We Tested 16 Drip Coffee Makers—6 Brewed a Great Cup of Joe

Brewing great coffee means juggling lots of variables. The ratio of coffee to water, grind size, water temperature, brew time, and agitation can affect how sweet, bitter, or sour your coffee tastes. And while manual brew methods like pour-over or French press give you full control to customize your brews, getting fussy with thermometers and scales isn't for everyone—especially first thing in the morning. Luckily for anyone who needs well-made coffee before their eyes are fully open, automatic drip coffee brewers have greatly improved in the last five years.

We initially reviewed automatic drip makers in 2018 but there are a lot of new options these days, and machines that didn’t make the cut originally are now completely redesigned. So, we decided to split our brewer review into two parts: Here, we’ll focus on the best overall automatic drip coffee makers. And, in conjunction, we also published a guide to the best brewers for $150 (or less), as finding an inexpensive model poses some challenges of its own. For this review, we tested 16 coffee makers priced between $52 and $630—including our previous favorites—and found excellent machines that meet a variety of needs and budgets. 

The Winners, at a Glance

The Best Drip Coffee Maker

Ratio Six Coffee Maker

$359 at Amazon View on Ratiocoffee.com

The Ratio Six brewed, hands down, the best coffee of all the machines we tested. It was also one of the most attractive brewers of the bunch. 

The Best Drip Coffee Maker Under $200

OXO Brew 8-Cup Coffee Maker

$197 at Amazon $200 at Williams Sonoma $200 at Oxo

OXO’s unlocked the code for making smartly designed coffee equipment at an affordable price. This model was the most intuitive brewer to use, and it consistently made excellent coffee.

The Best Programmable Drip Coffee Maker

OXO Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker

$225 at Amazon $230 at Williams Sonoma $230 at Home Depot

The OXO 9-cup gives users slightly more control over their brew settings and you can program it to start at a set time every morning. It fell short of the OXO 8-cup in taste tests, but for those who consider a programmable setting essential, it’s a solid pick. 

Another Good Coffee Maker Under $200

Bonavita 8-Cup Coffee Maker

$190 at Amazon $500 at Walmart

The Bonavita 8-Cup brewer is SCA-certified and does exactly what a great brewer should: It holds a high brewing temperature, extracts coffee evenly, and keeps coffee hot in its thermal carafe. 

The Best Customizable Drip Coffee Maker

Breville Precision Brewer Thermal Coffee Maker

$330 $300 at Amazon $330 at Williams Sonoma $27 at Walmart

With customizable brew options and a built-in PID controller (a device that algorithmically controls your brew temps down to the degree), the Breville Precision Brewer is the ideal choice for anyone who likes to tinker with their coffee.

A Durable Drip Coffee Maker

Technivorm Moccamaster 79112 KBT Coffee Brewer

$339 $237 at Amazon $238 at Williams Sonoma $238 at Sur La Table

Handmade in the Netherlands, every Technivorm brewer is crafted from a sturdy stainless steel body with high-end components that are designed to last. It also has a copper heating element that gets water up to 205ºF in less than a minute. With a removable external spray head, it’s one of the easiest brewers to descale and keep from clogging over time. It also brews really fast, ensuring a smooth cup of coffee every time.

The Tests

• Brew Test One: Brew medium-dark roast coffee to assess brew time, how well the machine does with a standard coffee available at a supermarket, and the resulting brew’s flavor.
• Brew Test Two: Brew light roast coffee to assess brew time, how well the brewer does with a harder-to-extract bean, and the resulting brew’s flavor.
• Brew Basket Saturation Test: After each brew test, evaluate brew basket saturation, as an evenly extracted brew bed is a sign of a well-designed coffee maker.
• Total Dissolved Solids Test: Measure total dissolved solids or TDS using a refractometer, to see if it provides a baseline for how much coffee is ending up in the final cup.
• Temperature Tracking Test: Using a thermocouple, track the water temperature of the showerhead and the brew basket during brewing, looking to see how stable these temperatures are and at what temperature brewing occurs.
• Heat Retention Test: Using an instant-read thermometer, check the temperature of the coffee right after brewing and again 30 minutes and an hour later, to see how hot the carafe keeps it.
• User-Experience Evaluation Test: Determine how easy each coffee maker and carafe is to set up, use, and pour from.
• Ease of Cleaning Tests: After each test, clean the coffee maker’s carafe and brew basket by hand, looking for any factors that make one machine easier to clean than another.
• Winners-Only Test: For the top models, try any preset functions they have.
  

