Now that I wake up at 4 AM for an hour commute, great tasting coffee has become an essential component of my morning routine. When I set out to purchase a new coffee maker, I knew that I wanted fresh ground coffee, but I had heard so many negative things about brew and grind coffee makers. Despite this, I was ecstatic when I found a refurbished Cuisinart DGB-500 coffee maker at a kitchen closeout store for next to nothing. I figured the great deal would allow me to see if this coffee maker would be a good fit for my routine.

Aesthetically, the Cuisinart DGB-500 has a simple, pleasing design. The profile is smooth. The 12-cup glass carafe fits snugly into the maker. The white color blends well in my kitchen, which has white molding and oak cabinets. The machine is rather big and bulky. It takes up a fair amount of precious counter space, perhaps more than I was willing to part with. The pot is tall and may not fit under lower hung cabinets.

Operating this coffee machine can be frustrating. First, the instructions for installing the included charcoal filter were lacking, but intuitive enough for me to figure out with a little trial and error. The water reservoir is designed poorly. At 5' 2", I need a step stool to figure out how many cups of water I've poured into the reservoir. This is just plain annoying.

The coffee grinder was easy to pull out and fill with coffee beans. It fits easily into its place and is easy to clean. Unfortunately, the coffee grinder tends to spit coffee grinds out all over the coffee maker, not just into the filter area. This makes a mess and gets grinds into the actual coffee pot. Making 4-cup pots seems to ease this problem, but only because of the fewer beans.

The coffee filter area is pretty neat. It has a pop-out/swing-out drawer that contains a removable black basket. I wish that this drawer could be removed from its hinges. This would make cleaning the extraneous coffee grinds easier. I have a small hand and it is hard for me to reach in and clean the loose grounds out.

The buttons on the coffee maker are not very intuitive. My first few times setting the program timer, it did not work. The directions do not help with the operation either. I like being able to choose 1-4 cup brewing.

On first taste, the coffee brewed with this pot tasted excellent. The drink was not scalding hot, for which I was grateful. The coffee indeed tasted better than my old coffee maker. On the downside, sure, it is good to have freshly ground/brewed coffee on demand, but the grinder could wake the dead. It sounds like an airplane engine! I was able to hear the coffee grinder from my bedroom, in the middle of deep sleep, and through 4 walls! Needless to say, you are more likely to be woken not by the smell of fresh coffee, but to the sound of an airplane taking off.

While this machine makes great tasting java, the cons far outweigh the pros for this machine. Coffee grinds aren't something I choose to mix with my morning drink, but the grinder has a tendency to spray grinds all over the machine. Because of this, it is hard to clean up. The control panel is confusing. Above all, the grinder is loud enough to wake the dead (or just the dead asleep). I'm glad I didn't waste too much money on this product because I won't feel guilty if I decide to replace it.

Recommended: No