Review: Oxo Barista Brain Coffee Brewer
Review by 
Chef Austin
Drip coffee makers are a thing of the past with the raise of electric pour-over coffee makers. Pour-over coffee has been done by hand in coffee shops for many years and now is making its way to your kitchen with an automated process. The newer machines take out the guess work of how hot you need you water, and the soaking process to create a perfect pour-over cup of joe. Oxo always impresses me with taking a tool I use and making it even easier to use. Their Barista Brain Coffee Brewer is no exception, lets take a look at it.
Oxo Barista Brain Coffee Brewer
Quick Specs: 9 Cup Capacity | Stainless Steel Carafe | 2-Year Warranty
Best For: Taking the hassle out of pour-over coffee. Easy to use, iPhone esque, single button interface and delay timer makes it to where you can wake up to a fresh brew. Also looks like a sweet science experiment on your counter.
Pros:
- Fast Brew Time - Brew time is exceptionally fast, makes coffee in just minutes
- Smart & Simple Control Dial - Oxo has a sleek dial and LCD for choosing brew size and counts up to let you know how long coffee is sitting in carafe to enjoy before flavor starts to degrade
- Programmable Wake Up - Start the pot of coffee right as you wake up and get ready for work
- Stainless Steel Carafe - Keeps brewed coffee hot and has a mixing tube attachment. As coffee brews the tube evenly disperses it - no more weak coffee on top and strong coffee on the bottom of the pot
- Rainmaker Shower Head - Evenly soaks all coffee grounds to extract maximum flavor from your beans. Computerized to soak beans once to properly bloom coffee, then soaks again to brew
- SCAA Certified Home Brewer - Specialty Coffee Association of America has rigorously tested this unit giving this Oxo the seal of approval for proper brewing temperature, appropriate brew time, uniform extraction, and much more
Cons:
- Wake up timer can be tricky to set with the single dial interface
- Paper filters required
Design & Construction
The Oxo features a two-tower system. The water heating tower is on the left and the brew basket and double walled stainless steel coffee carafe on the right.
The two tower system is beautiful on your counter. The water is heated then transferred to the rainmaker shower head to soak your coffee grounds.
The water tower has a 9-cup capacity but can also brew as little as a single cup if you wish. Underneath the water tank, you'll see a the controls. Oxo is good at making tools we use simple, that's why the controls are a single push-button dial with LCD. The single button reminds me of an iPod control wheel of rotating to select features then doing a middle click to make your selection. You can toggle between a 2-4 cups or 5-9 cups option for brewing. There is also a 24-hour timer to tell the Oxo Barista Brain to start at a certain time, like right before you wake up in the morning. This can be a little tricky to set up, so consult the all-knowing user manual to figure out the right button combination to get to the timer function.
Oxo's controls are like the iPod click wheel, so fun and easy to use!
Under the hood, you'd find Oxo's intelligent microprocessor - or Barista Brain - which is responsible for measuring temperatures of water so that it is at an exact 200 F, within the perfect brewing temperature set by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). This model has actually passed the rigorous testing by the SCAA. They have deemed the Oxo Barista Brain a Certified Home Brewer because it properly heats water, soaks the beans, and a does a slew of other test earning it the right to say it makes a perfect cup of coffee. There are only a coffee maker only around 12 currently produced coffee makers have achieved this award.
Make it rain with Oxo's Rainmaker shower head! Perfectly soak coffee grounds for optimal coffee flavor.
To properly saturate your coffee grounds, you must do an initial gentle soak of the coffee grounds to let the coffee "bloom" or release carbon dioxide in the grounds. Too much water at once or too harsh of a stream of water will break this bloom, negatively effecting the flavor of the coffee. Here's how the Oxo does this process perfectly: after properly heating the water, its transferred over to the other tower where it meets the Oxo Rainmaker shower head. Instead of a single stream of water to soak the coffee grounds, the large Rainmaker shower head will let the steaming hot water drip down gently and evenly like rain over the beans and create that magic, flavorful bloom you want to see brewing coffee. When making pour-over by hand, you can easily break this bloom by pouring too fast or unevenly; the Rainmaker takes all the hassle out.
After the pump brings water across for the initial bloom, it is followed by set of small showers for immersion of coffee grounds perfectly timed by the Barista Brain. This is mimicking the skilled hands of a barista at your coffee shop to properly soak and steep the beans for maximum flavor extraction. In just a few minutes, the coffee is dispensed into the double walled stainless steel coffee carafe.
The carafe has an internal mixing tube on the inside that blends the brewed coffee evenly throughout the container. This is so the strong coffee isn't stuck at the bottom with the weaker brew on top, all coffee is even strength throughout the the entire pot thanks to this mixing tube.
Test Drive
We filled the water tank, inserted our paper coffee filter with fresh ground beans, then pressed the control dial to start. Oxo's Barista Brain is programmed to heat water to the perfect temperature then transfer it over to the Rainmaker, which took only minutes. It's mystifying to watch the water disappear from clear water basin and transfer to the rainmaker shower head - the design of the machine is nice enough to leave on the counter.
You could hear the machine soaking the coffee grounds for the first initial bloom, then soaking again to steep and drain into the carafe. The entire process was over before I knew it and had a finished pot of coffee. The LCD timer started counting up to let you know how long your fresh brew has been on the warmer plate. It is recommended that you consume the coffee within one hour of brewing - otherwise it will become bitter and acidic.The coffee was mellow and deep with flavor, Oxo makes an easy drinking cup of pour-over coffee.
I loved that all I had to do was press a single button to get a cup of pour-over coffee that I know takes a lot of skill and time when preparing manually by hand. The Oxo Barista Brain took care of all the hard work of pour-over coffee.
Oxo always impresses me with taking a tool I use and making it even easier to use. Their Barista Brain Coffee Brewer was so easy to use beacase it took the hardest part of pour-over brewing, creating the coffee bloom, and made it dummy-proof. This is a very well designed product. It looks as beautiful as it performs. Oxo's Rainmaker shower head evenly soaked my coffee beans and made some optimal tasting coffee. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has given the Oxo their seal of approval for a reason - it makes a perfect cup of joe. You can get great tasting, perfectly brewed coffee at home with the help of your computerized counter-top barista - the Oxo Barista Brain.
We taste tested electric pour-over coffee from our top coffee makers to see which machine is best for you. Click here to see the comparison.
Everything you need to know about Pour-Over Coffee
- Goodbye Old-School Drip Method - Most all of the coffee makers out there are going to be drip style - a single steady stream of water runs through coffee grounds to make coffee. This method is fast and easy, but doesn't properly extract the maximum flavor from the beans.
- Hello Pour-Over Method - This method is more gentle and has more stages. The beans are soaked evenly with a shower of water and are given a short time to "bloom" or naturally release carbon dioxide. After blooming, another shower is poured over the grounds and then drained into the carafe container. This gets you the maximum flavor from your beans and makes a much smoother cup of coffee.
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About the Author: Chef Austin Merath is Everything Kitchen's Culinary Wizard, Kitchen-Gadget Reviewer, and New-Product Tester. He studied under chefs in College of the Ozarks' Culinary Program. It's his job to make sure you choose the kitchen tools that are right for you by testing the best we have to offer. When not cooking, Austin is tinkering with computers or exploring the Ozarks with his wife Amy. Click here for his full bio. |