Bonavita 8 Cup Coffee Maker, One-Touch Pour Over Brewing with Glass Carafe and Warming Plate, Stainless Steel (BV1901GW)

I had been wanting a coffee maker in our home for months, since up to this point all my brewing at home over the last two years has been with a Chemex or a V60 (or more often, cold brew, since I live in Arizona). While delivering great results, manual brewing just isn't always a good option if my wife or I are running short on time in the morning. After looking, and looking, and looking -- not to mention waiting to see when the Bonavita Connoisseur (BV1901TS) would hit the market and at what price -- I finally decided on the Bonavita BV1901GW, and I am very well pleased with my decision. What I found through all my research on coffee makers is that with pretty much any Bonavita brewer, you're going to get a simple machine that gets the job done, and the BV1901GW lives up to that standard.First things first: The coffee this machine produces is excellent. It is near-pourover quality with a fraction of the effort, though that isn't to say this machine doesn't require a bit of work to break in. I made several batches of over-extracted and under-extracted coffee before dialing in with a water-to-coffee ratio and a grind size that we liked. Bonavita recommends a ratio just under 15:1 -- the manual suggests 10 grams of coffee per 5 oz. cup, which converts to 14.785 grams of water per 1 gram of coffee -- and we found, as with my Chemex and V60, that we prefer a ratio just above 16:1, which is consistent when compared to our preferences for Chemex and V60. We operate off of a 16.13:1 ratio, to be precise, with 55 grams of coffee for 6 cups. (Ironically, after perusing the owner's manual for the new Bonavita Connoisseur brewer, I noticed that it, too, recommends a 16.13:1 ratio -- 55 grams of coffee for 6 cups. Nice!)As for grind size, we use a Baratza Virtuoso at home, with grind settings from 1 (fine) to 40 (coarse). It depends a bit on the amount of coffee we are making, but I set our Virtuoso between 18 and 22 (medium) for use with the BV1901GW, which is right around what I use for a V60 and just below what I use with my Chemex. (Note: Baratza recommends using settings 13-14 on the Virtuoso for a drip brewer, and we started as fine as setting 10 for drip coffee when we first got the BV1901GW based on a few online suggestions, but we found both of these to be too fine for our tastes.) Once you dial in, however, be prepared for some great coffee.I went back and forth over whether I wanted a coffee maker with a glass carafe or a stainless steel thermal carafe, and while I could see the pros and cons of both, I ultimately opted for the glass carafe, in part because my wife and I almost never let our coffee sit long enough to get cold. The hot plate on this machine stays on for about 45 minutes, which is more than sufficient for us, and unlike what I've seen in other machines, it doesn't overheat and impart a burnt flavor often associated with coffee that's been sitting on a hot plate. Further, cleaning the glass carafe is unbelievably easy, and I like seeing how much coffee we have left so I know whether I need to brew more.Some may take issue with the lack of programmability available with this machine, which I can understand, but ultimately it's a non-factor for me.. I grind fresh coffee beans each morning, and since preparing the brew -- weighing and grinding beans, filling the water tank, pre-heating the carafe, wetting the filter, filling the basket, etc. -- and actually brewing the coffee takes as much as 6 minutes in total, that functionality would rarely get used anyways. (I suppose this is where it helps that I'm a morning person, and that I'm genuinely excited to brew coffee every morning.)I was a bit hesitant with this brewer, and really every Bonavita brewer on the market, in part because I wasn't sure how I would feel about the free-standing filter basket and what I would do with it when I'm finished brewing coffee. For anyone who isn't aware, the filter basket isn't attached to the machine, rather it sits directly on top of the carafe, which is unique if also slightly terrifying when you've only ever used a brewer with an attached filter basket. However, this hasn't caused any issues for us, as I just set the basket in the sink and wait for the grounds to cool before discarding them in the trash. (It's worth noting that the Bonavita Connoisseur, which was just released this fall, fixes this through the addition of a rail system that the filter basket slides into, which turns it into a normal coffee maker. I have wondered since purchasing the BV1901GW whether I could MacGyver a rail system of my own onto the machine, but frankly, this is the only aspect of this machine that I'm indifferent about, so it's not a huge deal. That said, if Bonavita releases a Connoisseur brewer with a glass carafe, well...)Overall, I am extremely pleased with the Bonavita BV1901GW, and I am happy to say that this is another excellent addition to my growing collection of coffee gear.

Great coffee, refreshingly simple machine.Read the reviews. 90% of the negatives have to do with the insulated carafe. Makes sense, because it's an awful design. The glass carafe version brews coffee exactly the same way, and takes care of nearly all the problems people have with the insulated carafe version!Wirecutter etc. are reviewing the insulated version because it earned the SCAA rating -- part of which has to do with keeping the coffee in a certain temperature range in the carafe for a certain period of time after brewing. The glass carafe version doesn't meet that standard. Otherwise the machines are identical. Here's the important part: if you don't leave your coffee in the carafe, that performance metric doesn't matter!So there's no swing-out filter basket to drip on your counter, drip on the hot plate, and break. No timer so your ground coffee can get stale overnight before you ever brew it. If you feel you need those features, buy a different machine.The reservoir is completely transparent and the lid is huge, so it's easy to fill. The _glass_ carafe pours beautifully, and the way we use it the lid is in the box in the attic because you just don't need it. It too doesn't have a hinge to break. The carafe is easy to wash. The filter holder sits flat on the counter, so it's easy to fill. It's not attached to the machine, so there's no gross accumulation of spatter in dark recess you can't clean. Even the top of the machine (the only place spatter can accumulate) comes off and goes in the dishwasher!Here's how to deal with the filter holder not being attached to the machine: When the coffee's dripped through, turn off the machine. Remove the carafe (with the filter holder on top -- really, you can do this before you've had your coffee), take the whole thing to the sink, lift the filter holder off the carafe and set it in the sink. Pour _all_ the coffee into insulated mugs or a good, pre-heated thermos (Thermos 32 Ounce Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Carafe, rinse the carafe, dump the filter & rinse the holder, enjoy really good coffee.Because this machine does a better job of extraction than what you're probably used to, you're going to have to fiddle with how much coffee to use. We found that we prefer a bit less than the 10g/5oz recommended by Bonavita. Using a scale seems OCD, but it's way easier (and more accurate) than counting scoops before you've had your coffee. If you're not using particularly good coffee, you may find that you need to make a change -- because this machine will get flavors out of your beans that you never noticed before.If you want to enjoy good, fresh coffee then this could be your machine. If you want to leave coffee in a carafe for hours or set up your machine the night before, this isn't the machine for you.

Purchased this October 2018...stopped working October 2019. As has been noted in numerous reviews, it suddenly stopped heating the water. The unit was on and as a matter of fact, the hotplate under the carafe got hot...but from what I observed, the unit would no longer draw water into the heating chamber. I put in a warranty claim, but yeeeeeeesh it is taking a long time just to contact me back. I am contemplating just buying another one, so I can make coffee and taking the replacement and storing it until my 2nd breaks.This is unfortunate because it is simple to use, easy to clean and makes amazing coffee without paying upwards of $300 for a high end coffee maker. That said, I think everyone knows that Bonavita has a SERIOUS quality control problem except for Bonavita.