Evaluating Our Findings From Our 2018 Testing

When we published our review on coffee makers in 2018, we did a lot right: evaluating taste and ease of use, measuring brew times, and checking the brew basket. We also attempted to use total dissolved solids (TDS)—a technical measure of how much of the actual coffee itself is in your final cup—to differentiate the coffee makers. Coffee experts use a refractometer to calculate TDS, which is what we did, too. However, TDS can be affected by several factors outside of the brewer, like grind size and water quality. It’s also not reflective of how most people would evaluate or use a brewer at home and we acknowledged this in our original review. For these reasons, we chose not to focus heavily on TDS when we re-tested coffee makers. (We did measure TDS just in case, though.) 

Instead, we weighed other real-world factors more heavily—like brew bed saturation and ease of use—homing in on the differences that wouldn’t change from user to user. While you can endlessly tweak the extraction rate of coffee by tinkering with your grind size, you can’t make a machine brew hotter water or change how its brew basket is designed. Ideally, you should leave this review knowing your options for the best possible brewer and use that as a license to play with variables like strength, grind setting, and roast profile to find what works best for you.

Control Variables

To ensure consistency throughout testing, we kept several factors the same from machine to machine:

• Grind setting: We ground whole bean coffee using a burr grinder and a medium grind setting.
• Water flush: Prior to brewing, we did one rinse cycle using just water (to ensure the coffee makers were free of anything that might’ve been present from the manufacturing process). Assuming most people are not pre-heating their brewers, we waited 20 minutes after this flush to begin brewing. 
• The water: For each of our brewing tests, we used filtered water. We also weighed the water, in grams, rather than relying on the coffee maker’s water level marker (this video from coffee expert James Hoffmann shows why these can be wildly off). Basically, whereas a cup is considered to be eight ounces, a coffee maker's "cup" can be four to six ounces, depending on the model.
• The coffee: We used a medium-dark roasted coffee available at a local supermarket and a lighter roast coffee from a specialty coffee roaster in New York. We also weighed the ground coffee to ensure we were using the same amount in each machine. For the medium-dark roast coffee test, we used 55 grams of ground coffee and 1,000 grams (one liter) of water, which is a 1:16 ratio. And for the light roast coffee, we brewed half that amount: using 30 grams of ground coffee and 500 grams (half a liter) of water.

What We Learned

Large Versus Small-Batch Brewing

When evaluating coffee makers, taste should be taken with a grain of salt (although it is important). So many factors contribute to the flavor of coffee, but we tried to isolate what could be attributed to the brewer itself. We brewed round one’s coffees with a liter of water and 55 grams of coffee, as per the SCA’s Golden Cup ratio (which is between 55 to 60 grams of coffee to 1,000 grams or one liter of water (a 1:16-ish ratio). For round two, we did a smaller batch of 30 grams to a half liter of water.

Some of the brewers performed better with a larger batch than a smaller one because of the depth of the brew bed. When we used less water, the brew bed wasn’t as deep, so water went through quicker. With a deeper brew bed, there’s slightly more resistance (and obviously, more coffee), so extraction happens more easily. However, the best coffee makers excelled at both large and small-batch brewing. One of our favorite coffee makers, the OXO 8-cup, even comes with a brew bed insert to optimize flavor when making less coffee.

