Hamilton Beach FlexBrew Trio 2-Way Coffee Maker, Compatible with K-Cup Pods or Grounds, Combo, Single Serve & Full 12c Pot, Black – Fast Brewing (49902)

Hamilton Beach makes a better Keurig than Keurig
My wife and I are generally single cup people.  We don’t drink enough coffee at home to leave a pot of coffee sitting on a burner during the day.  So we simply brew a cup when we want to.  And by using the numerous Keurig filter inserts available, we can use Keurig makers to make single cups out of our desired (and much cheaper) ground coffee.  It costs less and is better for the environment.Periodically, however, we have the need to brew a whole pot of coffee.  Such as when my wife wants to make iced coffee and we put it in the fridge, or when we go on a road trip and wish to fill a carafe.Hence a two in one coffee maker is very convenient.  When they work.  The two Keurigs we had failed in less than a year each.  Not a good indication of their current quality control.So we switched to this one that we found for a very low “used” price on Amazon, and so far it has been brilliant.  (Let’s hope it lasts more than a year).But there are several things that set this one apart from the Keurig branded ones.1.  This one has two separate water reservoirs, one for the carafe and one for the single cup side.  I really like this because this means the drip maker for the carafe doesn’t have to rely on a separate pump to operate,  Also, brewing a pot of coffee doesn’t require you to fill the single cup side.   It simply operates as a simple drip maker, using convection to move the water from the reservoir into the drip basket. 2. With the easily removable adapters, you can brew 12oz and 14oz cups without the watered down taste that usually occurs when brewing anything larger than 10oz from a K-Cup, or K-Cup filter.3.  The price of this unit is less than equivalent Keurig makers.  4. The baskets and inserts are easy to remove and clean.  5. The 56oz reservoir for the Single cup maker is great in that I don’t have to fill up the single serve side each time I want a cup and brewing a pot does not pull water from the single cup side.6.  This one contains a timer and a clock which my other two Duo’s did not.  Some Duo’s do, but they are even more expensive.So far I have zero complaints on this device.  It fits well on the counter, the brew tastes great, the temperature is good, and the brew time is fast (90 sec) on the single cup side, and on the carafe side, it is a typical drip time depending on the size of the carafe.NOTE:  Hamilton Beach has updated this pot to a newer version which discards the 56oz single cup reservoir in favor of a non removable “single cup” reservoir which must be filled each time you want a cup.  I don’t know why they did this, and I recommend purchasing this “older” version if don’t want to fill up the single cup side during each brew cycle.The value proposition for this compared to Keurig branded pots is off the charts.  

UPDATED REVIEW
“Didn’t you just get that two months ago?!”That’s what my son just said to me after I spent the better part of two days… TWO DAYS … attempting to resolve the dreaded “nEEDLE” error on the single serve side.Of course, the return window closed a couple weeks ago. Of course.It’s not that the needles needed replacing or that they were clogged. I cleaned both – top and bottom needles – thoroughly. They are piercing just fine.And it’s not the brand of cups being used. We have a variety of brands from a variety of sources.It’s the machine. See video.It brews about an ounce or two then suddenly starts hissing and puffing out steam from all openings, ending with an impressive blow-out of steam and loud hissing, accompanied by a burst of ground-filled water. It’s about half an ounce but it contains enough grounds to cover the bottom of the coffee cup.And then there is a blinking blue light on the “brew/power” button.My son reminded me that our previous machines went out in a similarly hiss/steam blaze of glory. I guess because they lasted a few years, I didn’t pay attention to how they ended up giving up the ghost. I just attributed it to them being a few years old and replaced them.This is a few MONTHS old. Bought at the end of April 2025. And it’s now the end of June 2025.As much as I have felt loyalty to this machine for more than a decade … I agree with my son: it’s possible it’s just not made as good as the previous versions were.PREVIOUS REVIEW:This is such a great system. I am honestly a fan of the dual brew going back years to when it was first released. I bought her (what, 10 years ago?) and it lasted until a few months ago, when she started refusing to acknowledge we had cleaned it whenever we tried to use the single-serve side.She was done. Period. She still brews carafes just fine, so she went to my husband’s work site because no one brews single-serve coffee there.I made the mistake of trying a few other systems because some of my family wanted something that makes cold coffee, but after a few months of packing up and returning them all, one by one, I just bought this and told the family to take whatever coffee is left over in the carafe at the end of the day and pour it into a jar and put in the fridge. Voila, cold coffee… OG style. I mean, as a former newspaper editor, I was drinking cold coffee before it was a thing. Pour a cup of coffee, sit down to your desk and then the phone rings and someone knocks on the door… And four hours later, you sit back down and you have cold coffee. IT’S NOT THAT HARD and does not require an expensive machine to get done. Geesh.Anyway…This is a great system, as I knew it would be.I do like the larger reservoir for the single serve side – it lets me get a few decent size mugs from it.It brews a nice hot mug of coffee. I am able to put an average travel mug under the single serve dispenser but you do have to remove the mug pedestal to do that. I don’t use the pedestal because we have tall mugs and the coffee doesn’t splatter out while brewing like it does in shorter mugs.I like the addition of the brew strength choice – regular or bold. The bold makes it just right for a coffee. That option is there for both carafe and single serve use.You also get to choose the size of the mug on the single serve – going up to 14 ounce. That’s that we use for our Contigo travel mugs.It gets the coffee hot and brews pretty quickly, which is good in mornings.Now, for context – this is sitting next to a $1000 fully-automated espresso machine that we use for fussy drinks.So, the fact we would spend that kind of money for an espresso machine should show you that we are buying for results – not cost savings.And the Hamilton Beach Dual Brew is our choice for quality results. The fact it’s affordable is a bonus.

Have had the FlexBrew coffee maker for about 3 weeks and so far it’s great! No issues, easy to use and it looks nice on my counter!

Excelente cafetera, gran calidad de material, programación fácil e intuitiva, un gran acierto el que se pueda realizar una preparación de manera individual (consideren que las capsulas compatibles para esta cafetera solo se pueden conseguir en línea ya que aquí en México no se encuentran y las demás marcas no son compatibles), sin embargo, el accesorio para poner café molido de tu preferencia te saca de ese apuro, sin duda la recomiendo 100%

Estuve buscando una cafetera, porque la que tenía se me hacia muy básica y quería algo diferente, la verdad quedé encantada, hice muy buena compra. El café sale caliente y cuando termina de hacer el café entra en modo keep warm que la verdad no quema el cafe a mi parecer, la otra opción para una taza esta súper práctica porque en cuestión de 90 segundos ya tienes lista tu taza de café, ya sea molido o con K-cup