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.

This is a great coffee maker in my opinion. In the past, I have had drip filter machines that made coffee that was luke warm, went cold quickly and lost it's flavour. I was so disappointed with the filter coffee I used to make mine by a French press. But this one is recommended by the coffee society and it brews wonderful hot flavorsome coffee. It has numerous settings that are so easy to use. The 'Gold' setting is recommended and makes a beautiful restaurant-style coffee every time. A little tip is if you warm the carafe with hot water for a few minutes before brewing it makes the coffee stay warm and not go into a cold carafe. I certainly recommend this machine for the simplicity of use and great coffee every brew.

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

Was great at first but just after a year it started leaking coffee all over the place. We thought it was a once off and but it happened so often we had to throw it out. It’s an expensive product that does not last. Definitely don’t make the same mistake we did buying this product.

I've had this machine for 5 months now - I notice that the price has gone up considerably since then. Why buy this machine over a regular filter machine that costs a fraction of the price? It really is aimed at coffee lovers - who perhaps like myself were spending 10 minutes every morning hand-pouring (pour over) a V60 coffee. And then I went away on a trip and and my wife phoned me up and said - help - how do I make coffee? So if you are going to buy this machine, you almost certainly also want to be buying high quality coffee (which is virtually impossible to buy in a supermarket) and you will want a high quality grinder. That being the case - you will buy a machine that makes amazing coffee - almost as good as hand-poured (pour over) V60 coffee - in fact unless you are very discerning you probably won't notice a difference. It does come with a range of settings - you can tailor and precision make settings if you want - e.g.change the length of blooming. However, after playing around with settings it seems that the Gold Setting is pretty much perfect already. I have one niggle with this machine though - and that is the thermos and the pouring mechanism. The thermos realistically keeps the coffee warm for up to an hour - some claims were for much longer - not so. But the bigger problem for me is the lid and the pouring mechanism - it pours at snail pace - so you finish up taking the lid off and losing the heat of any coffee you want to keep for later. I have been in touch with Sage about this --and to be fair - their customer service has been excellent - they have twice replaced the entire thermos - not just the lid. Last time the customer service agent guaranteed my new thermos would work perfectly. It does not - same problem. This alone would probably stop me from buying at the current price. UPDATE TO THIS POURING PROBLEM - I had researched this and found many people online reporting the same. I got back to SAGE and customer service seemed to confirm that this is a problem in the design and they offered me the following work around (I find it extraordinary that a machine for this price requires a workaround as opposed to SAGE correcting the problem in the manufacturing process): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Customer Service Wrote: "I've a trick for you, if you like : There is no need to remove that door. The solution to all this is actually very simple - start pouring the coffee, if it trickles slowly from carafe, just press the top of the lid all the way in and release whilst your pouring it, it will start pouring normally and will stay like that. Essentially start purring and press the lid button once. Works every time for me without a fault." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ But if that is not going to be an issue for you, this is indeed an amazing machine that saves time in the morning (you can even make it with a timer - even James Hoffman does that!) and produces consistently amazing coffee.

Purchased my machine in 2021 It might be pricey in comparison to some cheaper machines that do the same thing, but you'll not regret buying it after you've used it for a while. Just over two years of use and never ever had any problems with this machine at all. In my opinion it's money well spent. Tried finding a coffee machine that could do the same, if not more than my old machine, which I had for over 12 years, and this machine was bought as a replacement for my old machine which gave up the ghost, and would cost far more than it was worth to repair it. Easy to use, and all the instructions for use are clear and easy to understand. LCD screen on the machine is simple enough to follow, to allow you to get the right coffee you want ranging from the temp to the strength setting you like. (This is also dependent on the coffee you buy as well) It's not hard to set up. The manual with the machine, and the settings on the coffee machine are simple and easy to follow (it ain't rocket science) and will work correctly. Just follow the guide when setting up the machine for use and that's it. Job done. I've seen a number of reviews on here complaining about the (incorrect) filter being used and people complaining about the filter not working correctly. Buy the correct one and not a knock off/pirated/incorrect/cheapo knock off version. Decent filters cost money because of how they work and what's in them. Don't skimp on them, or you'll end up with a machine that will get major problems down the line due to scale build up inside the machine! The code number for the filter is a BIG BIG clue as to being the correct type to buy. (ClaroSwiss code number: SES008WHT0NEU1) Check to see if the filter has the date wheel on it as well to set as a reminder for when to replace it as most knock off versions don't have this either and check to see that the underside has a gauze filter to allow the water to be filtered through it before buying any filters. When you do finally buy the correct one and use it, place the filter in water, preferably in the water tank of the machine to get it ready for use, it must be kept underwater for at least 2-3 minutes at least to prep it prior to use. Don't let it float on the surface of the water either as this won't help the inbuilt filters to soak the water up, so either put a small weight on it to keep it underwater or simply hold it down in place until all the airbubbles stop and it's drawn enough water into it to be ready for use and you've fitted it into place correctly. When that's done, do two runs to get the machine set for use. Also do the water hardness test to set the machine up, prior to use. (Water hardness papers are with the machine and also available to buy online too.) There's a water hardness setting for this on the LED screen. Cycle through the settings to set it up, along with the time etc. There's also some photos on other reviews for this machine that show their filter floating in the water tank, and complaining that it doesn't fit! If that's happened then you didn't fit it correctly at all, and how it came to float in the water tank after being fitted is mindboggling, as it has to lock in to place to fit, and work correctly! You need to fit the filter into place. Lower it into position, push down, twist and turn and you'll feel it lock in to place. It won't float out of position due to the way it fits. "Milky" or cloudy water is probably down to the filter, and also a knock off version. The ClaroSwiss water filters don't do this at all. I've used a good number of these filters andnever ever had any issues with them at all. When this is all done, and correctly too, you're set to go. I suggest using paper (cone) filters, these are available either in your local supermarkets, sold with coffee, or online (ie on here) Helps to keep things clean(er) and tidy when used. Also clean you machine as well. Instructions in the manual for this as well) I've added a few images to show what's to do as well. Upshot is it's well worth buying if you want a coffee machine that can even do coffee on an auto-timer as well as 6 different *strength* settings. I use my machine every day for fresh brewed coffee, and it's great (the coffee in the photo was made this morning) and added it to show a filter in use. This model has a thermal carafe which keeps the coffee hot for around 4 hours. You can "extend" the temperature of the coffee in the carafe by putting boiling water in it to heat the carafe up, thereby extending the length of time the coffee is hot for another hour or so, but is it really worth the hassle, as you'll probably only make enough to for around 4-5 cups. So the thermal carafe is good enough for its intended usage/ You can buy other versions that have a heater plate for use with a glass carafe which will obviously keep your brewed coffee hot all day, the trouble is with that type is the coffee can get "stewed" and you'll know it by the taste. You can also set the machine up to have a brew ready for drinking, via a timer setting. (instructions in the manual for this) Look after the machine and it will serve you well.

Love this thing! More then life itself! I was hesitant spending more on a standard coffee machine but honestly i've never had coffee taste this good at home from any Drip Coffee Maker Quality product too which is often the disappointing thing with cheaper alternatives that have a plastic vibe.