We also timed every brew—brewers ranged from a 4-minute brew time to almost 10 minutes. The SCA recommends between four to eight minutes and we found the best brewers brewed between five to six minutes. Longer brew times brought out bitter flavors since the water was in contact with the brew bed for much longer.

How Brew Basket and Showerhead Design Impacted Extraction

After brewing, we tasted all the coffees, but also looked at the evenness of the brew bed. This is a sign of even extraction, as opposed to the brew bed being concave in the center. We evaluated the design of the brew basket (flat bottom versus conical) and if there was any visible channeling. This indicates areas where water ran through the brew bed faster than other spots, which can happen with a poorly designed showerhead. Channeling creates both over- and under-extraction, so it's not ideal. Wider showerheads with a larger number of holes were able to saturate grounds evenly, leading to better-extracted brew.

As for brew basket shape, we generally liked coffee more from flat-bottomed brewers (when paired with a well-designed showerhead) and found them to be more consistent, resulting in an evenly extracted bed of ground coffee and better medium-dark roast coffee.

However, during round two of testing, we found that lighter roasted coffees benefitted from a conical-shaped brewer, as the depth of the brew bed increased extraction. A deeper brew bed meant there was more contact time between the coffee and the water, which the flavor of light roast coffee benefitted from. This is one of those topics you’ll see coffee folks debating a lot about and not something there is a super definite answer to. However, this article is helpful if you want a deeper explanation of how brew bed shape can impact extraction. 

Why Temperature Stability Was Important for Brewing (and Serving)

Coffee extraction is affected by temperature, and higher temperatures will extract more from coffee. We used a thermocouple with two probes on each machine during brewing: one attached as closely as we could to the showerhead to measure the temperature of the water coming out, and one at the bottom of the brew bed. 

We didn’t learn a whole lot from the bottom probe, however, the top probe told us a lot about how the water temperature changes over time and varies between models. Many of the cheaper brewers started brewing with water that wasn’t quite hot enough (around 170-180°F), and would spike towards the end of the brew. Higher-end models were able to keep the temperature between 198°F and 206°F consistently throughout the brewing cycle, resulting in a better, well-extracted brew.

One thing we noticed about the OXO 9-Cup (and to an extent, the OXO 8-Cup) was that there were ebbs and flows in temperature, which indicated that the brewer was trying to replicate pour-over brewing where you add water in spurts instead of a continuous flow. We're not 100% sure how this affected the brew's final flavor, but both machines did make consistently great coffee.

We also measured the temperature of the coffee in the carafes right after brewing, after 30 minutes, and then at an hour. Most of the higher-end machines came with a thermal carafe, with the exception of the Technivorm's glass carafe and hotplate. Hotplates keep coffee hotter (and in some cases, even make coffee hotter than it was right after brewing), but at the cost of flavor: over time, coffee tastes baked and bitter. So, we recommend models with thermal carafes over those with hotplates.

Which Coffee Makers Were the Easiest to Use and Clean?

We evaluated how simple each brewer was to set up (did we need to read an entire manual to operate it?). Because a coffee brewer is a device that’ll likely live on a kitchen’s countertop permanently, we also looked at how well the brewer fits on the counter and underneath a cabinet. The standard distance between a countertop and a kitchen cabinet is 18 inches. While all the brewers we tested could fit under a cabinet, some had to be pulled out when we added water. Either our hands couldn’t fit to pour water into the water reservoir or the brew basket or reservoir's lid hit the cabinet when we attempted to remove it—neither of which was ideal. 

We also closely looked at the coffee makers' lids and carafes, particularly how easy they were to set up and pour from. We evaluated how easy or difficult it was to put on or add a lid (lids that snapped on, rather than twisted, were preferable) and the ease of pouring out of the carafe. It sounds obvious, but carafes with spouts were key for directing coffee into the cup and keeping it off the countertop.

