Hamilton Beach FlexBrew 2-in-1 Coffee Maker with Auto Shutoff

The brews on the Ninja were the hottest overall, with an average finished temperature of 188 °F. Not only did the hotter brewing water extract better flavors more thoroughly, it also means the coffee will be at a pleasant drinking temperature directly after brewing, even if you add milk. The warming plate kept the coffee hot for four hours before shutting off automatically, though the flavor did become a little acrid after hour two. You can avoid that by simply turning off the Stay Warm function, which we recommend doing if you plan to drink the coffee relatively shortly after brewing.

It’s great for the mid-afternoon cup, when you’re the only coffee drinker in the residence, or for an on-the-go caffeine kick when you’re running late in the morning. Soft pods remove the guesswork of getting the perfect cup of coffee. This feature has a pod holder that brews any brand of soft pod coffee, while still delivering starbucks mocha the experience that you expect from freshly ground coffee. One of the better features on the carafe side is its automatic pause and serve. If you remove the carafe to pour yourself a cup of coffee before it finishes brewing, it will pause, so that coffee doesn’t drip out onto the heater until the carafe is returned.

I’m PCMag’s expert on fitness and smart home technology, and I’ve written more than 6,000 articles and reviews in the 10-plus years I’ve been here. I unbox, set up, test, and review a wide range of consumer tech products from my home in Florida, often with the help of my pitbull Bradley. I’m also a yoga instructor, and have been actively teaching group and private classes for nearly a decade. To help save power throughout the day, this coffee maker comes with an automatic shutoff. This is also important to prevent overheating and fire hazards in a hotel environment. Pathway…probably plastic, can’t see without disassembly, but this is a sub-$100 product.

When brewing with a pod — you’ll get the perfect amount in your cup. When you brew coffee into the 12 cup carafe, you can wake up to hot coffee by setting up Easy-Touch programming the night before. The backlit display makes it easy to view the time and settings. The pH jumped drastically from 5.6 to 4.95 in just two hours, making the coffee much more acidic.

Discard the solution from your carafe and thoroughly clean the carafe with hot soapy water. Then we recommend running 2-3 brewing cycles with fresh water to flush your brewer of any residual vinegar solution. The single serving side has a nifty little base that allows you to position coffee mugs closer to the spout as well as accommodating taller cups and travel mugs. hamilton coffee maker What’s more, some include a carafe, which can be glass or thermal stainless steel, while other models brew directly into an internal dispenser. This FlexBrew model comes with a Permanent Gold Tone filter which eliminates the need for paper products. Economical, environmentally conscious, and efficient, the 12-cup carafe on the FlexBrew is definitely a people-pleaser.

hamilton coffee maker

The Scoop has a number of features that make it easier to use than a Keurig. The minimum amount of 8 ounces is held in a marked depression in the main reservoir. It’s not only easy to see see how much water is too little or too much, but because the reservoir is shallow it’s easy to wipe clean. However, since you probably won’t store water in The Scoop like you would in the water tank of a Keurig, it is unlikely to get any filmy build up. This can occur in a Keurig, and their water tanks and lids are not dishwasher safe, so you have to find a way to thoroughly clean the inside walls of the Keurig’s water tank.

The difference between the two settings is the pace of water flow, with brew time slightly slower on the bold setting. The 2-Way has a much shorter descaling process than Keurig’s convertible brewer. The 2-Way descaling process ran for 30 minutes, while the Keurig K-Duo descaling cycle took 75 minutes. Descaling is a breville espresso maker long-term cleaning task performed every few months to reduce the build-up of mineral deposits that can collect in a coffee maker due to hard water. The user manual for the 2-Way provides a helpful visual guide to brewing with this coffee maker. Hamilton Beach provides everything you need to start brewing right away.