Breville Grind Control Coffee Maker - 60oz Stainless Steel Programmable Drip Coffee Machine (BDC650BSS) - Perfect for Home, Office & Entertaining

Update again: April 2018I'm thinking a big fat no on recommending this coffee maker. The maintenance is nuts. I'm cleaning the grinder and chute weekly now. I actually bought a dust buster and a giant box of q-tips just for the coffee maker maintenance. I know. Nuts. I descale regularly and try to keep everything running smoothly, including recalibrating often. It loses the calibration for no reason at all. And now the water float is busted and I have to either guess and wait for the beep when filling or replace the filter and use the indicator on the LED screen which doesn't always work. I'm ready to go back to a simple burr grinder and a simple coffee maker that doesn't require so much care. Sorry, Breville.Main complaints? The beans have to pushed into the chute or it grinds away at air. The carafe leaves way too much coffee in the bottom and it has to be tipped on its head to get the coffee out when near the bottom and that means coffee goes everywhere, in the cup on the table. It's a dumb carafe design. I cannot tell you how many times it fails to work if you don't push the carafe directly into place correctly. 1mm off and the coffee pours all over the counter, into the drawers, and what a mess. The burr grinder only partially comes out so cleaning it is not exactly as thorough as the Breville burr grinder was so there's always coffee ground goop stuck where you can't clean and it matters. Coffee maker cannot go under a cupboard because you have to access the top to fill the hopper (small thing, but someone - not me- keeps shoving it back and it's a pain to pull out once water is in there). I'm not naming it anything except PITA which is exactly as you can guess. I emailed Breville through their site to get some info on the dead float indicator and they have yet to respond. It hasn't been long, but still. Not even a note to say they got the email. All I want is an easy to make decent pot of coffee in the morning. Something that tastes good and stays hot. Changing my rating to 3 stars cause expensive to buy this thing and give up on it before a year is up.UPDATE:It's been a couple of months and we still highly recommend this coffee maker. By the next update, I am certain we will have a name for it because it requires a very close relationship. Go into this knowing it is high maintenance. You can't just plug it in and go. But so far, it's worth every minute of attention because it makes great coffee.Pros:-It does well with really dark oily beans, but you'll have to clean out the chute more often.-Once you've gone through the Breville processes a few times you won't need to read the manual for specific directions for ordinary tasks- It really keeps the coffee quiet hot and then very warm for a long time. I've gone to pour coffee from the carafe hours later for iced and find it's too warm, still.- Routine is your best friend when caring for this machine. If you are a routine person, this is gonna be easy for you.- It makes a supremely hot cup of great coffee if all your settings are adjust to your liking- The morning timer can be a great alarm clock if grinding beans wakes you up- Coffee brews rather quicklyCONS-Always always put a filter in place before closing the filter holder because if it brews with nothing there, hot water and half as*&ed coffee will flood everywhere- Don't try to descale by just running it through like an ordinary coffee pot. It has a programmed function for it (manual) and that's the only way it knows it was descaled. I cleverly descaled a week before the machine gave me the descale message and I learned the stupid way that it is a "function" needing buttons pushed (manual!). I wasted some good descale stuff, but hey, smart machine, stupid owner.- I learned, also the hard way, to clean the grinder by using the brush and a vacuum machine to suck up the stuff that goes flying. First time I did it without vacuum I was cleaning tiny grounds for days from everywhere in the kitchen. It's a bit annoying when you remove the hopper that whole beans rest on the top and you have to take those off before proceeding to remove the burr. Plus get some good coffee brushes because the one that comes with it is inadequate (I had those already). I use canned air plus vacuum to clean out residue. Works great but it is a ballet. (see - high maintenance but worth it).- Every time the machine gets unplugged it forgets your calibration for the grind (manual - learn that one if you hate wasting coffee beans).- The hopper is way too small. I get that it's that way to fit under most cupboards on countertop but you have to move it to load in beans anyway so why not have the hopper style that's on the bean grinder which holds a lot of coffee beans? I fill ours every evening.- You have to push the beans into the chute before loading in beans or it does that pretend "I need beans noise" and your coffee will suck. Push those beans down every time. Again, fix the hopper and chute, Breville.- We use oxygen bleached filters cause our coffee is too fine for the gold filter. Don't ever forget to place some filter in there before brewing or the coffee muck will go everywhere except in the carafe.- Requires wiping down not only the inside top of the filter holder, but the stainless plate where the grounds come out and the little catcher at the bottom of the filter holder every time. See, high maintenance.