OXO Brew 9-Cup Review: 191°F or 202°F, Depending Who Measured

Ten degrees apart

TechGearLab measured an average brew temperature of 191.6°F, with a maximum of 196.9, and noted the average falls just below the Specialty Coffee Association's ideal window.

Coffee Xplore put a K-type thermocouple directly into the brew basket and never recorded below 198°F, with readings between 198.5 and 202.

Both describe their method. Both are careful. The gap is almost certainly about where the probe sat, because water loses heat between the shower head and the bottom of the coffee bed, and a reading taken in the carafe is not a reading taken at the grounds.

The tiebreaker is what came out. Coffee Xplore checked the finished coffee with a refractometer and found extraction inside the SCA's 18 to 22 percent range, which is the outcome the temperature spec exists to produce.

The bloom is real

Thirty seconds. The machine wets the grounds, stops, lets the bed off-gas, then brews.

That is the step a person doing pour-over by hand performs, and it is the reason this machine costs what it does. TechGearLab found the water dispersal generally even, with only a small divot in the middle of the bed afterwards.

The carafe is excellent, up to a point

Coffee Xplore measured a full pot at 165°F after two hours and around 150°F after four. No hotplate, so nothing is being stewed.

Then they measured a two-cup batch in the same carafe. Room temperature in about fifty minutes.

The reason is air. A carafe designed for nine cups and holding two is mostly empty space, and that space carries the heat away. It is not a fault, but it does decide who should buy this machine: brew a full pot or brew somewhere else.

An internal mixing tube stirs the brew as it fills, which is why Trusted Reviews reports the last cup tasting like the first.

Measure your kitchen first

17.2 inches tall, per Coffee Xplore.

A standard gap between worktop and wall cabinet is 18 inches, which leaves under an inch to lift the lid. In practice the machine has to be pulled forward to fill it, every time.

They also flag steam venting upward during the brew, which over years is not something you want directed at the underside of a cabinet.

The small irritations

The descale light does not clear when you descale. Coffee Xplore found it needs the dial held down for a specific sequence to reset the counter, which is not the sort of thing anyone discovers without searching for it.

TechGearLab finds the carafe opening too small to get a hand into, and says the machine is not dishwasher safe. Trusted Reviews says the removable parts go on the top rack. Somebody is describing a different part than the other, and the safe reading is to hand wash the carafe and check the manual for the rest.

And the water tank does not come out, so filling means a jug.