Finally, we determined which carafes were easy to clean. Carafes with larger lids had larger openings, which meant you could clean them using your hand and a sponge. Smaller lids had smaller openings and were tougher, requiring a bottle brush to reach the walls and bottom of the carafe.

The Criteria: What to Look for in a Drip Coffee Maker

An automatic drip brewer has a very simple job: to heat and maintain water at a consistent temperature, to pour that hot water over grounds evenly to extract flavor properly (read: not over- or under-extracted), and to keep coffee hot once it's brewed. It should also be simple and straightforward to use and clean and easily fit underneath a cabinet.

Our Favorite Drip Coffee Makers

The Best Drip Coffee Maker

Ratio Six Coffee Maker

$359 at Amazon View on Ratiocoffee.com

What we liked: No other brewer extracted coffee better than the Ratio Six. In taste tests, this flat-bottom brewer was able to produce the most full-flavored coffee without any bitter or off notes that can come from over-extraction. 

The Ratio is incredibly sleek. Although it’s available in other colors and has a stainless steel finish, the black matte one we tested was eye-catching. It also has some interesting design features: You access the water reservoir by removing a small plate on top of the brewer, revealing a hole that gives you access to the reservoir, so you can easily store it under your cabinet and not worry about a lid knocking into anything. It has an automatic bloom setting and the spray head on the machine was incredibly effective, evenly saturating the brew bed. A piece that's inserted on top of the brew bed had a rubber ring that created a seal around the spray head, ensuring minimal temperature loss.

The Ratio Six also made some of the hottest coffee and after an hour the coffee inside the carafe was 168°F, still very hot and pleasant to drink. The carafe also had a large opening, making it easy to clean.

What we didn’t like: The Ratio Six’s carafe lid was a little finicky to put on and the spout design could be improved upon. To pour from it, you have to press down on a release valve and the coffee comes out in an uneven stream, so it’s more prone to spilling. (Ratio is aware of this.) This brewer also has multiple parts: you have the piece that creates a seal over the showerhead, the brew basket, and the lid.

The only other thing to note about Ratio Six is its price—at more than $350, it’s not super accessible. We do think both OXO models do exceptionally well for their price points, but if you’re looking for the absolute best coffee maker, you’ll be happy with the Ratio Six.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 1.25 liters/40 ounces/8 cups
• Height of brewer: 14.25 inches
• Weight: 8 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: Yes
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 4 minutes, 48 seconds
  
• Wattage: 1400 watts
• Warranty: 5-year limited
• SCA Certified Brewer: Yes
  

The Best Drip Coffee Maker Under $200

OXO Brew 8-Cup Coffee Maker

$197 at Amazon $200 at Williams Sonoma $200 at Oxo

What we liked: The OXO 8-cup is a cost-effective brewer, balancing must-have features with a pared-down design. We enjoyed pouring from the OXO 8-cup carafe the most. The lid to the carafe stayed on during brewing, so you don’t have to awkwardly remove the brew bed and put the carafe's lid on later. It was the most compact option in the bunch and could nicely sit on any kitchen counter. The OXO 8-cup also makes a little indicator noise when it’s done brewing, which the OXO 9-cup doesn’t do. 

This OXO can be adapted to brew large and small batches, and the only buttons on the machine (besides the ON button) are to brew for a small batch (two to four cups) or large (five to eight cups), and it even includes an insert to optimize small-batch brewing—which is a big deal. One of the major problems with most coffee brewers is that they do just fine with a lot of coffee, but can’t brew a small amount well. The water usually just pours through too quickly since, with a smaller amount of coffee, the depth of the brew bed is so shallow. The OXO 8-cup addresses this issue, and when we ran the second brew test with a smaller batch of coffee, we liked the coffee we drank from the OXO 8-cup the best (just slightly more than the Ratio, but we vastly preferred the Ratio’s coffee when we brewed a bigger batch). 

