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As of today.it died. I bought this coffeemaker less than two years ago, and for the most part I loved it. Will be writing Cuisinart. It turns on, and thirty seconds later it beeps.NO COFFEE. I did have a problem with ALL the markings wiping off (with just soap and water) within the first six months of use. My problem NOW is.I feel for the amount of money I spent to have a trusted brand like Cuisinart.my coffeemaker should work.
We're really disappointed, it seems that this is a consistent issue from other reviews. Our machine is a little under two years old. It does have a great carafe, we're going to keep it. Prior to that it worked fine, with only three or four of the spillage issues that most of the other bad reviews talked about. This morning it started beeping as though our coffee was ready, but there was nothing in the pot. We've tried five times, same result.
We have not had one issue. It keeps the coffee hot for a few hours and that is what we wanted.
So if you like starbucks coffee, don't purchase this one. No more burned tasting coffee.
Read all the reviews here before I purchased this 8 weeks ago. I would purchase this again.
It doesn't give that burned taste no matter what. As long as you pay attention and don't overfill the tank, or screw the carafe lid on crooked it seems to work perfect.
(thanks to all the other reviews pointing out the idiosyncracies) It does pour slowly, and it is difficult to tell if there is coffee in the carafe.
Because a permanent filter deceptively appears to fit okay, I suffered a near miss with one of those brew-to-countertop disasters (had I been brewing 12 cups worth of coffee and not ~9, it just might have escaped the basket). This coffeemaker decanter pours too slow but this keeps hot air in and cool air out so I can't count it entirely as a negative.OBSERVATIONS1. Not only is stainless steel apparently more likely to react with the hot, acidic coffee and impart its own slight metallic flavor and/or old coffee odors/residues, which is less of a risk with glass carafe counterparts, but the DTC-975 brew itself is extracted somewhat unevenly through the cone for lack of a gentler shower dispersion mechanism. This may lead new owners to change grinds and/or use more grinds than they normally will, and this, in turn, may account for why some people are overflowing this machine more often than other models.In closing, I have benefited from the competitive clearance price I found the white/stainless version of this machine at, which may make this coffeemaker worth keeping around if only for the benefit of the attractive thermal carafe as a serving aid using coffee I brew in a separate machine. If the carafe lid is not threaded right, the machine will either overflow or the pouring you do will be messy. Then, again, I might just take this Cuisinart DTC-975 coffeemaker back to the store where I bought it because it really should be good at what it is designed to do.
Otherwise, expect a learning curve.3. It is also near impossible to get the stains/odors of stale coffee out, no matter what you throw at this carafe (lemon, ice, salt, tarter, baking soda, vinegar, detergent, etc). The following may help avert overflow disasters for those who are plagued by them: The Brew Pause is the spring-loaded doohickey that descends from the plastic filter basket. In short, I am undecided and wishing I could write a better (happier) review on my ownership experience with my first Cuisinart coffeemaker. This machine is not a good match, however, for those who value smooth flavor with appreciable depth/breadth to their java above all other considerations.
I would give this one star because rancid residues are not what you want in contact with your fresh coffee, but I recognize the small opening as a "necessary evil" to have the heat-retention performance this carafe does;Three Stars: A red ball floats up to make it easier to read the water level inside the indicator, and the water acts as a magnifier for the indicators. (These types of carafes are a ~$40 value on their own). I suspect this is why BUNN, for instance, attains a 200F brew temp but only exposes the grinds to these temps for 3 minutes for a full 10-cup pot vs. Using a generic gold-tone permanent #4 cone filter, 10 TBSPs worth of grinds brewed and blasted all over the inside of the machine, while the lower tip of the permanent filter basket has a flat plastic bottom that I only later came to realize had the potential to block the complete retraction of the "Brew Pause" mechanism. I suspect the reason this machine does not come with a permanent filter is because using one is risky. As long as you don't fill the water tank to the point where it goes flowing out of the weep hole centered on the back and easily viewable with the lid open, not a huge problem;Three Stars: Spout doesn't dribble too much, but the lid MUST be aligned properly with the "arrow" pointing dead center on the spout to function well.
The worst of it is that this unit ---- mine, in any case ---- appears to brew at overly hot temps. Cuisinart adds to the confusion by indicating only on the included parts sheet that owners may order a GTF permanent gold-tone filter for this model, whereas their website does NOT list the DTC-975 as a compatible model when viewing the GTF part. The drawback is that the lid is one more thing that requires careful cleaning to avoid stoppage/overflows and to remove limescale and spent grounds;2 Stars: To accommodate the larger-than-average thermal carafe (competitors are mostly 10-cups), the hinged lid that covers the top of the machine needs ~23 inches worth of clearance to fully open, and you won't be able to slide the unit easily on the effective rubber grippers on the bottom, either. Preheating the carafe is recommended in the owner's guide but not critical;4 Stars: Carafe retains exceptionally heat well with its clever, complex, patented lid with metal and plastic ball bearings. In addition, the ball bearings in the lid must be free to move aside to allow the coffee to enter. This bores a noticeable well in the center of grinds and seemingly over-extracts those few relative to the sides of the coffee filter. Moreover, this coffeemaker may have an odd problem insofar as it may be brewing TOO hot.
