OXO Brew 9 Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker,Silver, Black

I bought this at the beginning of Covid, March 2020 as we couldn’t do take out coffee and never have done so since. It is that good—but it started to leak today while descaling and constantly shut offs. Looks like we’ll have to buy a new one.

I am very impressed with this coffee maker!
I am a very fussy coffee drinker. I searched for some time for a coffee maker that is easy to operate and makes a good cup of coffee. This coffee maker meets and exceeds my expectations on both counts. We have had it for a couple of months now and it still works great and continues to make great coffee! I highly recommend it!

LATEST UPDATE: I finally got a replacement and looked closer at the condensation in the tank. I discovered a lot about the design of this coffee maker that I think is relevant to the original mildew issue. One important thing I found is that it isn’t just steam that flows back into the water tank, it’s also hot water, and it seems to be intentional. During brewing, or after brewing when the brew basket lid is opened, a little hot water leaks out of the water bridge, and the large open passage between the basket and tank is meant to drain this bit of water back into the tank instead of letting it go into the pot. Thus, not only is steam flowing through and condensing in the tank, but hot water is flowing back in, also.

Another important thing I found is that the condensation in the tank also comes from the boiler itself. The condensation forms due to the latent heat in the boiler vaporizing water remaining inside, and this vapor then flows back into the tank and condenses on the wall.

I sealed up all the open spaces between basket and tank using foam weatherstripping, as I’d suggested previously. I used the largest piece of foam in the “drain” space beneath the bridge, and because it contacts hot water that can enter the pot I coated it with food-safe silicone sealant. This decreased both the amount of steam and the amount of liquid water flowing back into the water tank. There’s still some condensation on the tank wall, as I noted above, that comes from the boiler itself.

Will this reduce the risk of mildew? Possibly, because of the lower amount of water condensation. But I think it will help in another important way. I’ve been trying to figure out where the mildew got its food. It had to have some organic matter to eat in order to grow. There are three possibilities: 1) There’s a material of construction in the tank that mildew can eat — very unlikely, as mildew need material that can be decomposed by their enzymes, and that’s probably not going to happen with most commercial plastics. 2) When filling the tank I either touched the inside with my hands or some bit of organic junk fell inside — very possible. 3) The coffee in the brew basket was the source of organic matter, and a bit of it was transported through the big “drain” hole into the tank due to the flow of steam and liquid hot water — this is also very possible, and I think even likely, because coffee is a great medium for growing mold and there’s a lot of it not far from the hole. Therefore, blocking up the opening should prevent this from happening.

So why is the machine designed with this way? Beats me. I can’t think of a good functional reason for this design, so I can only assume it was a cost driven choice. Thus, I’m not going to change my rating. I think this is a design oversight, and OXO can do better. However, the machine still makes great coffee, and I emphasize that so far only one other person here has had a mildew complaint, so the odds are there won’t be an issue for most.

ORIGINAL UPDATE: I have found a significant flaw in this machine. Steam from the brew basket flows back into the water tank, which then condenses to water that doesn’t evaporate away because of the closed tank lid. The dampness apparently caused mildew to grow in the tank, probably in the seams and joints where the clear tank meets the rest of the machine. This made the tank smell, and several times the coffee ended up smelling and once even tasting of mildew. Also, I was unable to eliminate the mildew odor because I couldn’t immerse the machine to soak it. You can probably avoid this issue by leaving the lid to the water tank open in order to keep it dry, but then you expose the tank to dust and germs. However, I think it can be fixed by using a piece of waterproof foamed weatherstripping to close up the space that joins the brew basket to the tank. You’ll have to cut it to fit, and make sure it doesn’t touch or interfere wth the water bridge that connects the boiler to the shower head. I’d also recommend coating the foam with some food grade silicone adhesive to keep it from possibly leaching chemicals into the coffee. Of course, you could also just use a big gob of the food grade silicone adhesive to seal up the space. It might be messy, but it should work just fine. Another simple solution might be to just leave the tank lid open between brew cycles but cover the tank with a clean cotton towel. That should allow the tank to dry out without letting foreign matter into it.

In fairness, I’ll note that so far I seem to be the one “lucky” person who has had this issue. Still, I’ve never seen a coffee maker that connects the brew basket directly to the water tank, and even the possibility of this mildew problem could have been avoided by not doing this. It’s a pretty stupid design flaw, and for now my review goes from 5 stars to 3. If I can successfully fix it as I described above, then maybe I’ll raise it to a 4.

