Ninja coffee maker review

Coffee preparation techniques besides espresso like pourover.
day
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Joined: 9 years ago

#1: Post by day »

EDIT: My parents bought this the day before thanksgiving. This was originally a question about quality. As you can see in the following comments no one had any real feedback so I turned this in to a product review intended to determine if it should be returned, but basically having already convinced them it should be and having already been convinced myself.

Build Quality: For a sub 100 dollar maker it might be ok, but at approaching 200 dollars its a problem. The entire system is plastic. The containing vessel, which I first assumed was glass on seeing it, turns out to be plastic. The few metallic looking parts are also plastic. Extremely light and feels cheap cheap cheap.



Water Filling: The container separates to fill so that is very convenient. Once you fill the whole container you can select cup, travel cup, half container, full container. It automatically pulls out the appropriate amount of coffee and does so with consistency and accuracy, so once you measure how many ounces are being pulled-11oz for cup, 21oz for half, 42oz for full (*I have not tested the travel mug settings yet) it has done so well. I cant be 100% sure of the accuracy but on cup mode it seems to be about +-.25oz, and seems pretty consistent on carafe modes, so not unreasonable for an auto machine.

Distribution: I will update with photos soon. The showerhead is a tightly clustered and centered group of nozzles. Thus, distribution obviously suffers from that, pulling it out and stirring is also hard, because you have to stop the drip and then pull out and stir.




Brewing Cycle: There is a built in preinfusion. It always puts out some water, 1.75-2oz or so will have dripped and then it shuts off and heats the water. It happens very fast, the first drips of preinfusion happen mere seconds after starting the cycle. After that preinfusion about 30 seconds pass as it heats and then turns back on. Total time to start is about 2 seconds, drip takes about 18 and total is right around 50 seconds for preinfusion cycle regardless of mode selected.

Temperature: It depends on what cycle you choose. I used a K-type probe and placed it in the beans, once wet it sank to the side of the basket in the bean mass, so this is the temperature of the actual brew, not of what is coming out of the showerhead.

In cup mode: Preinfusion started at 70C, then the bean mass quickly dropped to 55 as the system shut off and heating started. About 2 oz dripped into the cup while at 55C. Heating cycle started and the temperature quickly shot up to 93. From 2-5oz it went from 93-95C. After 5 oz it went up to 98 then 98.8 with steam coming out everywhere for 5oz-9oz The rest of the water was absorbed by the bean. I would have dumped it, but my mom wanted cream and sugar/maple syrup so it turned out fine.

In half carafe mode: (This was after doing two in cup modes, so the temperature may have been more stable due to the preheating of the unit. I will test later without preheating.) The preinfusion started and the bean mass went to 85 and then 80C. The machine stopped dripping and heating cycle could be heard. Once it started back up the temperature went to 93 immediately and stayed there for a while, then went to 94-95. It constantly cycled between the two. When it hit 95 it would start to go over and then shut off for a bit and temperature would drop. In the last 20 seconds of the brew cycle it lost control it went to 96 but the vast majority of the brew was within a reasonable temp. It was a perfectly fine cup of coffee.

Update: I attempted to run a specific preheat cycle of plain water first-then didn't work. Preinfusion was at 93, after that it was 98-99 the whole time and was a terrible cup. :( no way to properly control the temp apparently.

In full carafe mode: Run from cold. Preinfusion started 68c. Once heating cycle started it Stayed in the 70-78 for about 5oz in the carafe, then went into the 80s, it broke 90 at about 10oz in the carafe and half the water pulled from reservoir. Stabilized at 93 for probably 10oz-30oz in the carafe then went up to 95-96 as it finished out the remaining 5-6 oz that make it to the cup. Filled with 40oz. Not terrible, but a lot of time and water spent under temperature.

Richness Settings: Well, obviously this is a gimmick. The temperature is not controlled enough for that to have any influence, and the only other variables they can change are flow rate and volume of water. To test this I used Cup mode and ran water without any basket to see the flow rate and volume of water. Because of the margin of error, and the small volume of water on the specialty and ice modes they were sometimes the exact same volume.

On "Original' it put out anywhere from 10.75-11oz of water. In "Rich" mode it put out anywhere from 9.5-10oz of water. On ice mode it put out anywhere from 4.75-5.25oz of water and on "Specialty" it put out anywhere from 4-4.75oz of water.

After removing preinfusion times, which made up half the "specialty" volume, flow rates ranged from 7-8oz/minute after the main cycle started. There was no consistent change in flow rate based on setting, but varied from brew to brew, therefore the only thing that richness settings does is reduce volume. Obviously, that is meaningless, and just results in an underextracted cup. It would allow you to vary beverage size if you adjusted your dose and grind, and didn't care about temperature consistency.
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RobertL
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#2: Post by RobertL »

Why are you returning it?

jbviau
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#3: Post by jbviau »

There's an hour-long informercial (featuring Sofia Vergara!) about this brewer in my DVR queue right now. I've struggled to penetrate the dense atmosphere of marketing surrounding it in order to figure out what's new (if anything) about its brewing technology. I sense an opportunity here--maybe get your Ninja on a bit and report back before returning it?!
"It's not anecdotal evidence, it's artisanal data." -Matt Yglesias

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yakster
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#4: Post by yakster »

The marketing fu is dense and hard to penetrate. I'm glad it's not capsule based but left wondering how this beats a Brazen or other specialty coffee makers. It probably is better than mass market coffee pots. I'd love to hear a user review.
-Chris

LMWDP # 272

day (original poster)
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Joined: 9 years ago

#5: Post by day (original poster) »

Switched to a review, will update it with a few more tests before returning.
Yes, i you per this on an iPhone