Customer Reviews

Krups 229-45 Aroma Control 10-Cup Coffeemaker with Thermal Carafe, Black and Stainless Steel

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

I'm mystified by some reviews I've read here - "Tepid coffee" - "Great Coffee" - "Lousy Coffee" - "Best Coffee Maker Ever Made." None of them reflects my experience.

With an appropriate coffee grinder setting, the Krups delivers a good cup of coffee.

Preheat the carafe before you use it with scalding water and the subsequent coffee is hot. If you try to make coffee without preheating the carafe, you're going to get cooler coffee. That's true of any thermal carafe. Of course, that process makes coffee timers pointless but that's another story.

The coffee maker needs a lot of ground coffee to make a good cup - about 1/3 more than the Proctor Silex thermal carafe I replaced. To get a strong cup of coffee, I'll make 6 cups in the Krups with the same amount of coffee that would yield 8 cups in the Proctor. The Proctor has a flat bottom drip basket as opposed to the Krups' conical basket. Also, the water flows faster through the Krups so the grounds aren't immersed as long.

The key feature that keeps me from returning the Krups and buying another Proctor is the stainless steel carafe. The Proctor has a glass thermos inside a plastic shroud. To clean it, you have to disassemble the shroud - all 7 pieces. Since there are seven pieces involved, eventually the Proctor carafe leaks. The Krups on the other hand has two pieces - the carafe itself and the lid. Someone else has commented that the handles come loose over time and that may be true - time will tell. In the interim, I've got a carafe that doesn't leak.

The Krups has the additional feature of a non-stick lining that makes getting rid of residual coffee oil very easy. Plus the opening is wide enough to allow a man's hand to reach inside with a soapy sponge.

Given the wide opening on the carafe, I still transfer the hot coffee to my thermos to keep it hot for hours. The carafe can't manage more than a couple of hours before the coffee cools too much to suit my taste.

So why bother with a thermal carafe if the coffee is just going into a thermos anyway? Taste. Coffee made in a glass carafe is either getting cooked by the warmer or is too cold if the warmer is turned off while brewing. Now if Nissan ever gets its act together and mates their absolutely terrific thermos with a coffee maker built around it, (Note to Nissan - Don't change the quart thermos-it's a keeper!), we may finally see the ultimate coffee maker.

When I first bought the Krups, I rated it at 3 stars. After living with it for a couple of months, I realized that the Krups could deliver better than average coffee by tweaking the grind to a finer setting. I've also come to appreciate the cleaning features designed into the unit. As a result, I'm bumping my rating up a star.

Having owned and used a wide variety of drip filter type coffee makers, there's little doubt this little wonder from Krups makes the best tasting cup of coffee I've ever tasted from this genre. And it looks stylish too, to boot.

The much-touted aroma control feature, in which the grounds are first steeped for a period before gradually releasing the brew, works as promised. This is especially useful if, like me, you frequently make small batches. Making a single cup of coffee that tastes better than tepid tap water is finally a reality.

The stainless steels thermal carafe also contributes greatly to preventing the aroma loss and flavour degeneration that typically occurs in the glass carafe models that rest atop a hot plate. The blurb proclaims that the carafe will maintain adequate temperature for around 5 hours, but in practice I found that 3.5 to 4 hours is maximum for small batches. Larger batches do last slightly better.

One gripe (and this is why it gets 4 stars instead of 5), the freshly brewed coffee comes out virtually at the ideal drinking temperature. Which means either drink fast or use a thermal mug. And don't think of adding cold milk or cold cream, unless you actually like your coffee cool. But if you take it straight and black like me, you won't find a more flavourful drip filtered coffee out there.

Couple of other points:

1) There's no built-in water filter. Which is probably good, because you probably already have a good brand installed on your tap, or you are using your favourite brand of drinking water.

2) The gold-tone filter is not included in the package. It's a useful add-on to buy. Who wants paper chemical residues in their coffee?

3) Like with most drip filter type coffee makers, the best way to increase the strength is not to add more granules, but to grind them them finer. If you like it strong, grind to a consistency that is typically considered at the coarse end of the espresso scale.

4) I guess the timer feature could be neat, but does anyone actually use that? This is too much like programming a VCR, which I never do, as a matter of principal. But if you don't mind the rocket science, have fun fiddling with it!

We have owned quite a number of coffee makers over the years. This is the finest. I have read the reviews below and have never experienced a broken handle (we have had the coffee maker for nine months now) nor cold coffee.

It is important to realize that this is a thermal caraffe. When the coffee is fully brewed, you need to take the caraffe out of the coffee maker. When it is in the coffee maker, the lid is slightly depressed to let the coffee drip in. If you leave it fully brewed in the maker, that means that the heat will escape back out of the lid. With the lid closed, the coffee stays hot for at least 4 hours. This is the process I use every morning, and have hot coffee for hours.

Oh, one other important thing. This is a thermal caraffe, as said before. If you are using the caraffe to put water in the coffee maker, you are likely using cold water. You need to put hot water into the caraffe after you put cold water into the coffee maker, because you have now "conditioned" the caraffe for cold water. It will take "extra" hot coffee to warm the caraffe back up. Do it yourself with a spritz of hot water.

This is a well designed coffee maker, with an easy to use timer if you like to use them. It is also easy to clean. I just use soap and water in the caraffe.

