Customer Reviews

Mr. Coffee GBX23 Grind-and-Brew 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

After the last experience with Mr Coffee, which is officially known as the Great Coffee disaster of 2003, we had to purchase another one on the fly as ours broke right before company was about to show. My wife went down to the nearest place with the instructions of NOT to buy another model from Mr Coffee due to so many messy counters of coffee. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that coffee tastes much better coming out of the pot and not from my kitchen counter which happenned about half the time.

ANYWAY,

I get a call from my wife stating that all this place sold was hamilton beach and Mr C. She said "they have one that grinds" and I automatically said get it.
When I opened it up and made my first pot of water, you know - to clean it, I was surprised to see that they actually fixed the fluid release where the coffee goes into the pot. I had HIGH hopes for this one. It seemed that it would actually work.

Man was i completely wrong. It is a pain to clean every time. Even when you don't use it to grind beans, you have to clean the compartment because of all the moisture. The compartment is too small for beans so you get a weak cup of coffee. This is also due to how the water filters over the grain. It only seems to hit half of the grinds. I opened it up to inspect why my Starbucks Sumatra roast (one of the strongest coffees) tasted like brown water. Half of the grinds were still dry. Not to mention that so much grind gets stuck in the bean chamber and area where it is supposed to enter the filter. There is no grind setting so i get mostly larges grains.

What are the engineers at mr coffee doing. Do they sit around and walk next door to starbucks for their coffee. DO they EVEN TEST THEIR OWN STUFF? I am utterly shocked.

If Mr Coffee is reading this and I have some hope that they actually have people out there that look at these, I have have a couple of suggestions.

1. 1989 Called - They want their coffee maker back.
2. Grind beans above the filter - not at an angle,
3. separate the water flow from the bean compartment.
4. HOTTER COFFEE PLEASE
5. Drip over the Whole Filter - not just half
6. Grinder settings - fine to coarse.
7. Temperature settings
8. Add a water filter
9. Make the above step easier by copying melitta.

I have been through two Melitta Mill and Brews (both of which had the latch break) and have experimented with the Capresso CoffeeTeamLuxe (which I promptly returned because it won't allow you to decide how many beans you want to grind, it decides for you).

I was hoping for better with Mr. Coffee's grind and brew. Sadly, was not to be.

So, what are the big problems here?

1) The grinder capacity. If you make more than 8 cups, you really can't get enough beans in this thing to make a decently strong cup of coffee. Very annoying.
2) Clean-up. This thing is a mess. The grinder and channel is a royal pain to clean, and must be cleaned after each use. Ugh.
3) The lid latch looks like it was designed by the same monkeys who designed the Melitta latch. I'm expecting it to go crunch roughly 2 months after the warranty expires.
4) A return to paper filters. Oh my goodness, does anyone use paper filters anymore? Yeah, I freshly grind my beans just so I can strip out all the coffee flavor by running it all through paper! Good gosh.

This all being said, it brews an OK cup of coffee. Not great, not terrible.

I would have happily continued on with my Melitta had the latch not been such an issue, though. And since Salton's support is so awful, I decided to travel down a different road. This one, not so good. Oh well.

My girlfriend picked up one of these guys a couple months ago. Since then I've gone through different techniques to try to get a decent cup of coffee out of it, without any luck whatsoever. Here are my main complaints with this machine:

1. The whole grind and brew idea is a bad one in my opinion, I mean what's the point? Are you trying to save time? Because the clean up you have to do with all the parts of the machine takes way way longer than the time it takes to grind coffee in a grinder and then scoop it into a filter. Or is the point supposed to be counter space because it seems to me grinders themselves usually are not that big and can easily be stowed away in a cabinet inbetween uses.

2. The grinds go everywhere but the filter. At first I thought my girlfriend simply wasn't putting in enough beans and that was why the coffee was so weak and had that strange metallic burnt taste, but then I took a look inside and realized that probably about 25% of the grinds were coating all the plastic parts inside the machine rather than in the filter.

