Cuisinart
Cuisinart is an American kitchen and food appliance company famous for its food processor. The company was founded in 1971 by Carl Sontheimer to introduce his invention, the food processor to the American market.
Mr. Sontheimer’s invention was birthed by his love of French food and French cuisine and the name Cuisinart became henceforth associated with the processor.
Today Cuisinart is owned by Conair Corporation after being bought by the giant appliance company in 1989.
Following the acquisition, Cuisinart has immensely diversified its portfolio to include most if not all conceivable appliances, tools, and gadgetry that can be found in any kitchen both domestic and commercial.
Some of the many products under the Cuisinart banner include their famous food processor, coffee makers, tabletop blenders, handheld blenders, and mixers, bakeware, deep fryers, dutch ovens, convection microwaves, kettles, popcorn makers, toasters, waffle makers, juice extractors, chopping boards, and ice cream makers.
The above are merely a few of the products in their repertoire so feel free to visit their website for an appliance you desire. You are sure to find one if not one better than what you expected to find.
Cuisinart coffee maker troubleshooting
Your morning coffee is easily one of your favorite moments of the day jolting you firmly out of slumberland to conquer the day ahead.
At times, however, your Cuisinart coffee maker simply won’t cooperate leaving you underwhelmed and slightly, if not very neurotic about your energy levels.
There are myriad problems that can plague your coffee maker but some are more likely to occur than others.
An exhaustive list of all possible hiccups you could encounter and their solutions can be found in the user’s manual provided but if you no longer have it, below are some of the more common issues you could encounter.
- The coffee maker won’t power up
- The machine is not brewing any coffee despite powering up
- The taste of brewed coffee is off or bad
- The coffee maker shuts itself off in the middle of a brew
While there are many more mishaps that could occur with your Cuisinart coffee maker, these four are by and large the most common. Below is how to solve each of the above issues with your coffee maker and reset it to ready mode.
My Cuisinart Coffee Maker Won’t Power Up
- Start by inspecting the power cable to make sure it is not cut or damaged in any way.
- The power cords on Cuisinart coffee makers are characteristically short to reduce the risk of entangling. This also reduces the surface area prone to damage and should take seconds.
- Plug it into a different socket to rule out damage to your power outlet.
- If it still fails to power up, the cord could be damaged from within which happens a lot since most people yank the power cable out of the socket instead of grabbing the head and pulling.
- Alternatively, the circuit board could have sustained damage or wear. In either case, this can only be fixed by an expert or the manufacturer.
My Cuisinart is not brewing any coffee despite powering up
- If the machine is properly connected, remove the coffee pot and hover your hand over the heating plate to sense for heat.
- Likely, there will be none and this should indicate a problem with the heating element, the most essential component of your coffee maker.
- It is possible that the power contacts have come loose or the element is damaged. It should be replaced. If you can do it yourself then by all means do but if not, let this be done and tested by an expert.
- It is also possible that the settings of the machine are set to the ‘Special Functions Menu’ in which case you must reset your coffee maker to Ready Mode.
The taste of brewed coffee is off or bad
- The likely culprit could be limescale formation or an overused filter that cannot allow the coffee flavor to properly sift through it.
- Change out the filter regularly according to the recommendations on the user’s manual since each model has a different specification for this.
- In order to rid the machine of limescale, pour equal parts white vinegar and water into the water tank or reservoir and simply run the machine like in a normal coffee brew if your model has no descaling function.
- Repeat the process with a fresh batch of this water and vinegar mixture just to be certain.
- Run fresh water through your coffee maker to rinse out any traces of vinegar.
- Rinse once or twice more just to be certain that the vinegar is completely rinsed out of your coffee maker.
- Your coffee should recover its flavor.
My Cuisinart coffee maker shuts itself off in the middle of a brew
- Your coffee filter may be filled with debris distorting the sensors and making the machine shut down. Without smooth execution of the brewing process in its entirety, the automatic sensors decode this as an error stopping the machine mid-brew.
- Change the filters regularly and if need be, conduct a simple descaling to rid the machine’s cavity of any limescale buildup that may interfere with the sensors forcing your machine to stop in the middle of a brew.
- If your coffee maker has a special functions menu then simply activate the ‘descaling function’ to clean the coffee maker.
How to reset Cuisinart coffee maker
Any troubleshooting activities to fix the above problems may leave your coffee maker on the wrong settings making it impossible to brew a fresh pot once your machine is fixed. You need to reset the machine in one of the following ways.
- Press the power button for ten seconds continuously.
- If the above fails, press the power button and the rinse button simultaneously for about ten seconds.
- If both the above methods fail, turn off the machine and unplug it from the power source for 15 to 45 minutes. This acts as a cold reboot resetting the microprocessor to its full default settings.