What a great coffee machine this is. Not only is it a beautiful design, but a solid machine that makes great hot coffee. I am amazed at the few negative reviews suggesting that the thermal carafe does not keep the coffee hot. Let me tell you, I use this machine every day and always get a carafe of hot coffee that stays hot for hours. I believe those who are complaining are not using the machine properly. For example, after the brewing cycle is complete take the carafe off the base. It is designed to brew through the carafe lid that is depressed when on the base. But if you leave it on the base the heat escapes through this depressed lid. By simply removing the carafe from the base the lid pops up to create a tight seal that traps in the heat. And pre-heating the carafe with hot water will give you even hotter coffee.
Also, I have read a complaint that the coffee maker leaks from the base. I believe what is occuring is not a leak but simply filling too much water in the unit. I realized this from my same mistake when I first brought it home. There is a small hole in the back where the water goes. If more than 10cups of water is poured in the excess will flow from this outlet. I called the Krups consumer line and was told this is to prevent too much water fron entering the system. So this is the machines way to insure the perfect cup of coffee. It is important not to let the water go pass the 10 cup line on the water fill window.
One last point that sold me on the Krups machine. The stainless steel carafe is also stainless on the inside of the carafe as well. Other Stainless therm makers I looked at have breakable glass on the inside of the stainless carafe.
I can't say enough how much I enjoy this coffee maker. Every time it gives me perfect hot coffee.
I recommend it to everyone.

I am an absolute cofee connouiser, and after 30 years of cofee making and coffee drinking, this is the WORST COFFEE MAKER I have ever owned. I had a nice Braun FlavorSelect maker in which you could adjust the temperature of the heat plate to keep coffee warm. But the Braun carafes kept breaking, so thought I'd try something new.

Thought this thermal model would keep it warm. NOT!!! Awful coffee maker for the high price. Sure it looks nice (I was taken in by the steel finish), but in every other aspect it [is not good]. No water filter, coffee is cold (even when i pre-heat the carafe with hot water). And finally, after 1 month, the carafe handle came unlodged and the screw is rattling inside the outer shell of the carafe.

I just bought the Cuisinart steel model, and it is great. Hot coffee, retro good looks, so many nice features, and a great carafe...

I love this coffeemaker; it's perfect for our needs. My partner typically wakes up an hour or two before me, so we can set the timer for when he arises, and the coffee stays hot and fresh in the thermal carafe until I awake --- no more old, scorched coffee for me.

With that said, the carafe broke apart after only two months of use. (And not strenuous use --- we wash it by hand.) The replacement carafe lasted a bit longer, but after about six months, it, too, broke apart (the problem is that the handle becomes disconnected from the carafe, and then the handle has nothing to hold the two pieces of plastic together and falls apart.) We're on our third carafe, and I just keep waiting for it to fall apart as well. (We have the stainless version of the carafe.)

Otherwise, we really enjoy and utilize its features, esp the automatic timer. Three quibbles: 1) I'd prefer that the timer be on the top face of the coffeemaker --- the digital display is hard to read; 2) I hate not having the water filter included; 3) They should have included the gold filter.

Given the price of the replacement carafes (about $40), I have a hard time recommending this product. I thought the stainless steel carafe would be more sturdy and long-lived than a typical glass carafe, but the opposite is true. Go figure.

Bought this unit (stainless-steel) because of the timer feature and because we were tired of keeping a separate "thermos" carafe on the counter top. The timer works great but we're less satisfied with the carafe. The advertisement leads you to believe it will keep the coffee piping hot for quite a long time but in reality it's luke-warm after 3 to 4 hours. At that point it needs about a 30-second hit in the microwave to get a cup back to the temperature it was at immediately after brewing. And, yes, we know you have to take the carafe off the unit in order for the top to snap shut and trap in the heat.

Other than keeping the coffee not-so-warm, we really like it. It's very tall, so it won't fit under the overhead kitchen cabinets but that's not a problem for us. The stainless-steel version is a good-looking unit, so you don't have to hide it after you make the coffee, and it does do what it's supposed to do -- it makes very good coffee.

A thermal carafe is a nice idea because it keeps the coffee hot without scorching it. But...

(1) As others have reported, the handle does indeed come loose over time (about six months) and there seems to be no way to fix it. This is just inexcusable.

(2) The timer feature would be a lot more useful if the clock did not reset itself randomly. It seems to be highly sensitive to power spikes, which cause the time *and* the programmed start time to reset. Too often this makes the coffeemaker start itself in the middle of the night instead of the morning, so you get a pot of 8-hour old coffee the next day.

(3) The coffee drains through a complicated lid that you cannot really clean. I doubt the carafe will last much longer (the handle seems about ready to fall off completely) but if it did, accumulated gunk inside the lid would get pretty nasty over time.

All:

I purchased this piece of "eye candy" and was grossly dissapointed. Coffee tasted as if it had been "softened" and the temperature of the final brew was tepid at best. I had no other recourse but to return it. I have purchased a Starbucks Barista Aroma Chrome Carafe and have achieved coffee "bliss."

It looks beautiful but falls way short of my expectations. Carafe handle loosened within 2 months, am now awaiting a back order of carafes from Krups. Sometimes the coffee does not empty into the carafe even though lid is on correctly. Difficult to pour, many times the coffee spills around the mug.