Cuisinart DGB-550BK Grind-and-Brew 12-Cup Automatic Coffeemaker

The Grind & Brew™ Coffeemaker form Cuisinart automatically grinds the beans right before brewing to produce a fresh and flavorful pot of coffee. Fully programmable with a brushed metal finish, this deluxe 12-cup coffeemaker will be right at home in any modern kitchen! Cuisinart has a long-standing history of receiving prestigious design awards for a wide range of items, keeping the company at the forefront of product innovation. These include the 2006 iParenting Media Awards (Mix It In Soft Serve Ice Cream Maker), 2005 Chicago Athenaeum GOOD DESIGN Award (Coffee on Demand Coffeemaker), and the 2005 iParenting Media Awards (Waffle Dippers and Griddler). In addition, Cuisinart has garnered several awards for its signature food processor. In 2007, the company received the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) Award of Excellence in the Corporate Marketing Campaign category , and in 2006, Cuisinart won top honors for the web site from numerous organizations, including the Web Marketing Association, the League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) and the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals.

Customer Review: Cuisinart


I have had numerous coffee pots in the past, most more expensive than this one. I find this an excellent product that makes very hot coffee. What is also nice is you have the option of putting in regular coffee and turning the grinder off.

Would highly recommended.


Customer Review: Performs poorly in almost every way


"I hate this coffee maker" has unfortunately become a common refrain in our kitchen. I will concede that, when everything works perfectly, this coffee maker produces a good cup of coffee. However, everything seldom works perfectly.

Let's start with the grinder, which is noisy and inefficient. It produces irregularly sized chunks of bean that routinely clog the basket. So we always press "grind off" and grind our own beans. Then there's the programmable timer, which is far from intuitive, so we rarely use that either. So much for the convenience features.

It's impossible to add enough coffee to make twelve strong cups--I've tried, and the result is that the basket overflows and gushes hot liquid and coffee grounds all over the counter. Of course, it often does this when the basket's not even close to full. Then you have the unalloyed joy of mopping up the coffee, plus swabbing out the inside of the machine, and dumping the coffee, which has also gotten permeated with grounds and sludge.

So it's really a ten-cup coffee maker, because you'll never get it to produce twelve cups in a single batch. They're great cups of coffee--IF you ground your own beans, IF you didn't rely on the timer, IF you didn't expect twelve cups, and IF it miraculously didn't turn into a coffee geyser. I will never, ever buy another Cuisinart coffee maker again.