Description
The DGB-400NAS is Cuisinart’s 12 cup grind and brew machine: a built in grinder that mills whole beans immediately before brewing, a glass carafe, a 1 to 4 cup setting for small batches, 24 hour programming, automatic shutoff, a self clean cycle, a gold tone permanent coffee filter and a charcoal water filter. It measures 8.13 inches deep, 9.98 inches wide and 15.5 inches high.
As with the larger DGB-800, this listing comes with a caveat about its source. The imported description consists of a single line telling you to refer to the user guide, so everything below has been read out of the specification fields, the product title and the published owner feedback. Treat the detail as thinner than usual and check anything decisive against Cuisinart’s own documentation.
Grinding Before Brewing
Grinding at the moment of brewing is the single largest quality improvement available to a domestic drip machine. Ground coffee loses its volatile aromatics within days, while whole beans hold them for weeks, so a machine that grinds when you press the button turns an ordinary bag of beans into something noticeably better than the same beans ground on Sunday and used all week.
The listing does not state the grinder type, the burr material, the number of grind settings or the hopper capacity. That is a real omission on a machine sold specifically on its grinder, and it is the main reason to read the manual before buying. Published owner feedback does confirm that the grinder can be switched off so pre ground coffee can be used, which matters more than it sounds: without a bypass you are committed to keeping beans in the hopper permanently, which is awkward for decaf in the evening or for a guest who wants something different.
The Grinder Noise and the Hopper
Published owner feedback raises two specific points about the grinder that no specification sheet would tell you, and both are worth passing on.
The first is noise. One owner describes the grinder as pretty loud and notes that in a small home it will wake people when it starts. That is characteristic of grind and brew machines generally rather than a fault of this one; a burr motor running inside a plastic housing at six in the morning is not a quiet appliance, and it is the reason some households keep the grinder separate from the brewer. The second is capacity. The same owner reports that the hopper does not hold enough beans to brew a full pot, which means topping it up before a large brew rather than loading it once a week. Anyone brewing twelve cups regularly should factor that in.
The 1 to 4 Cup Setting
This is the feature named in the product title and it deserves the billing. A 12 cup brew basket holding a three cup dose leaves a shallow, spread out bed of grounds, and water passes through a shallow bed too quickly to extract properly. The result is the thin, sour cup people blame on their coffee.
A 1 to 4 cup setting changes the machine’s behaviour for small batches, typically by slowing the flow so contact time rises to compensate. On a grind and brew machine it should also reduce the amount ground, though the listing does not say so. It means a household that usually wants two cups and occasionally wants twelve can own one machine without ruining the small brews, which is the compromise most 12 cup machines simply live with.
The Double Filter System and Self Clean
The included components are stated unusually clearly for this catalogue: a glass carafe, a gold tone filter, the machine itself and a charcoal water filter. The two filters do completely different jobs. The gold tone filter is the coffee filter, so there is no paper to buy, and it passes oils that paper traps for a fuller bodied cup with some sediment. The charcoal filter treats the water before heating, removing chlorine, which does not boil off at brewing temperature and which flattens aromatics if left in.
Both need attention. The charcoal filter is exhausted after a period the listing does not state, and an exhausted one does nothing while giving the impression the water is being treated. The gold tone filter needs a proper wash with detergent rather than a rinse, because coffee oils build up in a mesh and go rancid. The self clean cycle handles descaling, and having the machine prompt it removes the main reason people never do it. On a grind and brew machine there is a third cleaning job the listing does not mention at all: the grinder chute, which accumulates oily grounds and is the usual reason an owner decides their machine has stopped tasting right.
What the Specifications Do Not Settle
There is no wattage, no brew temperature, no brew time, no hopper capacity, no grind setting count and no carafe volume in ounces. Twelve cups follows the usual five ounce convention, so a full pot is around 60 ounces and fills roughly seven standard mugs. The item weight is recorded as 1 pound, which is wrong: a machine with a grinder motor, a burr assembly, a heating element and a glass carafe does not weigh a pound, and the grinder alone weighs more than that. The UPC field carries two separate codes run together.
One published owner comment speculates that the machine may also take capsules. It does not. There is no pod holder and no piercing needle anywhere in the specification, and the coffee input is whole beans or pre ground coffee only. Another owner notes wishing the carafe lid lifted more easily, which is a small daily irritation rather than a fault.
Who It Suits and Who Should Look Elsewhere
This suits a household that drinks a full pot most days, buys whole beans, and wants the freshness benefit without keeping a separate grinder on the counter. The 1 to 4 cup setting is what makes it workable for the days when nobody wants twelve cups, and the charcoal filter and self clean cycle cover the maintenance the machine actually needs.
Look elsewhere if the grinder noise would be a problem, if you brew a full pot every time and would resent refilling the hopper, or if you want a thermal carafe. The more conservative route is to keep the grinder separate from the brewer, which removes the machine’s most failure prone part; a standalone unit from our burr grinder section paired with a simple brewer will outlast any combined machine. Within the range, the Cuisinart DGB-800 and the Cuisinart DGB-550 are the closest alternatives, and the De’Longhi TrueBrew puts the same idea on a single serve machine.
