BDC400BSS Precision Brewer Glass Carafe, Brushed Stainless Steel

I like this unit so far. I've had it about a month. It takes a little time to get used to. I read the instructions for flavor adjustments several times. Adjusting the bloom time, temperature, flow rate, coffee weight and water volume, took a little time. I knew the flavor I was looking for, just didn't know how to get there. The instructions are pretty accurate. Doesn't look like much, but achieving what you are looking for is there. Making adjustments one at a time and keeping notes on what you make, worked for me. It took about a week for me to reach the mix I prefer. Coffee is great! Just need a little patience and small adjustments. In the beginning, I maxed everything and got a feel for what the maker could do and went from there. Highly recommend. Update No. 1 2nd month. There's a little movement in the carafe handle now. I hand wash all Components of the coffee maker. Never placed in a dishwasher. Once the carafe is handwashed I turn it upside down on a towel to drain dry. Water will collect in the handle/bezel which wraps around the glass carafe. Very irritating. You have to empty this excess water out and hand dry. The water continues after attempting to hand dry for several more wipes. You wonder how much soap detergent mixes with this water. I recommend hand rinse without using soap, this also includes the filter holder which collects rinse water and possibly soap suds if used. So I searched the internet for a replacement SS carafe. We'll, you can’t find a SS carafe anywhere. I found a glass carafe on fixit.com $45.00±. Very disappointed in Breville. They make this unit and the carafe is the weak link. I ask Breville, what happened to the quality assurance you used to have. We paid enough for this to have a quality item. I've had this unit only 2 months. Who has time to chase down customer service and beg for help? I will say, the unit makes good coffee, the flaws are simple cheap mistakes Solution: At least make for your customers, a replacement carafe that is solid and will not collect water/soap suds in the bezel around the glass pot along with a filter holder that doesn't do the same. If you are really concerned about your client base, make them a SS carafe.

I've only had this coffee maker for a few days now, but the resulting cups of coffee speak for themselves. I'd always wondered why coffee I made at home never tasted as good as coffee I'd had out, then saw some reviews for this (and similarly designed) coffee makers explaining that standard drip brewers boil the water as part of the mechanism for getting the water up to the grounds, and that boiling water burns the coffee and makes it bitter. Sure enough, the coffee from this maker isn't bitter in the slightest and tastes much, much better than anything I got from my previous ones (a Cuisinart, two Hamilton Beaches, and a Braun). It also makes coffee very quickly, I've got it on the "Strong" setting and it takes a little less than 10 minutes to brew a pot, compared to nearly 20 for the Braun it's replacing. I haven't tried "Fast" mode yet, but presumably that's even faster. It's quite tall, tall enough that I was worried about clearance issues between my countertop and the cabinets above, but it fits with a couple of inches to spare. Make sure to measure if you're going to be putting it in a similar place, this is easily the tallest coffee maker I've used. The UI is also one of the best I've used. There are only three controls - a start/cancel button, a dial that can be pressed like a button, and an "auto on" button, then with a pretty nice little LCD screen. The menus are pretty intuitive, certainly moreso than the Braun I was using. Setting up what strength I wanted my coffee and which filter type I was using was very easy. Setting auto-on was extremely easy. Hit the auto-on button, turn the dial until the LCD shows the time you want it to turn on at, hit the auto-on button again. Speaking of which filter type, it can be used both with basket and cone filters, it's got an adapter that goes into the grounds basket for cone filters. It also comes with a gold re-usable basket filter. There are a few reviews complaining that it's loud. I did not find that to be the case. It does have an audible pump, but it's about as loud as a quiet aquarium pump. It's significantly less loud than the burbling and popping from my previous coffee makers that comes from the water boiling. I live in a small townhouse and previous coffee makers would wake my wife and I up if we set it to brew before the alarm, whereas I can't hear this one at all in our bedroom. I also saw complaints about it demanding to be descaled mid-brew and refusing to work until it is descaled. I'm hoping those are similarly overblown, but will update the review if/when that becomes a problem. The one thing I don't like is the inability to set the amount of time it keeps coffee warm, or to extend that time if you want to keep enjoying the pot of coffee you made earlier. I'd love a way to be able to at least have a button that says "I'm not done drinking coffee, please keep it warm for longer." However, that seemed to be a feature lacking in pretty much all the nicer coffee makers. Now, if it can last longer than two years without breaking down, it will outlast all my other coffee makers. The one it's replacing made it 21 months before dying. Here's hoping.

