Makes great coffee, no carafe to break, easy to use and simple to clean, would highly recommend this coffee maker.
Positive Product Points
Easy to fill Few Parts Easy to Clean Keeps Coffee Hot for up to 2 hours Price to Value
Negative Product Points
Model I own is all plastic Filling a little awkward depending where you have the machine located Dispensing lots of cups of coffee say for company
Detailed Commentary
This is a great coffee maker. Just the fact that there is no carafe to break, clean, or replace is justification on getting one of these Brewmasters. The simplicity of making coffee is another good feature of this machine. I have found with my model that filling the tank with a water bottle makes filling so much easier. I just keep an empty plastic bottle that spring water comes in and use it to fill the Brewmaster. I keep several size empty plastic bottles just for this purpose, 16 oz, 24 oz and 32 oz, depending on how much coffee I want to make. Filling the machine with the tank that holds the coffee is a little awkward if you have your Brewmaster set in a location that makes the tank cumbersome to use. The use of the plastic bottles has overcome this problem. There is no spilling of water at all when using the plastic bottles because you can put the bottle right in where the cold water is held.
It makes coffee pretty fast and the timer can be set to make coffee for you when you arise in the morning. I personally never liked this feature on any coffee maker because of the idea of having water sitting for 8 hours or more. I like to use fresh, cold water when making coffee.
It keeps coffee hot for up to 2 hours then the heater automatically shuts off. This feature is fine and works great. After 2 hours you would not want to drink coffee that was sitting longer than that anyway.
Clean up is a snap. rinse the coffee holder and tank under hot water and that's it. I only use soap to clean the parts about every 2 weeks or so. Soap residue, even after rinsing it out, remains and can affect the taste of the coffee, but you should use soap once in awhile to get rid of the oils that accumulate in the tank and coffee holder, just make sure you rinse each part thoroughly with plenty of hot water.
The only drawback I can see if you have company and have to dispense a lot of cups of coffee. Putting each cup under the dispenser would probably take lots of time. What the mfg. recommends is lifting the tank out of the coffee maker. The tank has a spout built into the top of it and you can pour the coffee out that way. You would just have to be careful of spilling hot coffee, but if you take your time it can be done with ease.
My model was on sale at Wal-Mart for only 19.99. It is not made anymore to my knowledge, but I have to say for that price it is by far one of the best coffee makers I ever have owned, even ones costing 4 times that much!
My next purchase would be a better model of this machine, but basically all models do the same thing, make coffee.
Buying Experience
Wal-Mart is an okay place to shop. This Hamilton Beach Brew Station just happened to be on sale last Christmas season and for the price, $19.99, just had to try it. Regular price I think was about $35 or so.
