OXO On Barista Brain 9 Cup Coffee Maker
Auto drip machines are notoriously shunned by coffee enthusiasts. There are a select few, however, which make fantastic coffee.
Introducing OXO’s Barista Brain 9 Cup brewer. Find out what makes this brewer so good, how it works, and some of it’s unique features.
Is it the new brewer for you?
This is definitely the biggest, but also one of the most attractive coffee makers we’ve reviewed to-date.
It features an LED screen, one button that doubles as a dial, a large, clear water reservoir, and a tall thermal stainless steel carafe.
Specifications and Features
- 2-9 cups (5 oz per cup) of coffee
- Carafe “mixing tube”
- Brew pause
- SCAA Certified
- Programmable
- Clearly marked, transparent water reservoir
- Pulse brew
- Freshness counter
Easy dosing for 2-9 cups of coffee with a clear water reservoir
One of my favorite things about the OXO On Barista Brain is the large, clearly marked, and transparent water reservoir.
It’s easy to add water to the reservoir, plus, the transparent plastic allows you to easily see the water level and 2 to 9 cup markings. It’s amazing how many coffee makers blow it with the water reservoir when it comes to these 3 considerations, so it was a relief to see that OXO got this right.
The coffee maker either dispenses 2-4 cups of water or 5-9 cups of water with its built-in serving size selector. So this is basically like most auto-drip coffee makers in that it simply dispenses all the water that is in the reservoir during a brew cycle.
It wasn’t really clear how choosing the 2-4 cups setting differed from the 5-9 cups setting, so I just chose whichever setting corresponding to the amount of water I added to the reservoir.
Features
- Microprocessor-controlled brew cycle replicates the pour-over method to produce 2-9 cups of SCAA-certified perfect coffee
- Water is heated and held at the perfect temperature for coffee (197.6-204.8 Degrees F)
- Rainmaker shower head evenly disperses water over coffee grounds for uniform saturation and full flavor extraction
- Intuitive LED interface features a backlit screen that displays the Coffee Maker status and freshness indicator
- A single dial allows you to program the number of cups and the 24-hour start timer
The Carafe “Mixing Tube”
The mixing tube is actually one of the most unique features that the Barista Brain boasts. When I first read that the carafe had a mixing tube to ensure that over-extracted coffee would be evenly mixed with under-extracted coffee, I pictured some internally moving mechanism inside the carafe that would literally stir the coffee.
Well, this wasn’t even close to what this mixing tube actually is.
It’s simply a silicone tube that connects to the carafe lid to push the most-recently brewed coffee towards the bottom of the carafe.
You see, traditional auto drip coffee makers have the most densely extracted coffee brewed first. Therefore, it theoretically ends up at the bottom of the carafe, meaning that your first pour will consist of the weakest coffee.
The mixing tube is meant to address this.
Whether it makes a difference or not, I really couldn’t say. This wasn’t really something I could split-test, unfortunately.
Still, cool that OXO took this into account. I don’t think it hurts the coffee, that’s for sure.
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