Oxo Brew 8-Cup Coffee Maker review: Oxo’s latest coffee maker is our new favorite drip machine

Meet our new most loved drip espresso maker, the Oxo Brew eight-Cup.


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A good quality drip espresso maker ought to brew rapid and very hot, but it shouldn’t scorch your grounds. Handful of espresso machines can pull off this sensitive balancing act, but the $170 Oxo Brew eight-Cup Coffee Maker is a person of the exceptional machines that does. For $20 less than the effectively-highly regarded $190 Bonavita Connoisseur, the Oxo Brew delivers SCA Golden Cup-rated espresso that preferences just as great.

Like

  • Compact
  • Desirable, strong design and style
  • Brews exceptional pots of espresso immediately
  • Thermal carafe won’t drip whilst pouring

You should not Like

  • The filter basket could be simpler to fill

Oxo’s most up-to-date electric powered espresso maker also will come with a thermal carafe that, contrary to the Bonavita’s, isn’t really vulnerable to messy drips and spills whilst you pour from it. The Oxo espresso maker is compact, simpler on the eyes than the Connoisseur, and it feels sturdier, too. All that tends to make the Oxo Brew eight-Cup an remarkable order, and more than enough to make our Editors’ Preference award for drip espresso makers in 2020.

Oxo Brew 8-Cup Coffee Maker side

The Oxo Brew eight-Cup is compact, sleek, and attractive.


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Compact and sleek

Bodily, the Oxo Brew eight-Cup is every thing its beefy Oxo 12-cup and 9-cup predecessors weren’t. Those people machines were large and bulky monstrosities, especially the Oxo Barista Brain 12-Cup Brewing Technique, which towered above other small kitchen area appliances and ate up worthwhile counter area. 

The Oxo Brew eight-Cup is equivalent in size to the Bonavita Connoisseur. Both espresso makers are compact more than enough to tuck away underneath kitchen area cabinets when they’re not in use. Mainly because of the Oxo’s sleeker lines, additionally tons of open up area amongst its different sections, the Brew eight-cup appears downright svelte up coming to the chunkier Connoisseur.

Aesthetics apart, the Brew eight-Cup is established up like quite a few other higher-effectiveness drip espresso makers. A heating unit tower and drinking water tank (forty ounces, one.two liters) sits on a person side of a long foundation. You’ll locate a double-walled thermal carafe throughout from that. A funnel-formed brewing chamber lives instantly previously mentioned the carafe.   

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Here’s a watch of the top of Oxo’s most up-to-date espresso maker.


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Working with the Oxo Brew eight-Cup

Producing espresso with the Oxo Brew eight-Cup is a simple approach. 1st, fill the espresso machine’s drinking water tank. Its optimum (and default) size is forty ounces. Which is the very same drinking water ability as other high quality espresso makers this kind of as the Technivorm Moccamaster KBT 741 and the Bonavita Connoisseur.

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Flip up the lid of the drinking water tank to accessibility it.


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Upcoming, flip open up the brewing chamber lid. The filter basket within that accepts regular eight-cup size, flat-bottomed paper filters. Release the basket by swinging its tackle arm upwards Then fall a filter within, insert your ground espresso, and place it back again into the equipment. 

Oxo Brew 8-Cup Coffee Maker controls

Select your most well-liked brewing mode, two to four cups, or a entire pot.


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Make confident the swap on the brewing chamber is established for a entire carafe. Likewise, strike the power button and faucet the button labeled “five-eight cups”. If you’d like to brew less there is also a two-four cup button for that reason. Oxo also involves an optional brew basket intended especially for single-cup brewing. It accepts Kalita wave filters (Kalita 185).

I do have a person minor gripe listed here. The Oxo’s filter basket won’t sit flat on countertops. That created it difficult to fill with grounds unless of course I held it in a person hand. The Connoisseur’s filter basket has a flat bottom, so is simpler to fill whilst it is resting on your countertop.

Functionality and flavor

Both the Bonavita Connoisseur and its predecessor, the BV1900TS, performed exceptionally effectively on my exams. So did the Oxo Brew eight-Cup Coffee Maker. In conditions of raw brewing speed, the Oxo Brew was ready to fill its pot in an ordinary of six minutes and eight seconds. Which is near to the brewing speed of the BV1900TS as effectively as the Technivorm Moccamaster KBT 741 (both coming in at five minutes, forty five seconds), and speedier than the Connoisseur (six minutes, twenty five seconds).  