12 minutes worth of exposure at or above those "ideal" brewing ranges for a full pot on this make/model. If one were to fail to seat the decanter correctly, or the Brew Pause failed to retract properly due to coffee grinds gumming it up, damage OR blockage from a low-slung permanent filter in the basket above, it may cause the coffee to overflow the basket as owners have reported in many a negative web review. The Breakdown: Pros & Cons5 Stars: Beautiful look. This may explain why coffee brewed in my machine tends toward bitterness. A full pot will displace more cool air and stay hot longer than a partial one, drinkably hot for at least 4 hrs. This, along with adding a pinch of salt to the grinds in the filter to neutralize bitterness and tamping those grinds down somewhat to improve extraction is about the only way to obtain a passable cup of coffee or tea from the Cuisinart DTC-975 in my experience.CONCLUSIONThe Cuisinart 12-cup thermal Coffeemaker is ideal if your main requirement is hot coffee that will be drinkably warm hours later, and you don't mind or even like a bitter kick to your coffee. In short, this is a machine that you must keep clean.5.
2. Alternately, if I can get the coffee flavor out of the decanter, which I have thus far been unable to do despite spending more time cleaning the carafe than actually brewing into it, I may bypass the overly-extracted coffee in favor of tea exclusively (we drink a lot of tea in my house, too). Speaking for my own experience, this unit makes for a less than ideal brew, and one that is at best tricky to customize to one's own particular liking even if you burr grind your own beans. I realize the machine uses a #4 cone filter from prior experience with coffeemakers that use this type, but it is not labeled on the included paper filter sample. Limescale or coffee oils/grounds could potentially cause the bearings to stick and that may block the flow of coffee into the carafe. FEB 8, 2010 UPDATE: It is essential to stir the contents of the carafe ---- and yes, that will permit a considerable amount of heat to escape ---- otherwise it doesn't matter if you brew coffee or tea, a full pot or a half: Forget to stir, and the first few cups poured from the carafe will be bitter/watery and the last very strong/dark.
In this coffeemaker, by contrast, the brew enters the carafe at the rate of a trickle, which does next to nothing to agitate the contents. It's lightweight so you may lift it, but that requires the clearance beneath your cupboards to do so;1 Star: The LCD is small and strategically located in a place where it is easy to drip water/cleaner/coffee into them ---- a possible risk for shorting the panel out ---- or merely to scratch and bump them while pulling the carafe on and off. Just to be safe, I added the same quantity of grinds in a Melitta #4 paper filter, and there were no issues with the grinds spraying all over the interior and back washing into the water tank ---- confirming that the permanent filter had, in fact, contributed to the problem;Two Stars: Carafe has a ~2" opening and even a Spic 'n Span foam bottle brush is difficult to get in/out. Nice addition to kitchen;5 Stars: Proper extraction temp, about ~200 in the brew basket, possibly higher during actual brewing (one reading I took got to 207F in the spent grinds);5 Stars: Hot coffee, unlike some machines, up to 186F in the carafe without preheating (full pot), ~175F poured in a cold mug. This mechanism is supposed to move up and out of the way when you push your carafe into the *proper* brewing position on the machine. It tastes less bitter but flatter with a coarser grind from my Cuisinart burr mill, whereas the Cuisinart recommended medium to medium fine grind for this machine, whether fresh beans or store-ground coffee, tastes over-extracted. Bluntly stated, the coffee out of this pot tastes downright scorched at times. As an alternative, assign the most fastidious person in your household or office environment as the "designated brewer".
In short, all users of this machine should undergo an orientation and/or read the user manual. A full pot left overnight was ~140F the next morning with no prior preheating. Using a French press the same temp of water would be in contact with the grinds ~4 minutes, whereas at 200F through the grinds for more than 5 minutes on this pot maximum extraction would appear to be achieved faster than the time it takes for the Cuisinart DTC-975 to actually finish brewing. 4.
Consequently, it must be swished around (small brew quantities) or opened and stirred to mix the flavors adequately. Coffee pots that don't have fancy thermal lids and more or less flow straight through uninterrupted partially stir themselves along with the help of the warming plate (circulating the contents modestly as the heat rises up from the bottom). This isn't the best coffeemaker you can buy for office environments where no one will spend the time to clean it properly or to treat the thermal carafe differently than they would expect a glass one to perform. Adding to the confusion, some thermal carafes require you to remove the lid to pour, whereas this one is designed to be left in place so as not leak heat. Because the "official" coffee expert/association standard is 1.6 TBSP of coffee per 5 ounce cup (derived from 2 TBSP per 6 oz), you really can't brew a full pot at full strength/capacity ---- unless you prefer the 1 TBSP per cup Cuisinart recommendation;1 Star: Single-stream instead of more common shower head dispersion over the grounds. The DTC-975 makes for an attractive machine and at the right price, for the discontinued white color combo I bought (DTC-975N), the carafe alone may be worth the purchase price because it can be used for keeping coffee hot and waiting for large families or entertaining (from any machine you opt to use). So while there is a lot of hype out there among the self-described coffee snobs/geeks about a machine that brews at the correct temp ---- such as the Dutch-made Technivorm, which won a 2008 Cooks Illustrated coffeemaker comparison ---- the timing, or total exposure of the grinds to water at such temps, is also of critical and oft-overlooked importance in an automatic drip coffeemaker. Furthermore, there is no light to make it easier to read the display and the delayed-brew programming icons are so small that if you forget to add water and neglect to disable the program it just might lead to an early demise;1 Star: User manual warns against adding 15 TBSPs or more to the filter and/or fine grinds because doing so may cause overflows.
I suspect this partially accounts for the "beastly brew" I described in this review title. This coffeemaker is probably best suited for those with prior experience with a thermal coffeemaker. 1 Star: User manual neglects any mention of type/size of filter. The negative is that the ball can become entrapped/gummed up over time, and the position of the water indicator on the left side of the machine makes it necessary, nonetheless, to turn or view the machine from the side to properly read it.
they keep the coffee hot in the thermal pot that it perks into, Great coffee, Great procuct I have had four of these Cuisinart and everytime it has stopped working I order another one immediately.
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