“What can I get that’s just a cheap, simple coffee maker?” For those of us who test coffee equipment, it’s a question that comes up constantly, in reader emails, Instagram comments, and IRL interactions with anyone familiar our professional responsibilities. For years the answer was basically “nothing worth buying.” The flip-the-lid, pour-in-the-water kind of machine available at the incongruous “appliances” section of a CVS makes such poor coffee that it isn’t worth even the small sums charged for it.
But there have been real improvements in the world of cheap coffee makers. While they still can’t match the precision or features of $300-plus machines, you can now get much more than a crummy cup of diner coffee out of them.
The best cheap coffee maker: Braun Pureflavor 14-Cup Coffee Maker
Best coffee maker with grinder: Black+Decker 12-Cup Mill and Brew Programmable Coffee Maker with Built-in Grinder
Best simple coffee maker: Krups Simply Brew Coffeemaker
New in this update: This time around, contributor Jennifer Zyman, herself a longtime user and appreciator of inexpensive coffee makers, re-tested some of our previous favorites alongside a batch of new contenders to see if they still hold up. After testing was complete, two new machines stood out for two different reasons. The Black & Decker Mill and Brew is for anyone who wants fresher coffee from whole beans without buying a separate coffee grinder, and the Krups Simply Brew is for anyone who just wants the hottest, simplest cup with zero fuss.
This depends on how particular and fastidious you are about your coffee. You should know up front that going the budget route means sacrificing some flavor and consistency.
Megan Biolsi, the manager of coffee education and training at Sightglass Coffee in San Francisco breaks down a few reasons why: “Most [cheap drip coffee makers] use a single hole or sprinkler style water outlet, which doesn’t distribute water evenly across the coffee bed. This leads to uneven saturation and inconsistent flavor.”
In addition to the shape of the water outlet, there’s the way it sprays water out. “Cheaper machines often don’t pulse water during the brew. They release it in a constant stream rather than in controlled bursts that mimic manual pouring. This can prevent proper blooming and hinder the overall extraction process.”
But even with those limitations in mind, not all cheap coffee makers are created equal, and some manage the shortcomings Biolsi points out better than others.
Cheap is subjective, but everything considered for this
“Cheap” is subjective, but everything considered for this guide costs $100 or less. Besides being a nice round number, it represents a meaningful break from the run of Specialty Coffee Association-certified coffee makers that tightly control water temperature and distribution to mimic a pour-over experience.
After drinking coffee from more than 30 machines over the last several years, we figured out that couldn’t realistically set the top of the price range much lower, or this list would have one item on it.
What we love: Braun has held the title of best budget coffee maker in our testing for years. And even as the price tag of the Brewsense model that has held that spot has increased to over $100, Braun’s Pureflavor picked up the cheap coffee maker torch. Of all the machines tried in this price range, the Braun produced the most nuanced and flavorful cups of coffee. It did not put out water in one continuous stream, and when looking at the bed of coffee afterwards, there wasn’t any channeling, which suggests water was able to filter through relatively evenly.
The Braun also comes with a number of nice-to-have programmable features. You can set it to brew ahead of time, adjust the temperature of the hot plate so you don’t scald your coffee, and use a brew over ice setting that will extract a more potent flavor from the ground coffee that will balance out as it melts a carafe full of ice.
What we’d leave: This is a touchscreen machine. We get that might be appealing to some, but since we’re focused on inexpensive items here, it seems like a piece of technology waiting to fail. There were no issues with the touchscreen during testing, but actual buttons feel like a safer option at this price. For an extra $20, you can get the Brewsense, which has buttons.
Best with grinder: Black+Decker 12-Cup Mill and Brew Programmable Coffee Maker with Built-in Grinder
What we love: Contributor Jennifer Zyman used
What we love: Contributor Jennifer Zyman used to use a more expensive Breville for her daily morning drip coffee, but got this machine a couple of years ago from her father, and has been hooked ever since. This is the only machine in the test that grinds the beans before it brews. Some people in the market for a cheap coffee maker may be going the pre-ground route, but it is hard to overstate how much grinding beans just before brewing changes the flavor equation well before the water even hits the grounds. So having an on-board grinder on this machine, which is only $90, is a plus.
This is also one of the few machines under $100 that lets you choose a brew strength rather than just adjusting how much coffee you scoop. You can actually taste the difference between the settings, and you can also use pre-ground coffee if you’re in a pinch. You can also program this to grind and brew so you have a fresh cup of hot coffee waiting for you when you wake.
What we’d leave: The machine does not have a bean hopper; you measure a load of whole beans for each brew.
It’s got the kind of high-powered hot plate typical of inexpensive coffee makers, and it can sometimes make the coffee so hot that it curdles your milk. This may not be a concern for you if you take your coffee black, but definitely let it cool a bit before adding any dairy or plant-based creamers, because not only does this brew coffee very strong, but it also keeps it very, very hot. Some users also reported that the hot plate can peel after a year, but Zyman has used two of these over years (one got dropped) and didn’t have an issue.
