Innovative But Improvement Needed
Written: May 05 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: No drippy carafe. Dispenses coffee very well. Cool looking.
Cons: Electrical bugs. Staining tank. Weaker coffee than premium drip coffee makers.
The Bottom Line: The carafe-free design is innovative and convenient but there are some quality problems that need to be addressed.
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| athlonjack's Full Review: Hamilton Beach Brew Station Coffee Maker 47224 |
SUMMARY: The Brew Station might be worth a try, especially if you are saddled with a coffee maker with a drippy carafe. But the Brew Station has some problems that makes it less than a total success.
ELECTRICAL BUGS: The first one we had worked for 5 weeks then died. It had power according to the clock but would not turn on. Hamilton Beach replaced it with "Profile" version 47234; the same coffee maker but with a 2 year warranty. That has begun to have problems after 14 months. 2 weeks ago it went completely dead. It had no power according to the clock. Unplugging it and using different outlets did not help. After being unplugged overnight, it suddenly started up again and worked. Last week the opposite happened: the unit could not be turned off; the red light behind the button would not go out. It had to be unplugged to shut it down.
BROWN STAINING, POOR TANK: Coffee is brewed into a plastic double wall tank with a metal plate in the bottom, which rests on the units warming plate. The interior plastic is a translucent gray so you can see the coffee level through a front window. The rest of the coffee maker cleans easily but the gray plastic tank interior absorbs coffee oils and turns an ugly brown after a short time. A brown layer also builds up on the metal plate. The cleaning instructions that come with the unit are useless and don't even mention the brown. The brown apparently does not really effect the coffee or the operation of the unit. The instructions should be revised to say that and recommend that the tank be soaked and scrubbed with baking soda twice monthly. That removes the brown from the metal plate and slows its buildup on the gray plastic. Also the bucket handle, made of the same porous gray plastic, broke in the center of both the tanks that we have. Hamilton Beach needs to improve the materials and make replacement tanks available to Brew Station owners at a reasonable cost,
WEAKER COFFEE: Grind for grind, coffee produced by the Brew Station is weaker and has less flavor than that produced by other drip coffee makers. You have to use more coffee with the Brew Station. I've proved that time after time when I've had to switch back to our old Kitchenaid with the drippy carafe, when the Brew Station got sick. There's no adjustment for coffee strength and the shallow cup cake filter produces weaker coffee than a conical filter does.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
athlonjack
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Reviews written: 2
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