As outlined in the manual, I made use of a brewing ratio of forty ounces of drinking water to two.26 ounces (sixty four grams) of medium ground espresso. I also analyzed with my normal complete bean check espresso sourced from Costco (Kirkland Colombian Supremo).

Irrespective, the Oxo Brew eight-Cup’s brewing time is effectively underneath the eight minutes or less the Specialty Coffee Affiliation (SCA) endorses for great drip. 

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Thermocouple readings verified the Oxo Brew eight-Cup controls its brewing temperature effectively.


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Velocity isn’t really all that’s necessary to brew exceptional espresso. Specific drinking water warmth concentrations are also crucial. Particularly, the suitable drinking water temperature array (197 levels Fahrenheit/ninety two Centigrade to 205 F/96 C) is significant to earning remarkable espresso. I can confirm that the Oxo espresso maker stored its drinking water temperature inside of a very limited array. 

In the to start with minute of brewing, the ordinary temperature within the grounds was 190.3 F (87.9 C), according to thermocouple readings. Which is speedier than the Connoisseur, which had a reduce ordinary temperature at the one minute mark (147.9 F, sixty four.four C). At two minutes, the temperature within the Oxo’s brew chamber remained rock stable (189.four F). By minute 3, the temperature crept up to 197.six F, then to 199.3 F at minute four. From listed here warmth concentrations were regular, scarcely raising much more than 3 levels.  

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Reflectometer measurements also verified this espresso maker is worthy of the SCA Golden Cup regular.


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Our refractometer, which measures the amount of money of espresso dissolved in the liquid, showed similarly dependable effectiveness from the Oxo. Throughout three operates working with the Oxo-encouraged sixty four grams of espresso grounds, the Oxo Brew eight-Cup notched closely grouped TDS (full dissolved solids) percentage effects (one.four, one.five, one.six{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}). These figures translate to an ordinary extraction percentage of twenty five{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}. 

Which is slightly outdoors of the suitable array, frequently held to be amongst 18 and 22{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}. The Oxo Brew’s manual also suggests working with a less precise “eight scoops” of espresso with the bundled plastic scoop. When I measured eight scoops of my check espresso, it weighed out to specifically 69.six grams. Right after brewing again with forty ounces of drinking water, I recorded a TDS percentage of one.3. This calculates to an extraction percentage of 19{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}, which falls squarely within the SCA array.  

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The espresso was sturdy, intricate, well balanced, and had no trace of bitterness. The drip I created with less grounds (sixty four grams) tasted good too, just a tiny weak. I also created espresso at a sturdy ratio of 83 grams espresso to forty ounces of drinking water. Daring, intense, and super-concentrated, this was my most loved pot. With an extraction percentage of 23{fb741301fcc9e6a089210a2d6dd4da375f6d1577f4d7524c5633222b81dec1ca}, it was also a hair outdoors golden cup array. Irrespective of the ratio, the Oxo brewer created espresso that was hardly ever bitter and very drinkable. You could possibly have to alter the espresso and drinking water ratio to your exact tastes, but Golden Cup-territory is very achievable with the Oxo brewer.

Similar to the Connoisseur, the Oxo’s thermal carafe can keep liquid within it very hot for hours. I recorded 3 hours and forty five minutes right before espresso in the container dropped beneath a hundred and fifty levels F (66 C). Which is slightly shorter operate than the Bonavita 1900 which hung on to its warmth extended (virtually four hours), whilst the thermal carafe champion is continue to the Moccamaster (six hours).

A new possibility for far better drip

I have to say I’m very impressed with Oxo’s most up-to-date electric powered drip espresso maker. The $170 Oxo Brew eight-Cup performs effectively, whipping up pots of tasty joe immediately. It’s also compact, and attractively styled. I also like that it will come with a single-provide accent for earning automatic pour-above, a person cup at a time.

All this stacks up favorably in opposition to the levels of competition. Till now, my drip espresso maker of option has been the $190 Bonavita Connoisseur. On the other hand, the Oxo Brew eight-Cup brews just as effectively and speedier, and seems far better doing it. It fees $20 less too, and does a tiny much more. Which is why it is plainly superior in my ebook, and the winner of our Editors’ Preference award.