I’m in the process of looking for a good one myself, since my last favorite (a Starbucks Barista Aroma Grande) was recalled awhile back.

Lots of basic coffee makers are good, although a few of them may need a little help.

The two big issues are usually:

1) Too low of a brew temperature
2) Not room in the brew basket to hold enough ground coffee.

You can check #1 with a kitchen thermomenter — the brew temp (check the temp in the brew basket a few minutes into brewing) should be 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit. If it’s lower than this, you can try filling the brewer up with hot water instead of cold to see if that will shift it warm enough to solve the problem.

For #2, you should be using approximately an ounce (dry measure) of coffee grounds per cup (6 oz “standard” coffee serving, how most brewers are measured) of brewed coffee. If the brewer can’t hold this much without overflowing, try lowering the amount of coffee you brew to what the brew basket can hold — for instance, just brew 8 cups of coffee in a 10 cup brewer if it can hold 8 oz of ground coffee.

If you can finesse the brewer to brewing coffee with the right amount of grounds at the right temperature by trying tricks like this, then I’d say by all means try the Kitchenaid burr grinder with it.

In the “espresso geek” community, you often hear it said that the grinder is more important than the espresso machine, and it’s not unusual to pay more for the grinder.

The same is largely true with brewed coffee, too — once you’ve got the right temperature and the right amount of grounds, most everything else on a coffee maker is “features” — a vacuum carafe, timer tricks, maybe a steam wand — all things that might be handy (and add to the cost or sophistication), but not really necessary for the basics of producing a good cup of coffee. A good grinder takes a bit more precision engineering, which tends to run the cost up a bit.