Do you need a 12 cup coffee maker to brew a large carafe of coffee for your family? There are many such models around and it can be a real headache to find the right one for your home. Keep reading this post to find out which is the best 12 cup coffee maker for your home.
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6 Key Factors to Consider When Buying the Best 12 Cup Coffee Maker
There are many features to consider when getting a 12 cup coffee maker. However, there are a few key factors which are more useful than the rest for your daily brewing.
1 Integrated Grinder
Brewing directly from fresh coffee beans can give you a better tasting coffee brew. And having the grinder integrated with the coffee maker gives you a few benefits.
- There is no delay in delivering the grind coffee to the filter basket for brewing and this also minimize the exposure of the ground coffee to the air. Both of these will ensure that the ground coffee retains most of its aromatic and volatile flavours, which gives your coffee the great taste.
- This avoids spillover of fine-grained coffee grounds which could occur if you transfer the ground coffee from a separate grinder.
- More automation relieves you one task and reduces the stress from preparing breakfast for your family in the morning
If your family are particular with coffee taste, getting a 12 cup coffee maker with grinder built-in is the way to go.
2 Pour Over
Many of the coffee makers are drip coffee makers. However, there are some who love the traditional pour over coffee made with pouring hot water slowly in a circular motion. But this manual method will take time and skills for a good brew.
If your family prefer the pour over method, consider automatic pour over coffee makers which can brew you a pour over coffee automatically.
3 Thermal Carafe
12 cups of coffee is quite a large quantity of coffee. If your family wakes up at staggering hours, the coffee may turn stale.
You could opt for a coffee maker with a warming plate. However, that will risk burning your coffee which again will taste bad.
A better option may be to get a coffee maker with a stainless steel thermal carafe. This has a few benefits:
- It can keep coffee warm for a longer time without risk of burning the coffee
- Accidents can happen in a lapse when you are busy juggling a few tasks in the busy morning. With a stainless steel thermal carafe, there’s no risk of breaking as compared to glass carafe.
4 Single Serve Option
While it’s great to be able to brew a carafe of coffee at once for your family, there can also be times of the day when you are just making a cup of coffee for yourself.
It’ll be a great plus if the coffee maker can make small batches or better still just a single cup of coffee. Coffee maker with single option comes in handy for such purposes.
And if your family are Keurig fans, then you may even want to consider coffee makers for K cups.
5 Programmable Timer
Coffee brewing may be the last thing you want to worry in the busy morning. It’s nice to be able to set the coffee maker to brew in the morning automatically in advance and shutdown by itself.
If you like the coffee brewing to take place automatically, consider getting a programmable coffee maker.
6 Technology to Ensure Balanced Coffee Profile
When brewing a large carafe of coffee, the coffee that is dripped into the carafe first will cool first. This can result in a coffee with imbalanced taste profile. Hence, if taste is a factor, it’s can be important to find coffee makers with technology to counter this effect.
Best 12 Cup Coffee Maker Reviews
#1 Breville Grind Control Coffee Maker [Recommended]
Integrated grinder: Yes
Programmable Auto-brew : Yes
Programmable Auto-Off: No
Single cup Option: Yes
Technology for better taste profile: Yes
Thermal carafe : stainless steel
Breville BDC650BSS Grind Control 12 Cup Coffee Maker
Breville Grind Control is one of the best 12 cup coffee maker because it is packed with features to make good brewing with efficiency.
If you need a really versatile and customizable coffee maker, this may be the best option.
It can use coffee beans and pre-ground coffee. It can make single cup or carafe. You can also adjust the grind size and pre-brew temperature for different coffee taste.
Key Benefits of this 12 cup coffee maker with integrated grinder
- Integrated high quality burr grinder
- 8 Grind size options – plenty of freedom to vary the coffee taste
- a pre-ground coffee option – gives you the option to use pre-packaged ground coffee whenever you need.
- Can make single cup and up to 12 cup carafe.
- Steep & Release Technology – balances the coffee taste regardless of whether you make just one cup of coffee or a whole carafe of 12 cups.
- Travel mug-friendly –up to 7.5 tall cups
- Beautiful LCD Screen – Gives you information on the brewing parameters such the grind size, grinding time, water level, brewing time etc.
- Programmable Auto Brew
- Pre brew Temperature Control – Gives you control over the water temperature before it saturates the coffee grounds.
