Sage - The Precision Brewer Thermal Coffee Brewer - 1.7L Drip Coffee Maker, LCD Screen With 5 Presets, With Flat Bottom & Cone Filter Baskets, Temperature Control, 1650 W, Brushed Stainless Steel

This Sage (US Breville) filter coffee maker is very well built, as are all Sage products. It is heavy, but does have a fair amount of plastic. What do I like? Coffee is great, and it’s hotter than many machines. You have the ability to tweak the brew with different programmes, but the Gold should be enough for most folks. Somewhat unusually, it has a cold brew setting as well. It is big. Will make up to 12 cups, 1.8 litres. It comes with two baskets that cleverly fit inside one another. You can use a permanent filter basket or paper filters. It has an auto timer so you can set it to brew and wake up to fresh coffee in the morning. It will alert you when it needs to be descaled. It is quiet, compared to many machines. The beeps when it’s done can be changed in volume or shut off.What am I not wild about? It is designed to work with a water filter, which is included. You get a test strip to help set the hardness level on the machine and the filter sits in the water tank. Not wild about the filter sitting in the water. The water tank is a part of the machine and would be easier to fill if it was detachable, the lid is not attached. Love the thermal carafe, but it has two settings on the lid: pour and unlock. In both there is an opening for the coffee to come out or heat to be lost. Would have preferred a shut/locked setting. The machine is big, so it takes up a fair amount of space. OK, the elephant in the room, it is eye wateringly expensive for a lot of folks.If you are a coffee snob, like me, it does a great job, though as always it depends on the coffee you put in it. It has a 2 year warranty and it is made in China. It comes with a manual, a coffee scoop, a large permanent filter basket and some papers. The cone basket takes #4 papers or a permanent filter basket.

Investing in a really good drip machine is big step, I love my coffee and brew with a Hario V60, Clever Dripper and Chemex, but wanted a machine that could produce multiple cups and importantly keep them warm so that I had a ready supply of coffee on tap throughout the day.The machine itself looks very smart, if a little on the large size, something worth considering in terms of your available counter space. The brushed chrome finish looks good but does need a little more attention to keep it looking good.It’s also relatively easy to use, the instructions are fairly straightforward to follow and doing things like programming for timed start has been simple.There are a couple of more unusual steps to take before you can start brewing a cup of coffee, for example testing your water hardness and setting this up on the machine.Once you’re set up, brewing a cup of coffee is easy, I would say that getting the right grind dialled in is important, too course and you’ll get a weak brew, with very little body, I’ve found that grinding a touch finer has worked well and produced good results. Don’t expect anything like a french press though, the coffee from the Sage is very clean, with less body to it than other brewing methods that use immersion to produce the drink.The coffee produced by the Sage using the Gold setting (which produces SCAA Gold Cup standard coffee) is smooth and full of flavour, getting the right grind ensures that bitterness is avoided and that the flavours of the coffee are really brought out.I’ve also tried the Sage with the pour over setting (you need a separate attachment to convert the machine to do this), I used a Hario V60 which worked really well and made a lovely cup of coffee. The only drawback (apart from the cost of a separate accessory with an already expensive machine) is that this can create a few splashes of coffee as the it drips from the Hario into your mug, not the end of the world, but do find my self having to do a clean up afterwards. The pour over setting has become my go-to for single cups of coffee, it’s quick and easy and is perfect for small quantities.To get the best results from the machine, accurate measurement of your water and coffee is important. I weigh both the water and coffee before adding it and use a ratio of 16:1 (water to coffee) to get a good brew, typically this means using just over 18g of coffee to 300ml of water.Only real downside I’ve come across so far is that the silver plastic surrounding the base of the brewer seem to be quite easy to scuff and scratch, simply as a result of inserting and removing the carafe, only a small thing but doesn’t seem to be a particularly durable material , so does need extra care.Overall, I’m very happy with the Sage Precision Brewer, it delivers consistent, smooth, flavourful coffee with the right grind and good quality ground beans. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

Great product works very well

The media could not be loaded. This brewer is the best automatic smart pour over machine on the market. It’s completely customisable and makes delicious coffee with the standard settings straight out of the box. I love the timer function where I can set a time that I want it to start brewing, it’s amazing waking up in the early hours of the morning and having a coffee ready made as soon as I’m awake.Something to bear in mind is that all the water in the tank will be used so you cannot just fill the tank with 1.5l and brew 250ml at a time but this isn’t something which bothers me.Also please remember that the cone inside the basket pops out so you can clean underneath! Don’t let your machine build up scum in there! It has so many feature and is great value for money

The first maker that was sent was brilliant for about 5 weeks. Then it started acting strangely. It would flash that it was overheating or the tank needed filling when it was already full. Then it would stop draining the tank, and the coffee would be lukewarm.I called Sage support and, after being on hold for a while, decided to go for the callback option and not lose my place. They called me back 24 hours later and told me we'd need to do a video call so they could see the issue themselves. I did this, carrying my laptop into the kitchen to show them what was happening.After 30 minutes, they said I could return it, and they'd have a new one out in 2 to 3 weeks! I complained that we used it daily and was told they could use expedited shipping, but I'd need to pay. I'm not paying to get a replacement for a faulty machine.To cut a long story short, Amazon took it back and sent me a new one out. Happy days because the machine is great to look at, and I liked the coffee.This one lasted about 4 days before the exact same thing started happening. So we got a refund and bought a Cuisineart that can grind the beans too. Fingers crossed.