Optionally, the OXO allows you to bloom your coffee by holding down the brew button, which gives the user more flexibility. The brewer also has the option to brew into a carafe or straight into a mug (we didn’t do this, but we read reviews that said while this feature is appreciated, shorter mugs will result in coffee splashing all over the place). 

What we didn’t like: Our only complaint is that the showerhead isn’t quite perfect—we noticed some channeling and the brew bed wasn’t quite as even as we'd like. As we tasted and tasted the coffees from the OXO 8-cup, we noticed some hints of both over- and under-extraction (from the channeling, since the places it did channel would produce under-extracted bits and the areas there wasn’t channeling would be slightly over-extracted from the displacement of the coffee grounds). However, these off notes were truly minimal and not likely something that would bother an average home taster.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 1.25 liters/40 ounces/8 cups
• Height of brewer: 13.5 inches
• Weight: 10.3 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: Yes
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 5 minutes, 53 seconds
  
• Wattage: 1400 watts
• Warranty: 2 years
• SCA Certified Brewer: Yes

The Best Programmable Drip Coffee Maker

OXO Brew 9-Cup Coffee Maker

$225 at Amazon $230 at Williams Sonoma $230 at Home Depot

What we liked: Neither the Ratio Six nor the OXO 8-cup is programmable—you pretty much just press a button and coffee happens. The OXO 9-cup allows users to program their brewer to start making coffee at a certain time.

Like the OXO 8-cup, there’s an option to brew either a smaller or larger batch, but the OXO 9-cup doesn’t come with an insert. As I noted above, the OXO 9-cup did some interesting things during the brew cycle—instead of a continuous stream of water, it seemed to dispense water in spurts. We don't think that had a perceptible effect on the final flavor of the coffee, but it does show that the folks at OXO are paying attention to how people brew coffee, and we imagine they’ll continue to improve on their drip machines. 

What we didn’t like: My biggest complaint was the conical brew bed, which extracted lighter-roasted coffees better but didn’t let the slightly darker coffee blend shine. The latter tasted drier, which could indicate over-extraction.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 45 ounces/9 cups
• Height of brewer: 17.2 inches
• Weight: 11 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: Yes
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 6 minutes, 40.5 seconds
  
• Wattage: 1400 watts
• Warranty: 2 years
  
• SCA Certified Brewer: Yes

Another Good Coffee Maker Under $200

Bonavita 8-Cup Coffee Maker

$190 at Amazon $500 at Walmart

What we liked: I can’t describe how beautiful it is to pull out the brew basket of a coffee brewer and see a perfectly flat bed. And the Bonavita delivers every time. The model could not be simpler to use. There’s one button to turn the machine on, and if you hold it down for five seconds, it will activate a bloom cycle. The thermal carafe keeps coffee hot after brewing, and its pared-down design means you get everything you need to brew excellent coffee and nothing more. 

When you’re looking at machines in the sub $200 range, it’s really a question of where your money is going. With the Bonavita, all the attention and care are in the design of the showerhead and the water heating elements. The showerhead is made to saturate all the coffee grounds evenly, producing clean and well-extracted coffee during each brew cycle. Both the dark and lighter roasted coffees tasted nuanced and fully expressed. The Bonavita also kept water above 195°F throughout the entire brew cycle without spiking and getting really hot towards the end—which did happen a lot on the other brewers. Out of all the inexpensive brewers, the Bonavita brewed coffee the fastest by far with a well-balanced brew that had no lingering bitterness. The Bonavita is a snap to clean, too, featuring a wide-mouth top that makes scrubbing the thermal carafe simple. Its compact design also means it’ll fit easily on any countertop and take up minimal space.

