Description
The Cuisinart DGB-450NAS is a ten cup drip machine with a grinder built into the top and a stainless thermal carafe underneath. Whole beans go into a hopper, the machine grinds them immediately before brewing, and the coffee lands in an insulated carafe with no hot plate. In principle that is the shortest possible path from bean to cup, and it is the reason grind and brew machines exist.
In practice this format asks more of you than any other machine in our coffee makers category, and the published owner feedback is unusually clear about what that costs. It carries roughly 1,458 ratings at a 4.2 average since July 2020.
The Listing Is Almost Empty
Before the features, a warning about the source material. The entire manufacturer description on this listing reads: “Please refer to user guide or user manual or user guide (provided below in PDF) before first use”. That is it. There are no feature bullets, no capacity explanation, no grinder specification and no brewing claims.
Everything useful therefore comes from the specification table and from owners. The table lists a gold tone permanent filter, a charcoal water filter, a thermal carafe and the coffee machine as included components, plus programmable operation and a fully automatic mode. What it does not tell you is the one thing that matters most on a grind and brew machine: whether the grinder is a blade or a burr. Those produce very different grounds, and the difference is the whole argument for grinding at home. The listing does not say, and we are not going to guess.
The Weight Figure Is Wrong
The specification table gives the item weight as 1 pound. A machine with a motorised grinder, a boiler, a control board and a double walled stainless carafe cannot weigh one pound; the carafe alone weighs more than that. Comparable Cuisinart grind and brew machines run to ten or eleven pounds. This is a data entry error rather than a feature.
The dimensions look plausible: 8.13 inches deep by 9.98 inches wide by 15.5 inches high. Fifteen and a half inches is tall, and one owner describes the machine as almost too big for a small kitchenette, so measure your cabinet clearance before ordering.
Filling It, and Why That Is Awkward
The same owner identifies a specific and repeatable annoyance. The water reservoir is filled from the carafe, and in a tight space there is not enough room to angle the carafe into the chamber. Worse, the carafe is stainless and opaque, so there is no way to see how much water you have measured until you pour it in and read the gauge inside the machine.
That is the hidden cost of a thermal carafe on a machine without a removable tank. Glass carafe machines let you measure at a glance. If filling ergonomics matter to you, a machine with a removable reservoir such as the Mr. Coffee 2150023 solves the same problem in a better way.
The Grinder, and the Cleaning It Demands
This is where opinions divide sharply and both sides are worth reporting. Owners who like the machine describe the smell of beans grinding in the morning and coffee that is noticeably better than pre ground, with several buying their second or third Cuisinart in this family.
The criticism is specific and mechanical. One owner states the grinder is too loud, that it has to be cleaned after every single use, and that cleaning means scrubbing with a cloth and then waiting a long time for it to dry. Another owner reports that their household wanted to wake up to freshly ground coffee and stopped loading the machine at night within a week. Coffee grounds are oily and they cling; a grinder chute that is not cleaned will clog and will make the next pot taste of yesterday. If you are not going to do that every day, the grinder is not an advantage, and a separate grinder such as the Cuisinart DBM-8P1 plus a plain brewer is easier to live with.
The Thermal Carafe
Coffee brews into a double walled stainless carafe with no hot plate, so it is not being cooked after brewing. One owner specifically chose the ten cup insulated version over a twelve cup glass model for exactly this reason, and reports being satisfied.
Another reports the opposite: that the carafe does not keep coffee hot for long even after preheating it with boiling water, and that they end up reheating cups in the microwave. Both experiences are consistent with how vacuum carafes behave, holding heat well when full and sealed and losing it once opened and drawn down. Cuisinart publishes no retention figure on this listing, which is why the accounts diverge.
Filters and Water
A gold tone permanent filter and a charcoal water filter are both included, which is the right combination. The gold tone filter removes paper from the running cost and passes coffee oils that paper traps. The charcoal cartridge reduces chlorine in the reservoir before the water is heated, which is one of the most effective single changes you can make to how home coffee tastes, and it is a consumable most owners forget to replace.
Descaling is separate and manual. On a machine with a grinder chute, a brew path and a thermal carafe, there are three separate cleaning jobs and none of them is optional if you want the coffee to stay good.
What the Specifications Do Not Settle
The description contains no product information at all. Whether the grinder is a blade or a burr is not stated. No grind settings are listed. No brew temperature is published. No wattage is published. No brew time is published. The carafe volume in ounces is not stated, only the ten cup rating, which at the standard five ounce cup implies around 50 ounces. No carafe retention figure is given. The item weight is wrong by an order of magnitude. There is no warranty term in the table. Two UPC codes appear, so more than one variant shares the page.
Who It Suits
This suits somebody who genuinely will clean a grinder every day, wants beans ground minutes before brewing, and prefers a thermal carafe to a hot plate. Owners who fit that description are consistently enthusiastic, and several are repeat buyers of the same family.
Look elsewhere if the daily grinder cleaning sounds like a chore you will skip, because a neglected grind and brew machine makes worse coffee than a plain brewer with fresh pre ground. The glass carafe twelve cup version, the Cuisinart DGB-550BKP1, is the cheaper way into the same idea, and the Cuisinart DGB-800 is the larger machine in the same range.