- Large 60 ounces water tank capacity
- Stainless Steel Thermal Carafe
- Compact
Video of Breville Grind Control in action
Cons
- More expensive, given the more sophisticated brewing technology & integrated burr grinder
Full Breville Grind Control BDC650 Review
#2 Breville Precision Brewer [Highly Recommended]
Integrated grinder: no
Programmable Auto-brew : Yes
Programmable Auto-Off: No. It does go into auto-standby mode.
Single cup Option: No. But can make small batches from 2 to 8 cups.
Technology for better taste profile: Steep & release technology.
Thermal carafe : stainless steel
If you like pour over method, Breville Precision Brewer is an good option to consider. This is not just a 12 cup coffee maker with automatic pourover. It is also a iced coffee maker too. And it can also make cold brew with 24 hours steeping time.
Key Benefits of this Breville Precision Brewer
- Advanced features to control brewing parameters – you can adjust the pre-brew water temperature, pump flow rate and bloom time.
- Able to make 12 cups of coffee and smaller batches of 2 to 8 cups
- Fast Brewing – makes 12 cup in 7 minutes
- Gold mode to brew using SCAA standards automatically
- Able to make iced coffee and cold brew concentrate
- Strong coffee option
- Programmable auto brew and standby
- Can brew into a carafe and small cups
- Child lock safety feature
- Stainless steel thermal carafe
- Steep & Release Technology
Video of Breville Precision Brewer in action
Cons
- More expensive, given the more sophisticated brewing technology
Full Breville Precision Brewer Review
#3 Cuisinart Coffee Center SS15
Integrated grinder: no
Programmable Auto-brew : Yes
Programmable Auto-Off: No. It only shut down the warming plate automatically up to 4 hours after brewing
Single cup Option: Yes
Technology for better taste profile: no.
Thermal carafe : glass
Cuisinart SS-15 Maker Coffee Center 12-Cup Coffee maker
If you don’t need a grinder or pour over methods, perhaps Cuisinart SS15 is a great option. With lesser features, it is also cheaper than the previous two models.
What’s great about this 12 cup coffee maker is that it comes with single serve option. And its single serve option is also compatible with Keurig K Cups. In addition, you can also pause the brewing midway for a quick cup of coffee with its brew-pause feature.
Key Benefits of this Cuisinart Coffee Center SS15
- make single serve and 12 cups carafe of coffee
- Single serve side able to use all coffee pods including K-pods as well as ground coffee
- Carafe side comes with a permanent gold coffee filter
- Maximizes coffee extraction using a showerhead-like system
- programmable automatic brew start & auto off for warming plate
- Able to adjust coffee strength
- Brew-pause feature
- Adjustable temperature control for warming plate
- Descaling indicator
Video of Cuisinart Coffee Center in action
Cons:
- Boxish design. Not the most appealing.
#4 BLACK & DECKER 12 Cup Programmable Coffee Maker
Integrated grinder: no
Programmable Auto-brew : Yes
Programmable Auto-Off: Yes. It shutdown automatically after brewing. But it is not programmable.
Single cup Option: Yes. It has a 1 to 4 cup option
Technology for better taste profile: No.
Thermal carafe : stainless steel
BLACK+DECKER 12 Cup Coffee Maker
If you don’t need all the extra features of the above models, Black & Decker is another option for consideration. It is the most basic 12 cup coffee maker on this list. The nice thing about this coffee maker is its lower price tag. In addition, it looks great asthetically too.
Key Benefits of the Black & Decker
- Programmable auto brew & Auto-off
- Can brew a carafe of 12 cups and smaller batch of 1-4 cup
- Stainless steel Thermal carafe
- Well designed carafe which avoid drips and has wide mouth for easy cleaning
- 3 brew strength options
- Large LCD & easy to use button controls
- Brew-pause feature
- Elegant
- Affordable
Video of Black & Decker 12 cup coffee machine in action
Which Is The Best 12 Cup Coffee Maker?
The models listed here are some of the best 12 cup coffee maker. Each of them has their own unique strengths. It all depends on your needs.
If you ask me, I like the Breville Precision Brewer as it is a really versatile coffee maker. It can make drip, pourover, iced coffee and even cold brew. More importantly, I can even adjust the brewing parameters with precision to vary my coffee taste.
If I like to just brew using the recommended SCAA brewing parameters, it has the automated mode to do it for me.
I hope this post has helped you find your best 12 cup coffee maker