UPDATE to this Review: This coffee pot continues to disappoint. It's seriously poorly designed especially given the price point. My $80 former Cuisinart coffee maker was WAY better. 1 - First issue - REFILL TANK ERROR Code - After using my buddy ChatGPT for guidance on how to fix the never-ending 'Refill Tank' error code on my new Breville DBC 400. Fill the tank with distilled water and let it set for at least 3 days. You need to help the crummy plastic they use on the tank to 'age' and seal to reduce the amount of static that's created when there's water in the tank. I prefill my machine at night so I can just hit the Start button on the morning. The walls of the tank would be covered with bubbles each morning and thus confuse the sensor. Therefore, the Refill Tank error code would present and the machine would not work. Initially I'd run a bamboo chopstick around the sides of the tank and over the sensor to eliminate the bubbles. That works, but it's a dumb process to have to use. The distilled water trick has helped. Fewer bubbles and the machine actually brews coffee. 2 - NEW DISAPPOINTMENT WITH MY MACHINE - 30 MINUTE KEEP WARM - Realized this morning, that even though the KEEP WARM function is turned ON - it only keeps the coffee warm for 30 minutes! When the instruction manual provided NO guidance, again I asked Chapt GPT. Here's what it shared: "BDC400 Keep Warm Is Fixed at 30 Minutes Breville quietly limited the BDC400’s warming time to a preset 30 minutes. Only the BDC450 / Precision Brewer Thermal and the Glass Carafe version in some markets allow adjustable warm time up to 2 hours. So on your BDC400: KEEP WARM = ON → stays warm 30 minutes KEEP WARM = OFF → heating plate doesn’t activate There is no menu option for duration, which is why you aren’t seeing it. ⭐ Why yours doesn’t offer the 2-hour option Breville split capabilities across very similar model numbers, which is why the manual can be confusing. The BDC400 (U.S.) uses a fixed heating-cycle length for safety and UL energy requirements. Only companion models offer the 2-hour selection." So my option to have a pot of coffee stay warm for longer than 30 minutes is to buy a thermal carafe which will keep it warm for 15-30 minutes longer. So stupid! ********* ORIGINAL REVIEW: This is the second time I’ve true this coffee maker. The first one I received, the lid to the coffee pit was installed incorrectly and couldn’t be removed. So I returned it. This replacement unit doesn’t work. It continuously shows the refill tank error message. I’ve researched and completed the factory reset 3 times. After the first two resets, it’d work. I could make one pot of coffee. After this 3 reset, I’m getting the refill tank error message again and the factory reset won’t clear it. For a new unit, this is unacceptable. Amazon doesn’t even want it back - so that tells me there are a LOT of other people with issues with this machine too.

