BLACK+DECKER 12-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker, Digital Controls, EvenStream Showerhead, Stainless Steel Thermal Carafe, Easy Cleaning

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Coffee Maker with Great Features and Performance
I recently purchased the BLACK+DECKER 12 Cup Thermal Programmable Coffee Maker, and I couldn’t be more pleased with its performance. The sleek black and steel design looks great on my countertop and adds a modern touch to my kitchen.

The programmable feature is incredibly convenient, allowing me to set up my coffee the night before and wake up to a fresh brew. The VORTEX Technology ensures an even extraction of flavor, resulting in a rich and full-bodied cup of coffee every time. I also appreciate the brew strength selector, which lets me choose between regular and bold coffee to suit my preference.

The thermal carafe is another standout feature—it keeps coffee hot for hours without the need for a hot plate, which helps preserve the flavor and prevents burning. The machine is easy to use and clean, with intuitive controls and a removable filter basket.

Overall, this coffee maker offers excellent value with its combination of features, performance, and design. It’s been a fantastic addition to my morning routine, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable and stylish coffee maker.

4.0 out of 5 stars Could Look Better But Functions Well, Nice Features
The media could not be loaded. This review is comparing the Black and Decker to a Cuisinart 12 Cup coffee maker (Maybe the DCC 1200 – looks mostly like it but a different finish/material).

I got this Black and Decker unit over cheaper options for two reasons and BOTH turned out a bit worse than I thought. At least there are some other redeeming qualities. I’ll go over it all.

Reason 1 I got this: “Washable brew basket” I thought that meant, like the Cuisinart, I never had to buy paper filters. I thought this was a reusable, washable filter. NO. WRONG. It’s just another cheap plastic bucket to put paper filters in. Exactly like what you get in the $20 coffee makers. Yes, it’s a removable and washable basket but the Cuisinart had that too AND a removable reusable filter. Now I’m back to lifting out soggy lumpy paper and carefully moving to a trash can unless I fork out an additional $10 for a third-party reusable filter. $10 isn’t terrible in and of itself, but it’s unconscionable to not include it with a $60 coffee maker. UCH.

Reason 2 I got this: Stainless steel carafe. The Cuisinart is being replaced because the glass Charif finally broke. It lasted years and years, maybe even a decade. It has been bumped against the sink during cleaning several times, and the coffee maker was used almost every day. It was sturdy glass! It just finally couldn’t take another hit after a six year old messed with it. So I thought stainless steel would be the way to go. Far more durable, looks pretty cool, and is insulated! Well… It is more durable, and does look pretty cool, and is insulated. But I immediately realize how much I loved the seeing the remaining coffee in the Cuisinart – it even had cup level markings on the side. This not only allowed me to know exactly how much coffee was left but also allowed me to know how much water I was filling it with when I was making coffee. I cannot do either with a stainless steel carafe.

Those were the two reasons I wanted to get this. But how is the rest of the coffee maker? There are positives and negatives for this as well.

It looks really cheap. Extremely cheap. It all looks and feels like cheap plastic (except for the carafe). The bottom plate to hold the carafe looks especially thin and flimsy, with micro feet underneath to support what looks like something that’d otherwise bend and snap in half under the weight of a full carafe. Nothing about this unit outside the carafe looks premium. It certainly doesn’t look like this thing cost over $60. I don’t feel comfortable putting the carafe back when I pour myself a cup of coffee because every time it looks so thin and flimsy I have to be careful.

The top of the unit gets very, very hot when brewing. On my old coffee maker, I could touch the top and it was not a problem. On the flipside, the Black and Decker has its first main benefit for me. The insulated stainless steel carafe means none of that gets hot to the touch, unlike the glass on the previous unit. And because the coffee pot relies on insulation to keep the coffee hot, there is no powered heated electric bottom to accidentally burn your hand and drain electricity after the coffee has finished brewing.

I like that the clock and overall display screen is a bit bigger. It isn’t brighter though and the actual display numbers and text are still just as dark. But at least it being a larger size makes it a bit easier to see.

The new unit has much larger buttons. I could go either way on that. Button size does not affect me. But I will say these larger buttons tend to feel cheap. You can press the button anywhere on its surface and it will work. But clearly the surface you touch is larger than the surface of the control board the button is interacting with inside. Indeed, there are areas of the button you can press that feel more “floppy“ or “mushy“, unless your finger presses directly over the part of the button that makes direct contact with its connection to the control board. My previous model had very tiny buttons, but that meant they could only ever feel one way, and it was very tactile, it had a “click“ feeling to it. And it wasn’t only buttons, it had switches which felt nice. This Black and Decker has no switches, and no button on it feels very “tactile.”

I like the “Evenstream” showerhead. It’s true that even my older coffee maker had one single spout at the center top and after every brew, there was a very specific hole through the wet pile of coffee grounds, and I always did wonder if I was getting enough flavor from all the grounds around the sides. HOWEVER, lifting the lid during a brew, it would appear to me that the hot water would dispense enough into the basket that all the coffee grounds were fully submerged in hot water. So it appeared like, at least for a portion of the brew, flavor was being extracted from all the grounds. Still, there’s no denying that at the end of the brew, and, there was a very specific dent dead center of the coffee grounds. And to be clear, not only does this Black and Decker dispense water from multiple spots up top, it also feels the basket of coffee up like a tub, all the coffee grounds get fully submerged in the hot water.

