OXO Brew 9

OXO's Brew 9-Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker won the title of "Best Overall Coffee Maker" in my wider testing process. It's an incredibly straightforward machine with genuinely useful features; ahead, I’m sharing more about why I gave it my strongest recommendation.

After testing a wide variety of popular drip coffee makers for over a month, I’d confidently recommend the OXO Brew 9-Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker to most buyers (I named it my top overall pick in my larger review of the best coffee makers on the market). OXO is known for its straightforward but highly reliable kitchen products, and this SCA-certified coffee maker is certainly on brand in that regard. It's demure in a good way, with a no-frills black-and stainless-steel exterior, a simple digital display and exactly one dial on the front with which to adjust the machine.

The OXO Brew 9-Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker is easy to use and adjust, and it offers some ... [+] legitimately helpful features.

But don't conflate its simplicity in design with its capabilities in producing great coffee: This puppy brews a seriously tasty cup. It's an unassuming piece of equipment that more than delivers. Ahead, learn more about why I enjoyed using this machine more than any other—and why I believe it's a must-have for any serious coffee drinker.

Amazon

Capacity: Nine cups | Filter type: Cone | Water dispensation style: Shower head | Carafe style: Thermal with brew-through lid | Small-batch feature: Yes | Brew delay/timer: Yes | Warranty: | Two years | Other features: Digital clock, brew pause feature, SCA certification

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Using this dial (and a very limited configuration menu on the machine), you can adjust the clock, set up brew delay and choose between batch sizes (two to four cups, or four to nine cups), which determines the total brew time for the batch at hand.

Setup was fairly quick with this one: All I had to do was insert the plastic conical brew bed into the machine, attach the silicone mixing tube to the brew-through carafe lid and fill up the machine's water reservoir to its max fill line to run a water-only cycle (cleaning out dust and debris from manufacturing). Then, I brewed a full carafe with coffee grounds, which I measured with a digital scale—though the machine comes with a designated measuring spoon that recommends a 1:1 ratio of scoops to cups of water—and placed into a #4 paper cone filter.

Even with a bloom-before-brew stage, it took exactly eight minutes to brew the full carafe of coffee, maintaining a pretty consistent water temperature of between 190 and 200 degrees Fahrenheit at a few different points during the process. The insulated carafe also kept the coffee quite hot for several hours after brewing—I brewed my first carafe at eight in the morning, and grabbed a temperature reading of 166 degrees Fahrenheit around noon. Upon inspection of the grounds in the filter post-brew, I noticed a pretty even saturation throughout, without any significantly darker or drier spots. In terms of taste, the coffee that resulted was smooth and pleasant, with a lovely caramel flavor that I expected from Stumptown's Holler Mountain beans.

A smaller batch of coffee yielded similar results: The OXO machine slows down the rate of water flow for carafes of between 2 and 4 cups, ensuring the coffee beans are once again correctly saturated, even for a lower yield. The brew timer worked well, too; I prepped the machine the night before so I could wake up to a brewed pot, and the difference in taste between freshly ground beans and those that had sat in a filter overnight was pretty small to me.

Some handy extras to note were the OXO 9-Cup's brew-pause functionality for up to 60 seconds if you want to pour yourself a mug while the machine's going; I also thought the freshness timer on the digital display, which runs for up to 60 minutes post-brew to tell you how long the coffee's been sitting in the carafe, was a nice touch. Clean-up was also pretty simple; the paper filter dislodged quickly and easily into my compost bin after use, and the carafe plus the detachable brew bed took just a couple minutes to hand-wash with dish soap and hot water, then air-dry. (The machine will also tell you when it needs to be descaled to remove mineral build-up after a few months of use, which I also think is pretty neat.)

There are a few, but they’re not insurmountable. Firstly, the machine is a whopping 15 inches tall and 17 inches wide, which might be problematic for people with lower (12-inch) counter heights to neatly tuck away. It's also worth noting that the brew timer won't work as planned if the carafe is even slightly out of place (but the machine warns you that this is the case). Nothing on this coffee machine is dishwasher-safe, so keep that in mind for regular cleaning and maintenance purposes. Last, the price is definitely on the higher end of the models I tested, but with a two-year warranty, an investment in this reliable machine will yield hundreds of great-tasting cups to come.

I’ve been an editor for about a decade, and have worked in the food and drink editorial space for half of that time, covering the best recipes and kitchen equipment on the market. I oversaw the launch of the drinks vertical at Food52 during my time as Content Director there, and hand-selected contributors to cover beverages of all types, including coffee and tea. For this story, I added to my personal knowledge and experience by speaking to several leading figures in the coffee industry: Sahra Nguyen, founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply in Brooklyn, New York; Travis Bell, founder of Black Acres Roastery in Baltimore, Maryland; and Patrick Cotter of Seattle Coffee Gear, a premier specialty coffee equipment retailer. I consulted the three of them to learn about what factors lead to the best coffee brewing possible, which features consumers should prioritize (or skip) in purchasing a drip coffee maker and how to optimize one's home coffee setup for a better daily cup.

While the OXO Brew 9-Cup Stainless Steel Coffee Maker took the top spot in my testing, I evaluated ten coffee machines over the course of the month and found some other really great contenders. For example, if you’re in search of great coffee for a more-moderate price, I found that the Ninja CE251 Programmable Coffee Maker is an excellent value for money, delivering near-premium–level coffee and a bevy of handy convenience features for a price tag of about $80. On the other hand, if versatility is primarily what you’re after, you can't go wrong with the Breville Precision Brewer Thermal Coffee Maker, which has customization options for brew time, brew temperature and batch size, as well as built-in settings to make cold brew and iced coffee. And if you simply want a superior cup of coffee from a machine you’ll be proud to display on your countertop, the Ratio Six is your best bet.

The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), the world's foremost coffee trade organization, has very detailed guidelines on what makes for a stellar cup brewed at home. I consulted a number of their standards as the basis for my testing, particularly in the areas I could objectively evaluate, including brew time, water temperature consistency, and extraction level. I also judged things like machine design, setup and ease of cleaning. I brewed each machine four times, with an eye towards different criteria in each round of testing. In my first round, I tried to determine ease of machine use and brew time; in the second, to gauge brew temperature and extraction level during brewing (color and flavor); third, to make a half batch and record consistency with the full carafe; fourth, to test any additional features on the machine, like brew delay/scheduling and any special attachments.

I used Stumptown Coffee Roaster's Holler Mountain whole beans for all my tests: It's a medium-roast blend with notes of caramel, chocolate and some citrus that are robust enough to come through in many brewing methods (including drip). To ensure a consistent grind across the board, I employed the help of the Baratza Encore burr grinder, set at a level of 18, to produce the medium texture recommended for a drip machine; I also used a simple digital kitchen scale to measure the correct amount of coffee to brew a full carafe, per the SCA's recommended "Golden Cup Ratio" of 16 parts water to one part medium-grind coffee. Last, I used a simple Brita filter to treat the water I used, as well as paper filters (Melitta #4 cone filters or standard-size basket filters, depending on what the machine called for), regardless of whether the machine came with a reusable gold tone one.