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I’ve spent a year looking for a coffee machine that 1) makes proper coffee; 2) is well made; 3) has a decent warranty from a recognized national brand; 4) doesn’t cost a small fortune. The OXO works on all counts, but as I mention in my update it has a really stupid design flaw that limits it to 3 stars.

What’s good:

The coffee:

Use a proper medium coarse grind and decently good quality beans, and the OXO will deliver. Here’s where I’m going to go into detail because I will make comparisons to two other popular pour-over machines I tried, the Bonavita 1900TS, and the Bodum Bistro.

The OXO is SCAA certified, and I have tested mine as close to the SCAA conditions as possible to prove that it does actually meet the very important temperature specification set out by the SCAA. With a fine wire thermocouple bead probe (a proper thermocouple with a proper junction compensated readout), I measured the temperature at the top of the grounds during the brew cycle (according to the SCAA procedure). It was 200 F +/- 3 degrees in the wet grounds for most of the brew cycle. This is spot on to the SCAA requirement. The exit temperature of the water from the head was about 207 F. The SCAA also tests at a position near the bottom of the grounds, but I didn’t do this. The Bonavita is also SCAA certified, but it did NOT meet the temperature requirement when I tested it. I actually tested two, because I exchanged the first one after determining this problem. Both exceeded the SCAA 205 F limit by the middle of the brew cycle and got as high as 210 F in the grounds, and water reached boiling temperature coming out of the head. The Bonavitas also made bitter coffee, and I believe it was due to this overheating. The Bodum is not SCAA certified, but performed like it was. It peaked at 204 F in the grounds, and it’s coffee was much better than the Bonavita, and just a little behind the OXO. This might be because it took longer to get into the right temperature range than the OXO. The 8 cup brew time is about 6.5 minutes for the OXO, 5.5 minutes for the Bonavita, and six minutes for the Bodum.

The shower head:

The OXO has a six hole shower head that covers a good deal of area, and which wets the grounds very evenly. After brewing, there are divots in the grounds beneath each hole, indicating that flow is uniform out of the heads. The Bonavita had a similar shower head that covered a larger area with more holes, but the uniformity of wetting was not good. As with many others, both of mine dumped water out of one or two holes only. Also, I found that after disassembling and reinstalling the shower head of the Bonavita according the the cleaning instructions, the head would leak along one of the assembly seams. The Bodum’s shower head was fantastic. It was all silicone, and had many holes over a wide area. It saturated the grounds perfectly, and there were so many holes that the grounds looked completely wet and even, without any divots beneath the holes.

The carafe:

I tested each machine with just a full tank of plain water run through the brew cycle. The OXO carafe is mostly excellent, with very good heat retention. The starting temperarture in the pot was 188F. It was at 179 F after one hour. It took four hours to get to 165 F. The Bonavita started at 189 F, and was at 173 F after one hour and just over 160 F after almost 3.5 hours. The Bodum started off around 182, and cooled to 160 after about 2.5 hours, which is not very good. The OXO carafe has a brew-through stopper, and does not dribble during pours. Also, the carafe is desgned properly to allow it to be used as a pitcher to fill the machine tank, so it pours out correctly without the stopper. The Bonavita design is terrible. First, the carafe stopper is not brew-through, so you have to brew then install the stopper. Second, try to use the carafe as a pitcher to fill the tank, and you will end up with water all over the place, as the mouth of the carafe is just not properly designed for pouring. Seriously – how does a company screw that up? The Bodum carafe can be used as a pitcher, but it’s not necessary as the unit has a really wonderful removable tank for direct filling (I loved this feature, and it was really well done). Like the OXO, it also has a brew-through stopper.

Build quality:

The OXO is the by far the best built of the three. It’s the heaviest of them, and has the nicest plastics, which are well molded and feel thicker than either of the others. The Bonavita was mostly typical softish thermoplastic, and wasn’t particularly badly made but it did land on the cheap side of build quality for the full retail price. The Bodum used lighter, stiffer thermoplastics, which felt quite cheap, and were easily broken. I dropped the filter basket, and just falling from counter to floor was enough to snap off the handle and leave a gaping hole in the side of it. Likewise, I dropped the carafe stopper and the spout snapped off. The Bodum, unbelievably, also had electronics located directly below the showerhead under the main seam where the front and back halves of the unit assembled. Nearby the seam was a safety switch that would activate when the carafe rested on it. Neither the seam nor the switch opening were sealed against water, so when residual water dripped from the showerhead it fell right onto the seam and switch and seeped into the switch assembly, basically killing the unit until I took it apart, cleaned the switch, and covered it with water repellant lube. The Bodum is overall poorly made, and it shocks me that when it first came out it retailed for $250! The OXO and Bonavita both offer a two year warranty. The Bodum comes with a one year warranty.