3. Even without using the grind and brew feature this thing makes horrible coffee. The coffee usually has the metallic taste I mentioned before, I think this may have to do with all the cheap metallic parts in the grinder compartment. Also the coffee somehow always manages to taste burnt even though I turned the heating plate all the way down to low.

4. The price is insane. I mean for 85-90 bucks you can get an excellent coffee maker and an excellent grinder.

About two years ago I went out and purchased the cheapest coffee maker I could find for my work office, it was a braun that cost about $20. That thing consistently made coffee 20 times better than this machine ever could. I went on consumer reports and it was the highest rated coffee maker overall (the $20 braun that is). Granted it doesn't have an automatic shut off and it's not programable but it makes amazing coffee and it costs less than 1/4 the price of this machine, which would leave you around $65 to find a good grinder.

The grinder I use is the kitchen aid model and it works great for me and currently its at $25 on amazon. I recommend saveing yourself 40 dollars and a headache and get the $20 bruan coffe maker (Braun Aromamaster KF400) and the kitchen aid grinder for $25 (KitchenAid BCG100OB Blade Coffee Grinder). They may not look as good on your contertop but the taste of the coffee won't let you down.

We purchased this coffee maker after doing hours of comparison shopping on the internet. We paid $69.99, and for a grind and brew that is not about the low end of prices. You can drop a benjamin or more really easy in order to get a coffee maker that both grinds and brews. Most other brands that I researched had huge complaints about taking the whole thing apart and being difficult to clean. This baby is not as bad as some make it out to be. The whole grinding chamber lifts out and goes in the dishwasher if you want to. I do this about once a week, and the rest of time I just rinse it out with hot water and dry with a paper towel.

I do agree that in order to get a good cup of coffee you really need to brew this on the strong setting when grinding. I don't find it terrible to push an extra button though! (You won't need it if you use pre-ground coffee.)

The one thing that puts this over the top vs using a seperate grinder is that it can be pre-set to start grinding & brewing the night before. Let's see....a more beans in the coffee maker - five bucks a month, 15 more minutes sleeping in bed with my nice warm blanket - PRICELESS!

I may be a bit biased since I have been using a Bunn coffee maker for over 20 years, and always used a separate grinder. But when my last Bunn gave up the ghost last month, I decided to try something different. I checked into several "grind & brews" and settled on the Mr.Coffee, with the timer. I thought having freshly ground coffee ready when I get up, sounded nice. I purchased this with an open mind, but after using it a few weeks, I think I'll pick up another Bunn.

Cons:
1. When brewing, the grinds in back of the basket do not get brewed, so when I place pre-ground coffee in the basket, I have to make sure the grounds are piled more toward the front of the filter.
2. As with my Bunn, I remove the grounds right after brewing to eliminate the bitter post drip. With the Mr. Coffee, it's not a quick pull out and dump.
3. The decanter dribbles like my Uncle Henry unless I pour very slowly.
4. The coffee bean chamber will only hold enough beans for about 8 cups.
5. The Mr.Coffee makes 12 cups in 10 to 12 minutes, whereas my Bunn would do 10 cups in three and a half minutes.

Pros:
1. The grinding assembly removes easily and can be rinsed quickly and replaced. Be sure the assembly is dry before reusing, so fewer grinds will be stuck inside of the grinding chamber.
2. The grinder sounds like a siren going off which startles my cat, but helps me to start waking up.
3. Having freshly ground coffee ready when I get up is nice.
4. The controls are user-friendly.
5. The two hour shutoff is an added comfort.
6. The price is not bad considering what you're getting.

Final thought: I'll get another Bunn for coffee throughout the day, but use the Mr.Coffee for startling my cat and waking up with coffee ready.

I had a Cuisanart grind and brew before this (which had design flaws too believe me!) and after a few days of this I thought I was going to have to buy another one. The Mr Coffee brew was absurdly weak and cloudy with grounds in the bottom of the carafe. What good is a coffee maker that can't make coffee?? I was hearing echos in my head of my mother's mantra growing up that the cheapest thing you can buy is quality and I thought I'd wasted my money (though a lot less when bought from Wal-Mart).

