Kitchen Aid KCM5340B coffee maker 14 cup

As a wedding gift, we received several small appliances including the KitchenAid 14-cup Programmable Coffeemaker (KCM5340B) which we thought was a great idea since we both drink coffee and lots of it since I work from home and my husband gets up very early in the morning. With a 14 cup capacity, it really is one of the larger on the market without moving to a commercial grade maker. It also has a pretty good design feature since the carafe is almost completely surrounded by the housing keeping the pot in place on the warmer instead of it getting knocked around which, as a clumsy couple, is a great safety measure. It’s not as difficult to program as I expected, either, although it helped to read the instructions through the first time contrary to my husband’s “I’m a man and I don’t need instructions” theory. After that though, it’s a breeze and the coffee’s ready when he gets up in the morning.

Should he get up a little earlier, there’s also a pause and pour function so he can temporarily stop the flow and pour himself a cup before its done perking completely. My personal favorite little gizmo, though, is the timer that displays how long ago the pot was made. With that brewer timer I can actually determine if I should risk the taste of extra bitter or simply just make a fresh pot. Unfortunately, like most things electronic, this KitchenAid has its shortcomings. Even though it was a gift and we didn’t actually have any out of pocket expense, it’s not worth the money. The housing and parts are rather flimsy plastic and not overly durable.

The attached carafe lid isn’t removable thus making the carafe difficult to clean especially in a dishwasher because you can’t invert the carafe so the water reaches the inside completely. The filter detaches for easy cleaning, but not the lid to the carafe where the coffee stays most often. The other cleaning problem has nothing to do with the components of the appliance itself but the countertops, the cabinetry and the floors because overflows are quite common.

Supposedly designed for 14-cups, we’ve found that in all reality, it’s not a real wise decision to make all 14 at once. The flat bottom design of the filter basket has no angled funnel to keep water flowing to the center so the drip fills up the basket and over comes water and coffee grounds. That seems like a basic science flaw that might have been overlooked by a design team of sixth graders, but not by a reputed manufacturer like KitchenAid.

The final straw, though, was the “Error 2” that killed the machine eight months after we got it. We contacted KitchenAid who advised us that they would replace the unit but it was going to take a couple of weeks an frankly, we were too tired of dealing with all the other annoyances to package our defective unit up and ship it to them.

Ultimately, we went back to the old standard 10-cup Mr. Coffee and even though we have to make more coffee and I don’t have my little timer anymore, at least I spend less time mopping up the mess and spitting out coffee grounds.

PROS:
- Large capacity,
- easy programming,
- brew timer,
- carafe surround

CONS:
- Overflow,
- grounds in coffee,
- error 2,
- attached carafe lid

RATING: 2 of 5