What we didn't like: The lid on the Bonavita is a little awkward and can be difficult to pour from—you have to press a button to activate the pouring lip and it tends to dribble a little. The Bonavita has no extra features (like a programmable start setting), which could be a dealbreaker for some.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 40 ounces/8 cups
• Height of brewer: 12.2 inches
• Weight: 16.3 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: Yes
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 6 minutes, 40.5 seconds
  
• Wattage: 1500 watts
• Warranty: 1 years
  
• SCA Certified Brewer: Yes

The Best Customizable Drip Coffee Maker

Breville Precision Brewer Thermal Coffee Maker

$330 $300 at Amazon $330 at Williams Sonoma $27 at Walmart

What we liked: The Breville Precision Brewer is the only model that lets you program your ideal bloom time, water temperature, and flow rate. These settings give you more control over how the coffee brews, similar to making a pour-over. It also features a PID controller that adjusts your water temperature down to the degree and is usually only found in high-end espresso machines. This allows you to adjust the water temperature up or down slightly based on your coffee preferences—dark roasts tend to fare better with cooler temps while lighter roasts take well to higher temps. It brews great coffee, and we also liked how easy its control panel was to operate thanks to it’s screen and intuitive dial. 

What we didn’t like: It’s a pricey brewer, and with so many customizable options we struggled at first to find the settings that worked for us. With a little tinkering, however, we really appreciated being able to tweak our brews.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 60 ounces / 12 cups
• Brewer height: 15.25 inches
• Weight: 11 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: Yes
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 6 minutes, 20 seconds
• Wattage: 1650 watts
• Warranty: 2 years
• SCA-certified brewer: Yes

A Durable Drip Coffee Maker

Technivorm Moccamaster 79112 KBT Coffee Brewer

$339 $237 at Amazon $238 at Williams Sonoma $238 at Sur La Table

What we liked: The Technivorm Moccamaster was the first brewer to use a high-powered heating element that can reach the ideal 195ºF to 205ºF range. Each brewer is handbuilt in the Netherlands and has a stainless steel body and spray head. Not only is it a durable brewer with a five-year warranty, but it’s also one of the easiest to clean and descale, adding to its longevity. Its copper heating element can heat water to 205ºF in less than a minute, and with a few tweaks (ie closing the drip stopper to let the coffee saturate), it brews great coffee that matches our other top picks. It’s pricey, but Serious Eats staffers have a combined 25 years of experience using Technivorm brewers without any major technical issues. 

What we didn’t like: The Technivorm has a narrow spray head, which oversaturates the center of the coffee grounds while leaving the edges dry, leading to uneven extraction. That said, unless you're a total coffee nerd, you likely won't notice a difference in taste. There's also an easy fix for this "issue," thanks to this model’s manually adjustable drip-stop (located on the filter basket): Just close it for the first 30 to 60 seconds of brewing, letting the coffee saturate fully. Then, you can then open the stopper to let the coffee flow into the carafe. It's also quite expensive, and we have had issues with messy pours.

Key Specs

• Stated capacity: 60 ounces/12 cups
• Brewer height: 16 inches
• Weight: 4.5 pounds
• Built-in bloom cycle: No
• Type of carafe: Thermal carafe
• Average brew time: 4 minutes, 50 seconds
• Wattage: 1400 watts
• Warranty: 5 years
• SCA-certified brewer: Yes