I am a coffeegeek. My 'other car' is a German lever operated espresso machine. I often use gram scales and kitchen timers to ensure optimal brewing of my target. However... I have three kids that get on each of their school buses from 6:45 to 8am and don't have time in the morning race to go through the rigmarole of making drip coffee properly. I know others might say 'oh.. it doesn't take that long to... (blah blah blah blah)' Hey! I'm drinking coffee? Do you HONESTLY think I'm a morning person?? I need a couple cups of coffee to wake up enough to make my cappuccino on my lever machine after the kids are off to school! I used the highly rated Bonavita Connoisseur (https://smile.amazon.com/Bonavita-One-Touch-Featuring-Thermal-BV1900TS/dp/B00O9FO1HK/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2HIS36HH6ROCK&keywords=bonavita+coffee+maker&qid=1573311622&sprefix=bonavita%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-3) for the last while after being disappointed in the low quality of the Kcup system (due to old coffee and over extracted amount of coffee (9.5gm / American mug is half strength). It makes a great cup of coffee (and also has SCA certification like this brewer) - BUT - you can only really make half a pot of coffee (4 5oz cups isn't enough for our household) and with 8-12c filters, you will overflow the filter 25% of the time-ish.. AND you have to preheat the thermos kettle or else you're going to be drinking luke-warm coffee ("I spit you out of my mouth!" - JC) especially if you use a little cream. The Breville rocks: • You can control the flow rate in case you're overrunning your filters • Holds the coffee at a good hot temp - 182'f (that isn't scalding for you pansies worried about using a heating plate) • Up to 1.8l of hot coffee!! • Even the quick start guide has proper grams per volume of water (5.5% extraction ratio per SCA standards) • .... aaaaaandddd.... **** drum roll please!!!! ***** AUTOMATIC timer!!!! THE best part of waking up... it's not THAT coffee in your cup - it's whatever you want in your cup, when you want it, HOT. Gripes - • Only keeps the hot plate on for 2 hours... usually the coffee is gone by then, so no biggie for me. • That's it. If you read online reviews of brewers you'll see complaints that it's too complicated. Uh.. sorry snowflake - took all of 30 seconds of reading the quick start guide to figure it out. Drink more coffee. OK - one point that wasn't immediately obvious - when you enter the hardness from the included test strip, the number on the machine is the number of red bars that show up on the hardness scale. There's all kinds of other features that I don't care about - like using the single brew setting with optional adapters etc... I will like to play around with the iced coffee setting someday, but today I'm enjoying a hot cup of coffee. ******* Addendum: If you are looking for filters for this machine - you won't find any information in the manual that comes with the machine. I believe they are 12c filters, usually found for commercial machines. See the attached picture to compare against a typical brand 8-12c filter. You can see why you'll end up with a pot full of grounds if you try to use the 5.5% ratio for more than a 8c pot... and forget about 100g of grounds for a 12c pot! Sams locally had the commercial 12c filters you might want to check out.

Updated Review: They sent me an email and asked how I liked my new purchase, and I explained the problem with the carafe. They sent me a new carafe and it doesn't leak, so I've updated my review, and increased the rating from 1 star to 4 stars. This thing makes wonderful coffee. It really does, but there are a couple of janky things with it. You can't pour the last couple tablespoons of water or coffee, out of the carafe, so you're forced to stick your hand in there and wipe it out with a towel every morning. It has a narrow opening, and it's a pain to do. The main control button feels loose and cheap. Especially compared to the rest of the machine, which seems well built. I love the ability it gives you to control various parts of the process though, and even if you just use the presets it's worth it. Right out of the box it makes coffee as good as the French press coffee I make. Not nearly as bitter as standard coffee makers. A very obvious difference in taste, and worth the money, IMO. ---------- Original review: This coffee maker is awesome and makes great tasting coffee. BUT... The carafe leaked from day one. Not from the top, you can take the top off and it still leaks, because it's leaking from the spout and handle section that's attached the glass lower section. I contacted them and they said this: "Kindly note that parts and accessories are not covered under warranty, meaning you would have to purchase a new carafe on the website or through us at the contact center. The carafe (part number: SP0024319) for your unit is currently going at $30.95 on our website. " My response was this: "Why would I buy another carafe from you when the first one I bought from you, the one that came with the coffee maker, arrived broken and you won't replace it? I'll express my displeasure in my Amazon review. Thanks for nothing."

