Kalorik Magic Bean 750-Watt Personal 4-Cup Automatic Drip Coffeemaker

$129.99 with mediocre reviews at amazon

Sounds a bit like the Patriot missile system. Awesome specs, but doesn’t really work all the time (if at all). See Amazon reviews, they made me laugh.

Given (from description):

  • Photo-optical “Pause’n’Serve” function stops brewing automatically when the cup is absent or in the wrong position

Question: Will it only work with the supplied mug, or the “photo-optical” function is smart enough to recognize my favorite coffee mug, given that it’s placed properly?

Mediocre is right , two 1 star, one 3 star and one 5 star

Did anyone buy this the last time it was on woot? I like the idea but the bad reviews stopped me last time. However there were only 4 of them on Amazon. Previous buyers please respond.

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Kalorik Magic Bean 750-Watt Personal 4-Cup Automatic Drip Coffeemaker [New] - $69.99 + $5 shipping

1 * Kalorik Magic Bean 750-Watt 4-Cup Automatic Drip Coffeemaker with Burr Grinder

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Based on the last few comments in the previous wooting thread, that were posted by people who bought them, those bad reviews are right on the target!..

Will this coffee maker only take whole bean coffee, or can I turn off the grinder and use pre-ground coffee?

I bought one last time and have really been enjoying it.

pros
brews really fast
controls are easy to use once you read about them (this one though doesn’t have the same setup with buttons)
it has yet to plug on me, I usually pull out the filter tray and let it air dry when I head to work though.
grind and strength settings are easy to use
grinds are perfect

cons
pot is a little hard to clean
you have to press the heating button(took forgetting it once to always remember)
filling with water can be tricky if it is in a tight spot
doesn’t hold a lot of beans, but we use a lot of beans for each pot.

ps, took making about 3 pots to get a fresh-out-the-box flavor from getting in the coffee.

eta: this is a different pot that looks easier to clean.

Thanks LEM and rnjholley. The last few comments from the previous woot were devastating. Good to hear from someone that had a good experience with it as well. I have had 2 Capresso Dual Team Plus coffemakers. They work well but I don’t need to make 10 cups and 2-4 cups never seem to taste right. I’m still in the running.

How can you resist magic beans???!

I’m one beer from buying it, but I’m out of beer.

I want to buy it. I want to like it. I can see this being convenient.

But of the coffee makers with built in grinders they all seem to suffer the same fates. The steam gets everything moist and they’re more work to clean (or as I’ve seen, cleaning gets neglected and it really gets gross). Is this like the others in that way?

What I really want is a nice coffee maker that will fit on a bookshelf without making a ton of mess that makes an above average cup of coffee, but it doesn’t have to be snobbish coffee.

Convenience would be my major need. Does this have it?

I got the 10-cup a month or so ago. Not thrilled about it.
The good:
After a couple of tries, I was able to get the grind quantity and the grind fineness to where I wanted it. The grinder does a good job without waking up the neighbourhood.l.

The bad:
Even though it has a stainless steel pot, it isn’t insulated…so the coffee gets cold very quickly. The warming plate doesn’t keep it warm enough and needs to be restarted after every pour.
The brewing temperature itself is a little less than optimal.
I find that using the grind then brew buttons sequentially (with a little tap-tap inbetween) works better than the automatic single press grind and brew button
Washing the pot is a pain…As somebody else noted that is for the 10 cup this does look quite different and much easier to clean.

OK, as an insufferable coffee geek, here’s info on doing drip coffee right:

According to industry associations (SCAA, SCAE) and studies from people even geekier than me, to get the best flavor from drip coffee, brewing should be with the right amount of grounds, water at 195-205F (just short of boiling), and the brew cycle should be over in five or six minutes. Simple, huh.

Then why do so few coffee makers do it right?

One problem is the heating element. A lower-wattage element won’t get the water hot enough fast enough. This brewer may get this right: 750w for 4 cups is probably good. Bunn also does this well (but some of their brewers actually brew too quickly), and Technivorm out of the Netherlands ($$$!), a few others. Not a lot of well-priced choices at the moment.

(Bunn, by the way, uses a 800w heating element for a 10-cup brewer, but it’s maintaining the water at the right temperature, not trying to go from room temp to almost boiling in a few minutes. Others, e.g. Technivorm, use a 1400w element.)

But, it’s possible to get excellent coffee without spending a lot using a filter cone (Chemex etc.) or a french press (if you don’t mind a little bit of grounds in the cup). You just need to watch the time and temperature yourself. A lot of coffee geeks would say you’re better off buying a really good grinder to use with a filter cone, than spending good money on a (possibly expensive) mediocre brewer.

I’m not sure where the grinder is in relation to the brewing area, but I had a Cuisinart grind and brew that I loved for the fresh ground taste, but the grinder was directly above the carafe and therefore steam went up and made the leftover ground coffee residue in the grinding chamber a sludgy mess, which meant cleaning and completely drying it between pots, even if you were brewing another one right away.

I now have a Capresso rig that grinds off to the side, based on how many cups and how strong you want them, which you set via the control panel. Once the basket is filled with ground coffee, it automatically snaps over to the right for brewing, so no steam enters the grinding area, which never has to be cleaned. You only clean the basket and pot. Of course, it’s like $300 or something crazy like that. God bless The Cave for buying it for me! (I wonder if that’s still censored LOL)

Fwiw, I checked this morning on the 10cup maker that looks the same.
Using a infrared thermometer it was 190 degrees on the first pour and 160 degrees on the second pour about 40 minutes later.

Now I just have to find out if that is good

and it is possible to put just grinds into the basket.

I can find no indication of an “auto-shutoff” feature on this appliance. Without that, this could be a FIRE HAZARD!

The previous 10-cup coffeemaker/grinder offered on woot! had no such safety feature… just sayin’…

Purely a guess, but I would think that any cup tall enough to block the LED sensor would keep it brewing. I am guessing this is not a complicated system.

?? Does this even have a warmer? I thought it was “Brew and Go” - no fire hazard unless you can’t stand in front of it for the 2 minutes it takes to fill the carafe

woot description under specifications:

Bottom Heating Plate: Yes