffee as a result. That somewhat begs the questions, how much coffee do they use, what kind of filter, how fine a grind, etc.
I doubt there are two people in this world who like their coffee exactly the same way. The first time I tried this machine, the coffee did seem a tad weak. So the next time I simply ground the beans longer and consequently, got plenty of housework done that day. I don't find I need to use any more coffee than I did with my old machine to get enough strength. The finer grind seems to do the trick.
I'm a little paranoid of the gold filter for no particularly good reason, so I use decent quality Melita No 4 natural brown filters. I grind beans with a household grinder. The one-touch pop-out filter basket is nice, but even nicer is the flat-bottom basket design that sits on the counter without falling over. My old machine's pause-and-serve filter basket promptly toppled over on the counter which made adding coffee cumbersome.
The 2-hour auto shutoff is good peace of mind, and the included Brita water filter is simple to install. It looks like this line uses the same water filters as the older FlavorSelect models, so finding replacements shouldn't be a chore.
The rubberized carafe handle is another nice touch. It would have been nice if they made this a 12-cup machine instead of 10, but it's compact, and I probably entertain that many coffee drinkers about once in five years anyway.
This is a very nice machine. You do get what you pay for, so the higher price-per-feature ratio is worth it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
msncookie
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 1 member
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