I can’t tell at the moment which keeps coffee hotter, longer. Obviously the Cuisineart isn’t insulated. But it rests on that hot plate for a while. The Black and Decker I THINK turns off a bit sooner, BUT it claims to keep the coffee hot in the pot for 2hrs. I haven’t timed it, and haven’t measured the temperature to know if there’s a difference.

Edit: After posting this review I noticed one other thing. Like all coffee makers, there is an automatic lock/seal mechanism to prevent coffee from dripping out onto the platter when you remove the coffee pot. And the coffee pot itself has its own little lock/seal that when pressed down opens it up to receive the coffee. When you pull the coffee pot out, that top seal is… MOSTLY sealed shut. video shows, if you tip the coffee pot far enough, coffee will drip out that top mechanism. But this is all to say, after leaving the coffee pot back in the coffee maker for about five hours after my brew, was warm, but not hot. I know it says in the documentation I can keep coffee hot for about two hours… But next time I am going to remove the pot completely from the coffee maker when it’s done in hopes that the top mechanism, in its locked/sealed position, will keep the coffee hotter, longer.

Bottom line: It doesn’t look and feel like a $60+ coffee maker, but the stainless steel carafe/pot helps. No reusable coffee filter – 3rd party can be bought fire about $10. You can’t see how much coffee is left or how much water you’re filling in the carafe/pot to use for a new brew until you pour into the coffee maker. It’s got a bigger but still dark display and bigger but a bit more flimsy feeling buttons compared to my Cuisineart. Still, a pot not hot to the touch and no hot bottom plate which also drains electricity is a respectable reason to chose this.

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it! Seriously
I’ve owned all kinds of coffee makers; drip like this style, French press, pour over. The carafe is made REALLY well, super heavy duty. No heating element for kids to burn themselves on, carafe is insulated. SMART! Halo drip head gets better coverage on coffee grounds, easy to self-clean with vinegar, simple design, delay brew feature for coffee ready when you wake up. I really love this coffee maker. With 2 kids and a wife time and economy are crucial. This one rules

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for iced coffee too!
When my most important appliance (coffee maker) died last month, I replaced it with this B+D 12 cup maker. The most important feature I needed was the ability to make iced coffee* in the summer – so a glass carafe wasn’t a good idea. And since iced coffee lasts much longer than hot coffee, being able to make 12 cups, instead of the standard 10, is another good idea.
I like the wide opening of the carafe, for cleaning (and filling it with ice is easier) but I wish the lids designed for all coffee makers with a ‘sneak a cup’ feature came apart for cleaning. They can hold several ounces of liquid inside the lid and get gunky if not thoroughly rinsed out. I like that the water indicator is a window, rather than some sort of separate tube gage (that was impossible to clean on my last one).
The ‘strong’ feature saves a bit of coffee (it uses a longer brewing cycle, so you could use a little less, but the regular cycle makes a pretty good cup of coffee. I use the strong feature for iced coffee though, since the coffee needs to be double strength to hold up to the ice.
I like that the power light pulses when the coffee is being made, and goes solid when done – often you never really know when things are done, even with that nice gurgling sound every drip maker makes at the end.
As others have noted – if you leave the carafe in the coffee maker after it’s done, the valve at the top will remain open, letting heat out. You can solve this just by taking the coffee filter holder out, since you’re going to clean it at some point anyway.
The water indicator, the ‘strong’ indicator and the time, is hard to read if you kitchen lighting isn’t good. That’s the only thing that effects the ‘easy to use’ rating.
Otherwise it’s a coffee pot, and if you can’t figure it out, you are either in need of some coffee before operating this appliance, or should just let professional at a coffee shop make your coffee.

*How To Make Iced Coffee:
Please follow any manufacturers instructions for safety. Test with less ice the first few times and keep an eye on things since your ice trays may vary, and you don’t want to thing to overflow.
Fill the water reservoir to 6 cups (indicated in the window), fill the coffee filter with as much ground coffee as you normally would for 12 cups (12 T’s or so) and fill the carafe with 2 trays of large ice cubes. I can get away with 3 trays – you are trying to almost fill it, but like I said, don’t make it overflow, or it’ll be messy. The ‘strong’ feature can save you a little coffee or as you might expect, make it stronger.
As soon as it is done (when the light stops pulsing) put the carafe in your fridge (third most important appliance, after the furnace) and the ice will last for 24 hours.

4.0 out of 5 stars lid broke after 7 years, couldn’t find a replacement lid
I’ve had this Thermal Coffee Maker, for quite some time and I really enjoyed using it. The digital controls are user-friendly, making it easy to brew the perfect cup every time, and the brewing technology ensures that the coffee is consistently flavorful by distributing water evenly over the coffee grounds. The thermal carafe did a fantastic job of keeping coffee hot for hours without the burnt taste that comes from a heating plate.

However, after seven years of reliable service, the lid of the carafe broke. I couldn’t find a replacement lid that didn’t cost as much as a new coffeemaker itself. I wish manufacturers made it easier to replace parts instead of having to get a whole new coffeemaker.