BUNN GRB Velocity Brew 10-Cup Home Coffee Brewer, Black

I received 6 years of perfectly cromulent coffee with this Bunn. If you want a no-frills pot of coffee, it does the trick. If you’re a coffee flavor enthusiast, this might not be the right coffee maker.

Pros: Fast – There’s always warm water in the reservoir, so the coffee comes out almost immediately. I also use the top of the maker as a sort of warming tray for certain things unrelated to coffee. Brews a full pot in less than 3 minutes. It’s easy to fill, use and clean.

Cons: Fast – since it brews so fast, it splashes the coffee grinds out of the basket, making for murky coffee. I even tamp the grounds down to compact them, but they end up climbing up the walls of the basket, and cling to the side above the filter. It also does not allow the water to steep for very long, so brews a pot of murky AND weak coffee.

While the speed of brew is great, there’s no stopper plug and one has to wait until the grounds have fully dripped into the pot to grab a cup. Not a big deal because it brews so fast.

Also, I wish it brewed 12 cups instead of 10. Sometimes, it falls short of 4 large cups per brew. The last bit is unusable due to the grounds being splashed into the pot.

This pot still brews hot coffee after 6 years, and I’d say I got my money’s worth, but for me, the cons outweigh the pros & I’ll likely replace it with a different brand if and when it does go.

Very quick coffee, which I love. Coffee tastes great! Set up is easy. I had a Tim Horton’s Bunn years ago and loved it too. Overall, I am very pleased with it but there are a couple of things I like to see improved.

I really wish there was a timer for the burner switch. We have been careful about turning it off when the coffee pot is low or empty but the timer would be an added protection for not forgetting to turn it off.

Also, I am not too happy about the price of Bunn coffee filters. I prefer the non bleached kind, I didn’t see any Bunn non bleached filters although I may have missed them. For this type of coffee pot you need have to have a thinner filter because the water comes through pretty fast and needs to flow through the filter easily. Otherwise it will back up and you will have coffee grounds and hot water overflowing and making a huge mess. This hasn’t happened to me yet as I am using the filters that came with coffee pot.

Edit. I did try a different brand of non-bleached filters. Didn’t work.

Amazon is best shipping service I’ve had, ever. I love the attention paid to customers. Quick delivery time is awesome. Price is mostly low, reasonable.

I’ve been using this coffee maker, which is new to me, for about 5 days. I’ve learned a few things. It’s a really good coffee maker, but you have to read the instructions carefully. And even if you do, you still have to tweak it. I used to work in a convenience store and got very close to buying one of those machines with the double warmer and the two carafes, etc. I’m kind of techy like that. If you want a machine that “just works” and you don’t mind kind of medium-OK coffee, then this isn’t what you want. I want, and am getting, high quality, “tastes like I bought it in a convenience store or fancy cafe” coffee. But here are my tips, so far:

1. The first mistake people make, including me, is buying pre-ground coffee. That stuff is WAY too fine. You can mix some pre-ground in, but you MUST grind the majority of the coffee yourself from whole bean coffee. Try counting to 10 while grinding. Turning it off. Shaking the grinder. Then grinding for another 10 seconds. That’s all. No more. If you ever used a percolator, you know it’s more like 2×5 seconds. This is 2×10 seconds. An ordinary coffee machine, the slow kind… is 3×10 seconds. Grinding your own coffee is the first tip.

2. If you must have flavored coffee (I have to have my pumpkin spice seasonally and I love blueberry coffee), For a full pot, you put three heaping ordinary tablespoons of your own ground coffee. Then two tablespoons of flavored coffee (which will probably be ground too fine to use alone). Mixing the fine coffee with the less finely ground coffee is how you prevent the coffee from spilling out of the funnel. You don’t need the next tip if you grind your own, and mix with the finely ground coffee.

3. The alternative sprayhead (which is available by simply filling out a form on their website, like a “contact us” type of form), is important. It’s free. You don’t have to hassle with it unless you want to, as long as you grind your own coffee, not too fine. But I got it anyway and it prevents the spillovers.

4. Don’t use the table for “how much coffee” that’s included in the instructions. Or follow it but use teaspoons, not tablespoons to measure. For some reason that table is totally wrong and will cause spillovers, especially with finely ground, or pre-ground coffee.

5. For warranty repairs, or their excellent customer service, you will need your “date code” which is, crazily, on the bottom of the coffee maker. That’s just awful design. Think about it: I have a half gallon tank of very hot water, and now you want me to turn it upside down, to look at a number on the bottom, to get help with it? Loony. Take a picture of that date code before you fill up your coffee maker with water. Or place the coffee maker on a glass table and then look at it or snag a pic. Then use the customer service contact page to ask them nicely to put the date code on the side of the machine.

You can get high quality cafe coffee from this coffee maker. But you have to be techy and fiddle with it. It helps if you’ve worked in a store or cafe where Bunn machines are in use all day. Then you know what it could look like, taste like and what changes to make. If you get stuck, call them up. It can’t hurt. USA made products from a family business are a wonderful thing indeed.