Opening it up to clean I saw that only about half the grounds were even wet (explaining the weak coffee) because the black plastic D-shaped baffle right above the filter takes the incoming hot water and drops a bit of it in the center of the grounds and directs most of it toward the very edge away from where the grounds come in, resulting in very little of your precious grounds actually being used.

After some playing around I discovered the easiest fix of this egregious design flaw is to remove the screw that goes into the center of the black D-shaped baffle with the little water holes around the outside, remove said black plastic D-shaped baffle, and put the screw back in. Now the water output all hits the grounds dead center.

Do this and use a re-usable filter with a solid bottom (which most of them are anymore, will only cost you about $5 at a local store, and will preserve more of your coffee's flavor to boot) and the hot water hits the top of the grounds dead center and has to work its way toward the outsides *in all directions* so you're not wasting a ton of grounds.

And presto! Full-strength coffee from an affordable grind and brew! And all you have to do is remove one piece of plastic that's held on with 1 screw, won't take you 60 seconds. And use a re-usable solid-bottom filter which I'm betting 90% of people who grind their own beans do anyway.

Now to fix the 2nd complaint - grounds in the coffee. This is caused by the incoming water splashing grounds over the sidewall of the reusable filter. This is easily addressed by putting the black plastic baffle you just removed under the solid-bottom filter to raise it up a bit.

Hope these tips helps some more people! I can feel this coffee maker growing on me already!

I'll just quote my husband... "it tastes a little like tea..." I brewed a ton of pots trying to get a good cup and everytime it was the weakest coffee I've ever had. No matter how much coffee I put in. The grinder is strangely loud to the point that I have to walk away from it because it hurts my ears. A complete pain to clean, long story short, I am boxing it back up and returning it today.

So glad to see that Mr. Coffee has re-introduced it's grind and brew! My husband has had the older version for over 5 years now and LOVES IT! Contrary to what other believe about it needing to be cleaned daily, we give ours a heafty clean once a week - by removing the chamber and pieces, etc. It so easy and not tedious at all - especially compared to other brands. Good Housekeeping has just rated this one of the top 5 of many makers that they tested, and we definitely agree. My husband, who considers himslef sorta a connoisseur since he has had coffee all over the world and currently in Asia where we live, used to drink a few pots a day, and loves his coffee strong - and takes it black and can't seem to get enough of this brewer. We lost a part to the lid during our moves, but we simply but something heavy on the lid and this baby keeps on ticking!

He truly loves the programable timer (which we have not found with any other gind and brew makers) so his coffee is ready for him when he gets out of the shower. Can't beat that!

You can actually find this maker cheaper on other sites by nearly $30!

We are getting this newest model and would not think twice about antoher brand!

My husband and I love this coffee maker. We went through 2 $150 Cuisinarts which broke before finding the Mr. Coffee. I've read the negative reviews about the coffee strength and don't agree... plenty strong for us! There is a brew strength setting and maybe some have it adjusted to low. As for cleanup... well, you can just throw the grinding components in the dishwasher and it's no biggie. Even rinsing them under the faucet is not such a huge deal. What makes this more attractive than a separate grinder and coffee maker (as suggested by one reviewer) is that it's programmable. So at 5:30 a.m.,snuggled in bed, I hear that lovely "Whirrrrrr" sound from the kitchen and know that I'm minutes away from freshly-ground coffee. A little convenience in the morning, along with a great cup of coffee, goes a long way!

I was given a Mr. Coffee Grind and Brew 15 years ago. It lasted 10+years and made decent coffee, but sounded like an airplane when it ground the beans. We replaced it with a Melita Mill and Brew which worked good for 3 years until the lid clasp broke off. Then we were given this for Christmas. They still haven't quitted it down. One of the first things we liked about the Melita was that it was quitter and easier to clean because the grounds stay in one place.

We probably could have lived with the airplane noise, but the coffee was bad. It was very weak. Three different people made coffee with it and none of it was any good. We made about 10 different pots and one was OK. There isn't enough room for the grounds and many of the grounds stayed in the grinder. We would empty the basket and the top of the grounds were still dry. There are plenty of other grind and brews out there don't waste your time, money or coffee with this one.