Best simple coffee maker: Krups Simply Brew Coffeemaker
What we love: The Krups is a simple, straightforward machine with few features, but it makes a great cup of coffee. There is only one button on the machine; it turns the brewing on or off. Yet, it made a great cup of coffee. In our testing, the same amount of coffee produced notably stronger flavors than many other machines. This was also one of the hottest cups of coffee from any machine tested, which is notable.
Cleanup was also really easy, thanks to a well-designed non-drip spout and a reusable filter, which was super easy to wash and dry. Yes, it has a few bells and whistles, but it also makes a very evenly extracted cup of drip coffee, and it looks nice while doing it. If simplicity is your game and very hot coffee is imperative, the Krups is the machine for you.
What we’d leave: The lack of program capability is a clear trade-off compared to the other machines we tested. There’s no way to set this to brew before you wake up, and there’s no brew strength setting for how much coffee you scoop in, which can feel limiting. However, it makes very good coffee, and it is very hot, so these trade-offs seem minimal.
First and foremost, coffee that tasted good. We used two different beans over the two rounds of testing: Counter Culture’s Big Trouble and Illy’s medium roast beans, both of which are widely available at grocery stores. We brewed full pots of coffee with them, elevating the machines that did the best job bringing out the nutty caramel notes we’d hope to get. We also measured the temperature of the brewed coffee, as another well-known shortcoming of cheap coffee makers is that they don’t get the water hot enough to properly extract flavor. After brewing, we took the temperatures of the hot plates, if they were there, to see how likely they were to curdle milk or wreck the coffee’s flavors if left out too long.
Finally we tried to assess the water distribution that Biolsi mentioned. Machines with wider showerheads performed better and produced coffee beds that didn’t have deep channeling—spots where it looks like you poked a finger straight down the coffee grounds. If you see channeling, it’s a good indication water isn’t getting evenly across, failing to properly extract flavor.
Zojirushi Zutto Zojirushi performed well in our last
Zojirushi Zutto
Zojirushi performed well in our last test and still brews a good cup of coffee. Its design feels more like an automated pour-over, with the brew basket built into the carafe. However, the actual carafe feels cheaply made and kind of flimsy, and was awkward to assemble—not ideal for something with a price toward the top of the range. The other units felt sturdier, and the lack of a reusable filter felt like a major miss.
Cuisinart Personal Brew 12-cup Coffee Maker with Glass Carafe
This felt like the fanciest of all the machines. I liked how it had a swing-out basket and an integrated coffee scoop that pops right in. But the quality of the coffee was not as good as the winners’. It was also one of the larger machines, so if you need more capacity, this is a good option. However, add an extra scoop because the coffee tasted weaker than the others.
The Calphalon ran an admirable second to the Braun in terms of flavor, but had neither the features of the Black and Decker, nor the simplicity of the Krups, so it didn’t make the list of top picks. The interface is a little easier to use on the Braun and it also comes with an over-ice feature. Depending on what’s on sale in any given week though, the Calphalon may be a little bit cheaper, which could tip the scales in its favor.
In parts of the coffee commentariat, Mr. Coffee is a bit of a punching bag, shorthand for mediocre drip coffee. But we’ve tested several of Mr. Coffee’s machines, and they have improved. The coffee from this XL option didn’t hit all the flavor notes that some other machines did, but it was smooth, if a little bit watery. The water temperature as it came off the brewer was notably lower than the Braun, which could account for some of that drop off in flavor. But it’s certainly a big step up from a couple of coffee makers on this list.
The Kenmore machine really did draw out good flavor notes in the coffee and had water come out in a few pulses. The water wasn’t quite as hot as the Braun, and the coffee was just a hair duller in taste.
You sure can. “If possible, weigh both your coffee and your water to control the ratio,” says Biolsi. “A good starting point is a 1:16 coffee to water ratio [in grams], which you can adjust to taste from there.” To put that in concrete terms, for one of these 12-cup coffee makers (which uses 1700 grams of water), you’d want to use 106 grams of coffee. A scale is obviously the best way to measure that, but if you must use a volume measure, you can ballpark it at one cup of whole bean coffee.
Besides the amount of coffee, the other thing you have control over, if you go the cheap coffee maker route, is the grind of your coffee. The mistake lots of people make grinding is too coarsely. Generally, you want to use a medium grind for drip coffee, but if you aren’t getting the flavor you want, try a slightly finer grind and see if that improves things.
All that said, you could also abandon the drip coffee maker altogether. “I’m very pro pour-over,” adds Biolsi. “Pour over setups are also relatively affordable, especially compared to higher quality drip coffee makers that are made to mimic the manual pouring of a pour over. The affordability will let you invest in other equipment like a grinder, scale, and kettle over time, which can continue to help with precision and consistency in brewing.”
What else does your coffee routine need?
We are very opinionated about these excellent coffee mugs
Nothing does more to improve your coffee than a good coffee grinder
The Best Coffee Subscriptions for the Coffee-Obsessed
Source: www.bonappetit.com
