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clarioninv19

Wolf coffeemaker?

We have a built in Miele coffeemaker but my husband does not like the coffee it makes, as he says it’s too frothy. I have been using a countertop grind n brew Cuisinart that just died. My husband just likes plain drip coffee, he doesn’t need a coffeemaker that makes anything else. I will grind my own beans seperately so I don’t need that feature. I see Wolf makes a coffeemaker now, it’s pricey for a drip coffeemaker at $600. Any reviews?

Comments (3)

  • 3 years ago

    The subzero/wolf company does not manufacture that coffee maker. They are sourced overseas and “ pose” as Wolf products. Technivorm produces drip coffee makers, and, unlike other manufacturers, they actually keep parts available and in production long-term so you should be able to get quite a long run out of one of these, which helps to justify the price.
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  • 3 years ago
    last modified: 3 years ago

    I can add my endorsement of the Technivorm. I bought mine about a decade ago to replace a defunct Cuisinart 1200 model. The 1200 was the Grind-n-Brew without the grinder, which I mention for frame of reference for what what I'm going to say about the Technivorms before giving what info I can about the Wolf Coffee maker you asked about.

    FWIW, friends who liked the coffee from my old Cuisinart tell me they like the coffee from the Technivorm better. Friends who thought the Cuisinart coffee was blah tell me they like the Technivorm coffee. I will say that I've never found the Technivorm coffee to be frothy and nobody has ever suggested anything like that to me. The only complaints I've heard are ones from people who like French press coffee and think all drip coffee is thin. (For those folks, I brew with the non-disposable gold filter basket which seems to provide "more body" (what I think of as sludge) than regular #4 paper cone filters.)

    Something to bear in mind coming from the Grind-n-Brew is that that the Technivorm is a very simple machine with no programmable features at all. People who like to tinker or fuss with brewing or want programmed time brewing have come up with various manual ways to do so, but I'm guessing those probably won't be factor for you or your husband when replacing the Grind-n-Brew.

    Anyway, that gives you my frame of reference for commenting on the Wolf Gourmet Programmable Drip Coffee Maker. What I know about it comes from seeing one in action at the house of friends. IIRC. my friends have had theirs for about two or three years and are mostly pleased. I think they paid $750 back when they bought theirs but now it seems to be sell for around the $600 price you mentioned.

    Their Wolf coffeemaker seems to brew pretty quickly and theirs does make what they (and I) think is decent coffee. While it runs the water through in about 7 or 8 minutes, it doesn't seem to meet the full time, temperature, and coffee body standards for certification by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). That and the price may be a knock against it when looking for "professional" online reviewers, if you find any.

    My friends tell me they had to fiddle with adjusting the fineness of their coffee grind and played with the brew strength adjustments (called Accu-Brew) for which there are several settings. They don't recall how many tries it took them to settle on the combination of settings that they both like. The brew basket has a built in scale which tells them if they have too much or too little ground coffee for the number of cups they want to brew at their chosen brew strength. They think the scale is accurate enough for their uses. I haven't seen any reports on how how durable that scale is. how accurate or inaccurate the scale is, and whether it can be calibrated. But then I haven't searched for that info, either.

    I don't recall coming across any previous reviews here or elsewhere. Just something else to consider for a high-end-priced coffee-maker that has been on offer (IIRC) since 2014.

    My friends tell me the the "accu-Brew" settings also enable them to make "two-mug" quantities as opposed to full pots and have those two-mug quantities taste the same to them as coffee from a full pot. I haven't verified this myself and my tastes are probably plebian enough that I might not have noticed any significant difference if I had. As with many things coffee, YMMV.

    My friends with the Wolf particularly like the removable water reservoir which allows their coffee maker to stay on their kitchen counters under their cabinets. FWIW, the Technivorm (and many other well-reviewed automatic drip coffee makers) will fit under cabinets but have fixed, top-filling reservoirs that will require them either being placed where there aren't overhead cabinets or else having to be pulled out to fill the reservoir. Since you all had and apparently liked the Cuisinart Grnd-n-Brew, I'm guessing that won't be a concern.

    One thing my friends mentioned not liking about their Wolf is that it uses disposable internal charcoal water filter packs which must be replaced every three or four weeks. They said the requirement is enforced by the unit's LCD screen messages. I think they told me they get 6 packs of the filters from Amazon for around $20.

    I should add that my friends enjoy their luxuries, have kitted their kitchen out with Wolf-Subzero appliances , and freely say they paid the extra-premium price for their coffeemaker because of that.

    It may be worth noting that the Wolf coffee-maker does come with a 5-year product warranty (as does the Technivorm, btw) while most other coffee makers have only one year warranties.

    On a further side note, have you looked at the OXO Brew 8 Cup Coffee maker as a replacement for the Grind-n-Brew? Looks like similar functionality (except non-removable water reservoir and a much shorter warranty) at about 1/3 the cost of the Wolf. Plus it has SCAA certification.

  • 3 years ago

    Thank you for your very helpful advice. We decided on the Wolf, for a variety of reasons. I will report back with a review.