The Competition

• Technivorm Moccamaster: The Technivorm Moccamaster is over $300, and at that price, we'd like the brewer to come with a thermal carafe rather than glass. The spray head issue mentioned above also exists with this model.
• Bunn ThermoFresh: Bunn is known for its commercial machines, and we were intrigued to try the Bunn ThermoFresh because it brews unlike any of the other models: it has a hot water tank that you fill, then you add more water to “push out” that already hot water. But this is simply untenable for at-home brewing and would be more appropriate in an office setting or somewhere you’re continuously brewing coffee. It was also really hard to set up and get right. It claims to brew coffee in three minutes, but that’s after the 15-minute heating time for the water. 
• Cafe Smart Drip Coffee Maker: The Cafe Smart looked promising, but fell short in taste tests. The flavor was flat and uneven and couldn’t measure up to the other brewers. However, it's a very nice-looking coffee maker.
• Balmuda The Brew: We were impressed by The Brew's water temperature management: coffee starts brewing around 196ºF, and then slowly declines a few degrees at the end of the brew cycle to mimic a pour-over. However, with a narrow spray head and long pauses between water pulses, the coffee bed was unevenly saturated, and brews lacked sweetness, tasting sour and bitter simultaneously.
• Cuisinart 8-Cup Coffee Brewer: Even though this is an SCA-certified brewer, it took almost nine minutes to brew a full pot, and we weren’t happy with its inconsistent coffee quality.
• Wolf Gourmet Programmable 10-Cup Coffee Maker: This is a very expensive coffee maker, but it still took over two minutes to reach the ideal brew temperature range. 
• Zwilling Enfinigy Drip Coffee Maker with Thermal Carafe: This is another SCA-certified brewer with extended brew times. It took over 10 minutes to make a full pot, and the resulting coffee consistently lacked sweetness.
• Bonavita Enthusiast 8-Cup Coffee Brewer with Thermal Carafe: We liked this brewer quite a bit, but its price point is higher than the Bonavita Coinesseur, our budget pick, without any notable jump in brew quality. 
• Chemex Ottomatic 2.0 Automatic Pour-Over Coffee Maker: The Ottomatic is a water-delivery vehicle for the Chemex pour-over coffee maker, and while we did generally enjoy the coffee it brewed, it took over nine minutes to make a full pot. There’s a large drop between the spray head and the coffee surface, too, so the brewing water lost considerable temperature midair.
• OXO Brew 12-Cup Coffee Maker: OXO’s newest brewer had some issues. For one, its large brew basket requires commercial-sized coffee filters that aren’t available at most stores. And because the brew basket is so large, the spray head couldn’t evenly saturate the coffee, leading to weak and bitter brews. Its preheating function added a few minutes onto each cycle, and the water still struggled to stay above 195ºF. 

FAQs

What does it mean for a coffee maker to be SCA Certified?

The SCA has a set of protocols that a brewer must meet to receive their certification. These protocols are long and sort of wild, but they’re designed to ensure that any brewer with their seal of approval will make a tasty cup of coffee. This is based on decades of research looking at what variables make coffee taste good—not every excellent brewer will be SCA certified, and there are a few brewers we tested that have the SCA seal of approval and weren’t standouts. Some of the big things they look for are: 

• Volume of coffee: Can it brew a reasonable amount of coffee without overflowing or grounds getting all over the place? 
• Brewing time: How long does it take to run a full brewing cycle? To be SCA certified, a brewer must be able to make a batch of coffee between four to eight minutes. 
• Brew temperature: How hot does the water get, and does the water stay hot? The SCA specifies that water must reach 92°C (197.6°F) within the first minute that water touches coffee grounds, and stay between 92°C and 96°C (197°F and 204.8°F) as the coffee brews. 
• Gold cup standards: Something like 30% of an actual coffee bean is soluble, but not everything that’s soluble is actually pleasant tasting. Over decades, scientists have determined that getting, or extracting, 18 to 22% of a coffee bean produces an ideal-tasting cup. Basically, brewers that pass SCA testing can properly extract all the good stuff from coffee. 

Think of the SCA seal as a threshold rather than a guarantee that these brewers will be amazing. The SCA protocols test if these brewers can meet the standards listed above—which does help to make great coffee. These protocols are especially useful considering that there are thousands of brewers, many of whom cannot meet the above standards (you’ll see a lot of these come up in our review of brewers for $150 or less). 

How long do automatic drip coffee makers last?

