Speaking of people's spots, the Brazen will be going out to milowebailey on Friday, or possibly even tomorrow if I can swing it. For some bizarre reason, my road show Yama vac pot arrived the day before this machine did, so it's been like America's Test Kitchen around here for coffee lately--a crazy, fun, non-paper-filtered brewing extravaganza. I'll post my final thoughts on the Brazen once it's all packed up.
Gort is now en route to Seattle. Enjoy!
Prior to this thing's arrival, it had been quite a while since I'd brewed a full pot of drip coffee. Consequently, I can't compare the Brazen to a Technivorm or really any other even-close-to-similar machine. However, I feel I can say the following with certainty:
1. Temp. control makes a difference in the cup. For example, coffee that seemed borderline "too strong" to family members became much more to their liking when I did nothing else aside from knock a few degrees off of the brew temp. for pot #2.
2. The Brazen makes good coffee. I wasn't getting the flavor separation I'm used to when brewing with the Trifecta MB (or a siphon), but I was happy enough with what I drank, and I'm certain I would have been able to do better if I'd fussed around even more with the various settings and possibly lightened up my doses; full-immersion-style habits die hard, you know?!
Likes:
- The metal filter worked extremely well, in my opinion. *Very* little sediment makes it through the mesh. I didn't feel any urge to reach for a paper filter.
- Fairly intuitive controls.
- Looked better (and smaller) on the counter than I'd expected.
Dislikes:
- As documented elsewhere, the carafe is an issue. The first cup or two of a full pot pour well for me, but after that it's slow and dribbly. If I were to buy one of these for myself, I'd probably hope/try to use a different carafe altogether.
- Also well-documented: drippage post-basket removal. I could get used to this, but it's an annoyance.
- Noisy buttons. Beep beep beep beep beep.
In sum, if I were in the market for a drip brewer, despite the niggles pointed out above there's no doubt this would be #1 on my list. I might be tempted to take a "wait and see" approach though in case any updates are planned.
Thanks for organizing , HC4U! I really appreciated the opportunity to take Gort for a spin.