At the time of purchase, the coffee maker was about $190. Since then, it appears the price has gone up. Regardless, this is a great coffee maker for people who really care about the quality of their coffee. Some earlier reviews had negative comments, and I can't validate any of them. Just take a few minutes to read the owner's manual. It's easy to understand. The features and flexibility of this coffee maker are excellent. Simply choose the "Gold" setting, and you get the SCA standard for brewing coffee. If you want to customize the settings, to change the bloom time or water temperature, just setup your own "My Brew". There's a preset mode for stronger coffee, if you like. You can auto-program, although I haven't tried that (I prefer to grind my coffee beans fresh). Another thing I appreciate is the flexibility to make a pot of coffee, from 4 cups, up to 12 cups. The coffee maker comes with a cone insert and a gold mesh basket. Anything over 8 cups, you remove the cone insert, and use the basket. It makes total sense. The cone concentrates the coffee for smaller pots, and the basket allows for more coffee when making a larger pot. Anyone who complains about buying coffee filters is reaching for a negative that just isn't an issue. Those of us who have already committed to buying a coffee bean grinder, and really good coffee beans...spending $2 on paper filters just doesn't register. I even decided to make some tea, which wasn't the original intent when I bought the coffee maker. But, using the ability to customize the brew settings, I was able to make a passable pot of tea. It's a bonus. Last thing, this is the first coffee maker I've owned that has a pump to distribute the water. It's a genius advancement in design. The water is delivered at a controlled temperature and rate of flow. Overall, there isn't anything more I could have asked for.

Brews a good cup of coffee but the build quaility is not there. Four months in, after light use, it is leaking water. A lot of water. I called Customer Support and after being hung up on and put of hold repeatedly, I finally spoke with someone who told me they were going to send me a label to ship it back to be repaired. Oh, and, find my own box to ship it in. Needless to say, my expierence is not good. We also have the Bambino Espresso machine which is wonderful. Maybe I ought to just stick to Espresso.

I want to love this coffee maker, I really wanted to love this coffee. Why? I spent a huge amount of time researching the Gold Cup coffee makers before settling on this one. And yet, I'm let down though not from the quality of coffee it makes. More about the coffee maker. * Coffee. This machine makes a superb cup of coffee. My wife and I both noticed immediately the improved taste when we switched from our old Cuisinart. We were mostly really happy when we first started using this machine because of this. * Features. An unreal number of features and programmable options. Coffee temp, type, strength, cup size, filter type, programmable, etc. So many and yet we pretty much just stick with "Gold". * Size. At 12 cups this is one of the largest carafe sizes you can get in a Gold Cup Certified machine. We drink a lot of coffee on the weekends so this was important for us. A 10 cup model is just a hair too small for what we normally drink on a weekend - or at least it used to be. * Looks. Subjective yes, but we think this is a great looking machine. * Issues and irritants. Aka "Why I no longer love this machine". Filter in filter design. If you use the cone filter insert in the filter basket, coffee is always left under it meaning you have to wash/rinse the filter basket assembly after every use. Also, for some reason, there is always water(coffee?) finding its way under the plastic lip of that assembly - where the metal sides meet the plastic lower edge. There is some dark forming around that area and I'm not sure if it's mold of coffee staining but I can't clean it without soaking it in bleach. Secondly, there is water always left in the reservoir, I assume to protect the water pump but it is always different meaning for small amounts you're never 100% sure how much you're going to get after brewing. Plus the inside of the water reservoir has a slippery feeling now and probably needs to be washed but it doesn't detach from the machine. Lastly, we haven't even had the machine a year, only use filtered water (though we don't have hard water), preset the water hardness correctly and for the past 4 months has been telling us to descale the machine. So we barely used it 6 months under basically ideal conditions and are being told to descale. Crazy. Lastly, it's impossible to clean the carafe and dry it out after washing as its design traps water between the glass and plastic when you tip it over. Not the end of the world, just another annoyance. In summary this is a machine with a ton of features that produces a killer cup of coffee but is riddled with frustrating design quirk that make me want to retire it from use as soon as possible. Very disappointed.