Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great coffee maker for travel!, November 26, 2007
I used a Betty Crocker (white plastic outside) 2-4 cup electric hot pot/percolator for years when traveling. It lasted so long (15 years), it never occurred to me the same type might not be available when I finally needed to replace it (the sad part is, it didn't even stop working...I just forgot to clean it after a camping trip, and found it months later, and, ummmm...decided buying a new one would be easier than cleaning mold).
I searched for months looking to find a similar model that would fit my needs. I needed something compact, unbreakable and with a minimum of moving parts. I wanted something easy to use that wouldn't be a PITA to clean.
Oh, and did I mention...COFFEE is the most important meal of the day for me? It had to make decent coffee! Not only decent coffee, but I'm a 3-cup-a-morning minimum type person.
Most small drip coffee makers come with the standard glass carafe, which is breakable and not suited for travel. I even looked at French presses, but decided it would be too cumbersome to deal with, especially while traveling.
I took a chance on this West Bend model, even though I was very hesitant about the "single serving" aspect. I'm happy to say it was NOT a problem! The coffee maker brews a single cup so fast, the waiting for another cup was nothing. I also found I like having a freshly-brewed cup for each and every cup. That was something I hadn't considered I'd like. I also loved having the coffee brew directly INTO the cup! Man, how cool is that?
The place where you put the coffee cup is plenty big (both height and width) to accommodate most sizes of mugs. What I did (and I'd recommend this if you plan to use this for traveling) is got a 16-oz camping mug (the kind that are metal inside with ceramic coating and a flat bottom). The coffee maker will hold 12-oz of water, so there's no worrying about spilling over (plus you have room for cream/milk). These camping mugs are easy to clean, which is another plus for travel.
The manual (which is like 2 pages, because there's nothing to working this. Pour water in, depress the button and out comes coffee, right into your cup) claims it's good for other things. Pppffftttt....as if there's anything *besides* coffee. But since I like to live a well-rounded life, I made tea with it. Works beautifully.
The unit comes with 2 brew baskets, one permanent filter for ground coffee and one pod holder. I tried them both, and any drawbacks to either (pod coffee is pretty weak, even with using 2 pods, and ground coffee is messy) were not due to the coffee maker itself. What worked best for me was 2 pods in the basket and one in the mug. But that's just me, your mileage may vary. I also used a paper filter with ground coffee and no basket...that worked very well, too.
This unit not only works well, but it takes up a very small amount of space, a big plus for me. I'm happy...and that's not an easy task, when we're dealing with my morning coffee :)
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
My strange story about this machine, April 29, 2008
So, I had a Black and Decker DCM19 Brew n Go for a number of years, and it finally gave up on me. When I went looking for a replacement, I read the reviews here and people said the new model wasn't as good as the old - the water reservoir was small to pour into etc.
So I went looking for a model closer to my old one. To my surprise this West Bend coffee maker *IS* the old Black and Decker Brew n Go. Check it out:
[...](they deleted my link - if you google for DCM19 you will find the manual)
Except for two things.
First and most strange - they drilled a hole in the back of the thing to make it only brew 12oz. The machine will actually brew 16oz without issue... Why would they do that? Some licensing thing? Anyway I put an eraser through the hole, and it brews 16oz just fine.
Second, they replaced the #2 cone filter holder with a pod holder. Personally, I think pods are a rip-off so I am using the old cone filter holder from my original maker. You could probably use #1 filters with the pod holder...
Anyway - pretty strange change of hands of a good design. The hole drilled in the back is annoying, but once plugged up this is a good machine.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good coffee -- but BE CAREFUL !!!, February 29, 2008
It brews a very fast cup of coffee, so it seems to do the job. I use the Senseo pods (from Amazon), which taste very good. The power cord is very short, and the switch is hard to work, but those are minor things.
I want to give a couple precautions to save you from disaster, however:
(1) Don't use loose coffee grounds. Use Pods. I used coffee grounds the first time, and they expanded in the hot water and poured over into the reservoir, clogging the machine. It's just too risky to use coffee grounds in such a small machine. If you want to save yourself aggravation, use coffee Pods. It also makes for a generally cleaner operation, which is nice if you're using it on your desk or at work.
(2) Always check that the drip tube is clear before starting brewing. The drip tube is *extremely* narrow, and overnight the residual coffee left inside will congeal enough to block the tube. What happens then is that when you make the next coffee, the water backs up into the pod holder, and possibly overflows into the reservoir. (The pod holder can hold about a cup of liquid, so if you brew a small coffee, at least the backup won't flow into the reservoir.) The moral of the story is to ALWAYS clear the drip tube before brewing.
Because of these two design flaws, I'm taking away one star, but if you know to avoid them, it seems like a usable (if cheap) device.
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