Make better drip coffee with the Braun BrewSense 12-Cup coffee maker

I can’t imagine life without coffee. Having it to there to greet me is one of the reasons why I so easily spring out of bed in the morning, and because of my dedication to the brew, I’ve collected a lot of coffee makers over the years.

And I’ve kept them all too: I have my single serve brewer, my small espresso maker, and my French Press. I use the single serve brewer most of the time, but I pull the other two out when I feel like a latte or the mood strikes. The one type of coffee maker I don’t have and haven’t used in awhile is a drip coffee maker, but after testing out the Braun BrewSense for a few days, I may just be adding to my appliance lineup.

The Braun BrewSense isn’t your standard drip coffee maker. It’s easy to use, makes large pots of coffee or a single cup, and as I found out this week, it lets you tweak the flavour of your brew so it’s exactly the way you like it.

Here’s my look at the Braun BrewSense coffee maker.

Appearance

The Braun BrewSense coffee maker is a stylish looking appliance. It has an LCD display with clock and a stainless steel finish. It’s also compact so it saves space on your counter.

Features

The Braun BrewSense KF7170SI 12-cup coffee maker comes with the following features:

• PureFlavor Technology to get the most flavour out of every coffee bean
• 12-cup FlavorCarafe seals in the flavour of the coffee because it minimizes air exposure
• LCD display
• 24 hour timer so your coffee will be ready for you when you wake up and will automatically turn off when you’d like it to
• Anti-drip system lets you pull out the carafe mid-brew to pour yourself a cup
• Brew strength selector so you decide whether you’d like your coffee to be bold or regular
• Keep warm plate so you have coffee as hot as you’d like it, all day long
• Charcoal Water Filter eliminates tap water taste
  

Testing out the Braun BrewSense Coffee Maker

Before the Braun BrewSense arrived on my doorstep, it had been a long time since I used a drip coffee maker. With two coffee drinkers in the house, single serve cups don’t always make sense, and I like the idea of having the coffee waiting for you when you get up in the morning.

Setting up the Braun BrewSense was simple. All I had to do was take it out of the box, give the carafe a good rinse, and plug it in. Once the clock is set you’re ready to brew.

LCD Display and full panel of options

There are a few buttons on the Braun BrewSense that you won’t find on other standard drip coffee makers. The Brew button is what you’d press to start or turn off your coffee maker. Beside the Brew button are Auto-On and Auto-Off buttons. These let you set the time at which you’d like your coffee maker to turn on and you can also indicate when you’d like it to turn off.

I love the idea of having the smell of coffee wake me up in the morning, so the auto-on button is definitely something I’d be thrilled to have on my coffee maker.

You can descale the Braun BrewSense with the Clean button, and there’s also an option to brew a smaller pot of coffee. This is handy if you only want to brew 1 to 4 cups because it saves on coffee waste.

What sets the Braun BrewSense apart from other drip coffee makers are the last two options on the panel. You can set the strength of your pot of coffee to regular or bold coffee. That means if you need a good morning jolt of caffeine, your coffee maker will oblige.

The Braun BrewSense also has a warming plate, but it’s not just an on-off warming plate. While you’re brewing you can set how hot you’d like to keep your pot of coffee, and that means you won’t have to reheat your cup in a microwave when you want to drink it

Charcoal Water Filter

There’s an optional charcoal water filter included with the Braun BrewSense. It filters out impurities like chlorine and bad tastes from your tap water. My tap water isn’t the best and I found the filter really works to eliminate odour and taste.

Delicious coffee in minutes

I made several pots of coffee with the Braun BrewSense. There’s a gold re-usable filter inside the coffee maker that you can use over and over again or you can add your own paper filter. I used the gold coffee filter and I found it to be easy to use and clean after.

To make the best pot of coffee in the brewer, you can use the included scoop to measure out your coffee. I added one scoop of coffee per cup, set it to bold strength, and turned on the coffee maker.

You know how some coffee makers are really loud when they’re brewing? I’ve been in hotel rooms where the coffee maker is so loud that it wakes up my kids when it’s running, but the Braun BrewSense is very quiet. I included some footage of it brewing in my review video, so check that out to hear it for yourself.

The real question with any coffee maker is how the coffee tastes, and the Braun BrewSense gets two thumbs up in my book. I’ve always used single serve because it gives me a great cup of coffee every time, but I was surprised at how good the cup of coffee from the Braun BrewSense was. Even after I let it sit with the temperature plate on high for two hours, the coffee was still great.

Overall thoughts

Drip coffee makers have come a long way, and the Braun BrewSense is definitely a coffee maker I’d swap out for my single serve and use every day. It’s more economical making large pots of coffee when you have more than one coffee drinker in the house, and the clean up process was very simple. I like how I can just take the coffee grounds and whisk them away into the compost without worrying about throwing away a cup too.

The Braun BrewSense is available on Best Buy right now, so take a look and see how easy it would be to enjoy drip coffee.