Cuisinart DGB-300 Automatic Grind & Brew 10-Cup Coffeemaker

by Cuisinart

Product Features

• Preset grinder, LCD clock/programmable timer
• variable auto shut-off, coffee bar flavor system
• swing out filter basket w/removable liner, removable grinder/filter basket
• ready tone, brew pause, gold tone filter

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 12.7 x 16.4 inches ; 8.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000056C3K
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

113 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A revised verdict: not reliable and durable enough, January 1, 2001

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cuisinart DGB-300BK Automatic Grind & Brew 10-Cup Coffeemaker, Black (Kitchen)

Review revised on April 24, 2002
My initial review:
My wife and I have been using this machine for several months now, and we have become familiar with the good, the bad, and the ugly, as these terms relate to this worthwhile but flawed innovation by Cuisinart.

The good: the coffee made by the machine is wonderful, IF you have the common sense to adjust the amount of beans you use in accordance with how strong you like your coffee. The people who complain that the coffee is "weak" need to put on their proverbial thinking caps and simply ADD MORE BEANS! Yup, once you get the right ratio of beans to water the coffee is plenty strong, and since it's freshly ground, the flavor is terrific. The automatic brewing features are reasonably easy to set and use, and these make it possible to wake up in the morning to freshly brewed coffee, a terrific start to any day. Complaints about how hard it is to clean the machine are also kind of silly; have we gotten so spoiled as a culture that we can't stand to routinely remove and rinse out the necessary parts of a kitchen appliance after every use? Cleaning the removable parts takes a couple of minutes, true, but it's definitely not such an odious task that it should discourage potential purchasers.

The bad: the construction of the unit itself needs some improvement; after two months of routine, reasonably careful use, the top of the machine broke off, due mainly to what seems to be a flimsy hinge design. Fortunately, it was still possible to affix the top to the unit during the time we waited for a replacement part.

The ugly: possibly the most annoying feature of this machine is that normal cleaning of the unit caused the lettering that labels the various buttons to disappear. We now have memorized the function of each button, but it would have been nice and probably not difficult for the engineers at Cuisinart to design more permanently affixed labels.

It's likely that over time, new versions of this machine will be marketed that improve on this one. In the meantime, this is a good, affordable, and reasonably reliable unit that exhibits how clever engineering can help to move us ever closer to that "perfect home-brewed cup of coffee."

Added April 24, 2002:
I feel compelled to inform those few readers who will ever come across this revised review that my initial commentary on this Cuisinart grind and brew unit was overly generous. No, it wasn't the cleaning process that got to me; I was always willing to accept a little routine maintenance in order to end up with great coffee. The problem is that this unit simply isn't designed to stand up to everyday use over any extended period of time. I've already mentioned the disappearing labels for the various buttons. But after ten months or so of daily use, the machine stopped doing a trustworthy job of sending the ground coffee on to the brewing basket. No matter how thoroughly we cleaned and prepared the unit, every morning we would find a large percentage of the ground coffee still stuck in the grinder. The result was weak coffee and frayed tempers. We still use the machine, but only for brewing already-ground coffee, and there certainly are cheaper machines that will perform this task adequately.

Also, I should explain to people that whereas you can get adequately strong coffee by using more than one measure of beans per cup, this essentially transforms the "ten cup" machine into a four or five cup unit.

I hope that the folks at Cuisinart will take all of this customer feedback and commentary and put it to good use, i.e., a renewed effort to redesign this machine so that it is more reliable, durable, and flexible in terms of brew strength.

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pricey, but good coffeemaker, December 2, 2000

By 

Mike Murray (Bay Shore, L.I. NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cuisinart DGB-300BK Automatic Grind & Brew 10-Cup Coffeemaker, Black (Kitchen)

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the wide range of reviews here for this coffeemaker.

Yes, the coffeemaker does have to be cleaned after every brewing. No, it doesn't make bad coffee. No, you can't just dump coffee beans or ground coffee into the coffeemaker and make good coffee automatically.

The Coffee Bar, as Cuisinart likes to call it, does have several internal parts which must all be in place before you can brew coffee. You can use ground coffee, but you're defeating the purpose of the Coffee Bar by doing so. The grinder compartment can hold enough beans to make 10 strong 6-oz cups of coffee which is what "10-cup" usually means with appliances. I like my coffee very strong and I've been able to load more than enough beans into the coffeemaker to get the strength of coffee I want.

Between the grinder and the attached drain basket is an attached screen through which the ground beans goes through and an inserted gold basket filter which must be in place in order to make coffee. On top of all of this is a cover which fits over the basket into which hot water is pumped up over the grounds and then drips down into your fresh grounds.

On this cover, there is a dial setting which you must set each and ever time depending on the amount (and what I've discovered -- strength) of the coffee you want to have. Finally, this entire assembly is covered by a lid attached to the rear of the coffeemaker and latches in front.

The entire internal assembly MUST be cleaned after each and every brewing. So, yes, if you make multiple pots, you need to clean it each time. (However, is this any different than any other coffee appliance?)

There are additional settings on the front of the coffeemaker that also affect the quality of the coffee; so, basically, the coffeemaker is NOT intuitive and you have to read the instruction manual before you start brewing coffee with this appliance.

All of that said, this coffeemaker makes EXCELLENT coffee. I own two of them, because I originally purchased the version in white, because it was all that was available. When the version in black became available, I bought a second one. Both are still in excellent working condition and I haven't had any problem with either.

The Cuisinart Coffee Bar is a little pricey, but it does make great coffee and I heartily recommend it.

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hard to clean and makes watery coffee, May 3, 2000

By 

F. Adams (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cuisinart DGB-300BK Automatic Grind & Brew 10-Cup Coffeemaker, Black (Kitchen)

I bought a Cuisinart Grind N' Brew (DGB-300BK) for my wife for Xmas. We are thoroughly disapponted with it. It has two basic design flaws. First, it is a pain to clean. There are four parts that get caked with wet coffee grounds every-time you use the machine. They need to be cleaned after every usage. Much worse, they must be cleaned and thoroughly dried before you can make a second pot. Therefore you can't simply brew a second pot without first doing the dishes. Secondly, it makes...[bad] coffee. There is a small knob inside that you can turn to adjust the brew strength. It goes from watery to ridiculously watery. Maybe our particular unit is flawed. For Cuisinart's sake I hope so. I even wrote to the company complaining about this thing and so far have recieved no serious reply from them only a form letter. I've gone back to my old coffee maker and a "hand" electric mill. It's much better, even if the grounds sit in the basket overnight before brewing. Save your money and don't buy the Cuisinart.

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