-Do not get me started on the carafe. It is the dumbest thing Breville ever designed. It keeps the coffee hot (yay) but getting the coffee out is part art, part, luck and you will always have a bit left in there that cannot be poured anywhere. It has to turn completely upside down to get the last cup out and even then it sprinkles coffee drops everywhere. It only works marginally well when the carafe is totally full. Plus the lid to the carafe never dries out. I rinse it and shake it to death, turn it all kinds of directions to dry and it never, never dries.This Grind Control is pretty awesome. It makes a good cuppa, nice and hot and that's all I want in the early morning. I learned a few things that made the process easier because all those buttons and menus make the coffee maker a little bit annoying. First, find the instruction manual online and read it a few times - only because Breville is detailed and if you own any Breville appliances you know they mean exactly what they specify. Like A before B or C never happens. Here's an example. The grind chute is behind the basket. To clean it (which you should do a lot if you use dark oily beans) you unlock the bean hopper and the automagically stainless plate opening moves to the chute so you can access it to clean. Remember A before B? Yeah. That. I almost returned the machine because I couldn't get that stainless plate to move to open the chute. Then I reread the instructions for the 80 gazillionth time and et voila! There it was. Hopper first, open basket second. Then you hear a whirring noise and the plate moves and there's the chute. I'd been opening the basket thing, then removing the hopper and nothing. So read the instructions and don't feel bad about reading them several times. Honest. It isn't your reading skills. It's Breville's quirky way of doing things.Many folks (in the reviews) felt bad about the strength of the coffee and how much it chewed up a pound of beans in short order. It does. But it doesn't have to be that chewy. Try the calibration function (again, instruction book). We ended up using far less beans to get to our best cup of coffee which is pretty strong. Calibration is your cost cutting friend. Beans are spendy. Also, pay attention to the instruction manual about Breville's coffee cup size - it's small. Not at all what we drink. But use their size as your measure for everything.If you've owned the Breville bean grinder this hopper will make you slightly sad. It says it holds a half-pound of coffee but not ours. It holds about a third pound and I fill it every other day which still bothers me because the other grinder held about a whole pound. Also, use something to gently send the beans toward the burr when filling it (not when it's in operation) because sometimes it will grind air if the beans aren't moving. Smooth the beans gently with a little pressure and that should do it. Over fill and the top won't set on there properly. The grind setting from coarse to fine is up there, too. Use the setting they recommend. For regular 8 cups plus pots of coffee we use a coarser grind (calibrated) and that seems to work. A finer grind will be a perfect storm for overflowing the basket if you are making a large pot.The timer is great. I can set the thing before bed and it wakes us up in the morning which is preferable to an alarm because the smell of grinding coffee is pretty nice.The thermal carafe is keeping the coffee very hot for a long time. We made coffee, forgot we made it, went out and came back two hours later and the coffee was quite warm. Not hot, but a good warm. The only downside to the carafe is the way it pours. Others have mentioned it in the reviews and they are spot on. It dribbles out, even when full. The spout is on the rim but there is no indent on the pot rim to account for the pour so it really has to be tipped to get it to give you some coffee. And when the pot is low, well, it's like the little teapot rhyme. Just tip it over and pour it out. It seems counterintuitive and almost silly (not to mention slightly dangerous if you are pouring it over a light colored carpet) but I have to tip it almost fully upside down to get the last cup out of it. Dripped out of it, actually. Breville can redesign that carafe any time.Last, no matter what they say about when to clean the chute, the burr and all the places where stuff collects, do it more often. I do it a couple times a week. Takes a minute or two and keeps the grinder from getting gummy from the oily beans. The basket not only should be rinsed each time you empty it but wipe down the inside top where the grinds drop in and you'll come away with plenty of coffee gunk. We also ditched the gold filter and use oxygen bleached paper filters to catch the bitter oils and residue.Size? Giant. It's like adding a refrigerator to your counter top and it needs breathing room for vents so it can't get squished in a corner under the cupboard. You can't get to the hopper easily if it's under the cupboard. My solution was to let it sit on the countertop edge next to the real refrigerator so it has plenty of space to vent in the back. I'd say it takes up the same real estate as did the other grinder, water heater pot and french press so there really was no space saving in buying a single machine (for us). Though it is huge and makes my giant stand mixer look like a little sibling, I don't mind giving it half the kitchen counter space. It's worth it. The only improvement would be to make the feet be little wheels that lock in place so you can move it to fill up the hopper and water. (I can hear Breville laughing at me from here).I'm glad I waited to buy this model. It's a keeper. Even without wheels. But, please fix that carafe design. It's embarrassing.