Review on ☕ Hamilton Beach 46899A: Programmable 10-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker with Cone Filter & Flexible Brewing - Stainless Steel by Carrie Hamilton

After a little over 8 years of daily use, our Melitta 10 cup thermal coffee maker started having problems. It was wet on the plate (condensation or whatever), often water on the counter (never could find the source of this problem), and occasionally it got into the pot and/or caused an overflow. It still made a decent cup of coffee, and considering how many coffee makers we've had over the past 40 years, it was extraordinary to get so much life out of one. I can't repeat that, but with the success of Melitta it was easy to try. Other reasons for this were the cone filter, adjustable brew strength; it's just 10 cups and a thermograph. We've tried too many glass carafes that let your coffee sit on the stove and simmer, plus we use a permanent Medelco #4 cone coffee filter so paper carafes don't have to be thrown out on a daily basis. When the price dropped to $50, it was $7 less than what we paid for the Melitta 8 years ago. On this site we bought a Braun KF590 coffee maker (2006), Bosch TKA 2830 UC (2007), Mr. Coffee CG13 (2011) and Melitta thermal 10-cup coffee maker (2011). It has a few improvements over the one it replaces, and the most notable is that you can access the bin by simply lifting the lid, while the Melitta had one flipped back, which was often a problem. Here are a few features: * The water level sight glass starts at 6 cups, so if we want to make 4 extra cups over the weekend it's the best guess * The sight glass catches water bubbles when filling and often gives an incorrect level * It lasts for a full pot in Robust about 20 minutes * The light from the clock is absurdly bright and looks more like a flashlight * The clock goes off about 2 minutes a day but we don't use a timer * The inner plastic The edge is rough and scratches hand when trying to clean it. *You will need a brush to get to the bottom of the pot. * There are two drainage holes on the back...the old one could just be tipped * Every now and then the kettle makes a loud click as if the metal hasn't formed exactly how it should The coffee maker holds the coffee up to 3 hours and possibly quite hot longer, but 3 hours is the maximum we have left and since the plate is not standing, the coffee never tastes burnt. When I go downstairs on a dark morning to turn it on, the watch's light is so bright that my night vision is wiped out and I have to turn on the light to find the start button. After so many years of using a glass carafe on a heated plate (starting with Mr. Coffee when Joe DiMaggio promoted him in the '80s), we'll never go back to any other. We also considered the BLACK+DECKER CM2035B for 12 cups, but didn't really want 12 cups...just a thermograph and some control over the strength of the drink. I suspect that brewing takes longer because we use 'Reliable' when the water flows slower to get a stronger drink and the normal strength should be faster. It seems well built and the thermal sweat is very good. A couple of photos in the listing show this with a "Heat" button but we didn't have one and I have no idea why it would ever be needed with a thermal sweat. I have no complaints about the pot...I like the thick handle and it's easy for me to water. Be sure to run a few pots of water through it or your first drink might taste bad. The instructions say to do this with both the right and left bins, but this version only has one. It has a nice finish, takes up minimal counter space, makes decent beer but with all its little quirks 4 stars is as generous as I can get.