Coffee – Good programmable coffee urn solution

coffeeequipment

Here's the situation: We're looking for a good coffee solution at our church. Churches (especially in the midwest) tend to have terrible coffee and we don't want to add to the problem. I'm looking for a machine that has the following characteristics.

  • Good taste
  • 25+ cups
  • Keeps coffee hot for 2-3 hours without burning it
  • At least the ability to auto shut off after an adjustable amount of time, programmable is a plus
  • Affordable (< $200)
  • Preferably urn vs. drip

This machine, the Nostalgia Electrics DSU-600 (http://www.livingdirect.com/Nostalgia-Electrics-60-Cup-Digital-Coffee-Urn-DCU-600/DCU-600,default,pd.html) looked promising but I don't know if it supports auto shutoff or only auto start AND I'm worried that it may no longer be produced by the manufacturer. If someone can suggest a machine that meets these qualifications or set my mind at ease about the DCU-600, it'd be greatly appreciated. (To be fair, I will accept the first qualifying post to remove any subjectivity)

Thanks for your advice!

Best Answer

Do you already have a decent urn that makes decent coffee? Is the problem just that it doesn't shutoff and burns the coffee?

Short of recommending a $450-800 airpot brew-station solution, and without suggesting you buy/blow $200 on a middling solution, I would recommend you go for the $20 solution; a wall timer.

Personal Opinion: I think any unit you buy for around $1-200 will be sacrificing somewhere; be it in capacity, potency, or whatever there will be money ineffectively spent. A thermal solution is better than a heated one. You would be better off either waiting to spend the money on a lasting, quality solution or hacking a cheap solution and spending the $80 left over on fresh donuts for a few weeks.

That said I have no experience with the manufacturer unit you listed. According to Google, that unit;

is a digital coffee urn, including a temperature readout, automatic timer, and adjustable keep warm and delay timer settings to give you precise control of brewing an - large coffee urn, coffee urn, commercial coffee urn, stainless coffee urn, 60 cup coffee urn, stainless steel, entertaining, catering, nostalgia electrics, 60 cup

...So it should match your criteria. I didn't see any direct reviews of that unit.

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