In my opinion, the Sage Precision Brewer is one of the best filter coffee machines, for most people. That's a very sweeping statement, I'm not saying it's the best for everyone, but I think it's the one filter coffee machine that is probably the best for the biggest percentage of the market, for reasons I'll explain below.
Features and Benefits
• Brew up to 1.7L of Coffee
• Stainless steel insulated carafe
• Various brewing pre-sets plus fully programmable "My Brew" setting
• Option to use your own filter brewer (Kalita, Orea, V60 etc.)
• PID temperature control l
• Small cup detection for brewing single cups
• Cold brew function
The main reason I like the precision brewer so much, is because of the control it gives you over all the important variables, in a way that basically automates pourover.
So you could say that this isn't just a filter coffee machine, it's an automated pourover brewer.
While "normal" filter coffee machines just deliver hot water into the filter cone, the Precision Brewer gives you just about the same control that you have with manual pourover, with a V60, Orea, Kalita wave & so on, as I've mentioned you can even swap out the filter cone with your favourite brewer if you like.
The Best Filter Coffee Machines
You can then set the brew temp (and it has a PID so it's good for temperature precision and stability) the bloom volume and time & the flow rate.
Or you can just take the easy option and select the "gold" brew setting, to have everything pre-set to SCA standards.
This is a really, really good machine, no doubt about it.
As I've mentioned it's not 100% perfect, but the imperfections aren't deal breakers.
The main thing for me is the water tank, I don't know why any manufacturer would think a fixed water tank is a good idea, it's really not, you wouldn't put a fixed water tank on an espresso machine, why put one on a filter coffee machine?
The only other thing that annoys me slightly about this machine that delights me in most other ways, is the lack of information about the gold setting.
Why not tell us exactly what bloom time & volume, brew temp and flow rate the settings are for Gold, so we can start there on the my brew setting and tweak accordingly?
If that's not possible, just make the gold setting programmable, I'm sure the SCA don't think there's such thing as a one size fits all method, I'm sure they expect these settings to be adjusted according to taste, so it would make a lot of sense to me to be able to tweak, save, and re-set back to factory defaults.
It's also a bit on the loud side thanks to the vibe pump, which makes it as loud as most vibe pump espresso machines, especially at the last part of the brew when it's pumping out the last of the remaining water.
But the bad things about the Precision Brewer are relatively trivial, the good things about it are very, very good!
For a more in-depth review see:
The Sage Precision Brewer Review