Design:

The OXO is attractive, with an upscale look, especially with the high quality appearance of the stainless steel finish. The tank is built in and must be filled with a pitcher or the like. It is clear, very visibly marked, and has a wide opening so there is no mess when filled. The Bonavita has a nice clean, conservative design, and is the most compact of the three. Its tank is also built in, with a wide opening, and also clear. The Bodum design is very attractive and very functional, and as I mentioned above, the unit has an awesome removable tank that is clear and well marked. This makes it the easiest machine of the three to fill. The filter basket of the OXO is for conical filters, and is quite deep, so it easily accommodates a filter. Right at where the top of the filter sits is a hole that opens to a drain channel. This is to direct any overflow (due to too much coffee or coffee ground too finely) into the pot, instead of onto your counter. The Bodum also has a conical basket, but it’s really meant to be used with a mesh filter. I did use paper filters with it, but the basket is rather short, so the filter required extra folding to make it fit. I also could not make a full 10 cup pot with the Bodum. At 8 cups, the short basket would fill almost to the top with coffee, and there was so little headroom that the grounds would float up and contact the shower head. The Bonavita’s basket was fine, a typical flat bottom filter basket. Overflows appear unlikely with this design. Both the OXO and the Bodum use a shutoff valve on the basket. As far as dripping from the basket when the carafe is removed after brewing, I have not had a single drip when removing the carafe from the OXO. The Bodum was also okay in this respect, dripping just a little now and then. Neither the Bodum nor the Bonavita have any sort of timer. The OXO does have a built in timer and clock.

What’s bad:

Previously I would have said there were no real flaws with the OXO, but the water condensation and resulting mildew odor in the tank that I experienced cannot be overlooked. It makes me wish all the more that it had a removable tank, because then I think it’d be possible to easily remove the mildew odor by cleaning. The single knob control is a cumbersome, but it is nice looking. I also don’t like the installation design of the stopper into the carafe. The stopper is not very large, is made of smooth plastic, and must insert and screw into a recessed opening at the mouth of the carafe. The smooth shape and lack of texture provides no grip, and there are no thread alignment features between the stopper and carafe. This makes it a little fiddly for me to get the stopper threaded in, especially because my hands are large. This is not what I want to be doing first thing in the morning, *before* I get any coffee!

The Bonavita had more misses than hits. The build was nothing special and the carafe design was inferior, as I’ve noted above. Most importantly, two separate units I tried both failed to meet the SCAA standard for temperature. This was in late-summer/early-fall of 2015, and I did contact Bonavita about it, so maybe they’ve corrected this. Still, the net result was that the coffee was consistently bitter and overextracted, and the machine was messy and not convenient to use.

What kills the Bodum, unfortunately, is the terrible build quality. There were my two breakages from simple drops, and an inexcusable lack of water sealing over electronics directly below the shower head. Read the other reviews, and it’s a litany of short lifetimes, bad switches, and broken plastic. Bodum customer service isn’t very good. I called to ask about replacement parts, and the thoroughly unenthusiastic service rep could tell me nothing about availability of parts. As far as I can tell, Bodum is no longer making replacement parts available for the Bistro.

Bottom line:

The OXO is the best of the three. I paid the full $199 retail for mine, but just missed a sale price of $149. In consideration of the water tank issue I think $199 is too much, but something in the vicinity of $150-$160 is acceptable.

The Bonavita – nah, I can’t get with it. It’s all hype, in my frank opinion. The design and manufacturing have too many flaws that affect usability, both units I tried didn’t meet the SCAA temperature standard even though they’re certified, and they just didn’t make good coffee. It originally retailed for $180, which is outrageous given these flaws. It can be had now for about $140, but that’s still too pricey. I honestly can’t see it being reasonable at any price over $120, considering its mediocre construction and marginal performance. On the positive side, I will note that Bonavita’s customer service was helpful when I reported the temperature issue, and they did seem eager to investigate the problem.

The Bodum – what a disappointment. So much potential. Great design, excellent coffee, but terribly built and unreliable, and the thermal performance of the carafe is rather poor. It’d be a good deal at the $130 full retail if it was built decently, but the odds of failure are just too great, and other reviews indicate that Bodum doesn’t even honor the one year warranty. It occasionally goes for $99, and if bought from Target it comes with a 90 day return, so you can always take a chance if you think the savings is worth it. But I think the OXO on sale for $149 is a better deal, as it is much more likely to outlast the Bodum by a large margin.

The winner: the OXO On Barista Brain.