Review on ☕ Cuisinart Coffee-on-Demand 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemaker - DCC-3000 by Wayne Burkett

If I had given this rating 5 months ago when I bought it, it would have easily gotten 5 stars. Today I see I never watched it again so now I am. This unit is terribly difficult to keep clean and I am in constant correspondence with Cuisinart on the matter. The black plastic inner unit ("coffee stand") has so many nooks and crannies that you can never get it clean satisfactorily. Based on the manual, I've been running a half-water, half-vinegar self-cleaning cycle once a month since August. Between self-cleaning cycles I also occasionally wiped the interior with "warm soapy water" (again in the manual) to clean it. I found it satisfactory until 4 days ago. Our morning coffee had "swimmers". I poured the coffee and began inspecting the interior over the sink. I started seeing all the areas that I really couldn't reach. What I could get I found was that there was a massive amount of leftover coffee. I started washing the inside with warm, soapy water, scrubbing as best I could with rags, dish brushes, and even an old toothbrush. This produced massive black chips. I then let the white vinegar soak into the reservoir. As I was rinsing, I found that with each outflow of water from the black reservoir, more and more black flakes flowed into the sink. Now it never stops. I created a monster. Every towel I use to dry myself to keep track of my progress turns soot black. My wife has now lost her temper and no longer drinks from the DCC-3000. I never thought the DCC-3000 would be so difficult to keep clean, even if I had followed a good cleaning routine beforehand. Why doesn't the "self-clean cycle" actually clean the device? Why should I roll up my sleeves and dry myself properly? What about an old toothbrush? It has only been owned for 5 months. It shouldn't be that hard. Edit, January 27, 2016: After writing this article, Cuisinart suggested that using just vinegar and water when using the unit's self-cleaning cycle might not be enough to keep the DCC-3000 clean. Now I've been told that to really clean an interior, you have to use a product like CleanCaff to remove coffee residue. I wish that when I asked about the best way to keep clean 5 months ago that advice was given back then. Instead, Cuisinart will now replace this device with another DCC-3000 due to my problems, although technically everything is fine with the device. I thought it would be a good thing to do. They even shrugged off the $10 processing fee.