Our top pick, the Ratio Six Coffee Maker, has a five-year warranty. It's also designed to be repairable, and you can contact Ratio directly to inquire about repairs. Both the OXO Brew 8-Cup and OXO Brew 9-Cup coffee makers have a two-year warranty. If well maintained, cleaned, and descaled regularly, high-end coffee makers can last for many years.

How often should you replace a drip coffee maker?

With proper cleaning and descaling, most drip coffee makers will last many years. The Ratio Six, our top pick, can actually be repaired by the manufacturer, as well, if something isn't working correctly. An automatic coffee maker only needs to be replaced if it stops working altogether and the manufacturer doesn't offer a repair program.

What's a "bloom" cycle?

A “bloom cycle” (or pre-infusion) is built into or offered as a setting/button on coffee brewers. During this phase, a brewer de-gasses coffee grounds, spraying a bit of hot water onto them to release the carbon dioxide that’s inside of the grounds. Then, 30 to 60 seconds after blooming, brewing commences. With these gasses gone, the idea is that easier extraction happens. High-end models usually have this feature, however, it’s not something we find entirely essential.

What's the difference between cleaning and descaling a coffee maker?

Cleaning a coffee brewer is removing coffee oils and other residue in and off the machine. Descaling is the process of removing the buildup of calcium carbonate, or scale, from your brewer. 

Unless you’re brewing with distilled water (spoiler alert: don’t—it will taste like nothing because coffee needs minerals to bind to during extraction, but if you’re the type of person who needs to try things for themselves, this is actually a pretty fun experiment), all water has dissolved minerals. Any item that touches water will eventually accumulate some of those minerals to produce a white, chalky substance called scale. If you live in a place with hard water, you’ll likely want to descale more often than folks who have soft water, but a good rule of thumb is to descale every one to two months. If you want to learn more about scale, head here.

Should I run vinegar through my new drip coffee maker?

While vinegar has cleaning properties and descaling properties, it can actually damage the heating elements in the coffee makers we recommend in this article. Vinegar can leave sharp odors and wear on the metal in the boiler, so the best practice with a new coffee maker is to run clean water through it, and when it's time to clean, use cleaning and descaling products specifically designed for an automatic drip coffee maker.

Why is my coffee maker overflowing?

The filter basket in an automatic drip coffee maker can overflow for a number of reasons, but the main one is easy to fix: you might be using too much coffee. The Specialty Coffee Association’s Golden Cup ratio recommends 55 to 60 grams of coffee per liter of water, but most coffee brewers in the United States list water volume in "cups" on their reservoirs. The main issue? A "cup" on a coffee maker is between four and five ounces, and there's no indicator of which one the brewer uses. The best way to prevent overflowing is to measure your water out in milliliters and then weigh your coffee out to match that volume, i.e. 45 grams of coffee for 750 milliliters, or 30 grams of coffee for 500 milliliters. This will ensure the right amount of coffee is being used which will prevent overflow, and improve the flavor quality in the cup. But if you're using the proper ratio of coffee and still getting overflows, make sure the drainage hole on the filter basket isn't blocked, or that the filter basket doesn't have a trap door mechanism that is stuck shut due to a faulty spring; these are two common issues that can keep the basket from draining properly and cause it to overflow.

Why We're the Experts

• Ashley Rodriguez has been in the coffee industry since 2010. Her very first coffee job was as a barista at a high-volume shop where they weren’t allowed to change the grind setting on the grinder. After that, she's been behind the bar in some capacity until 2019 and she's continued to write about coffee and interview folks for her coffee-centric podcast. Ashley has written many Serious Eats reviews, including those of espresso machines and French presses.
• Jesse Raub was Serious Eats' commerce writer. He has more than 15 years of experience in the specialty coffee industry.
• For this review, we evaluated 16 models and brewed more than 30 pots of coffee to find the very best coffee makers.
• After learning that our favorite inexpensive brewer, from Bonavita, had changed its price and was well over $150, we decided to remove it from that review and add it to this one. We think it's a phenomenal brewer—and worth the cash.