If you’re serious about your coffee drinking at home, then it might be time to upgrade your coffee maker to a plumbed coffee maker.
What is a plumbed coffee maker?
It’s a coffee maker that is directly connected to your home water line, which mean you don’t have to worry with filling the water reservoir before making a pot of joe.
Plumbed coffee makers are also known as auto-fill coffee makers.
No matter what you call it, this sounds pretty great, right?
As a serious coffee drinker myself, I took the time to find the very best options for plumbed coffee makers on the market.
In a hurry? Here’s a quick look at our top picks for auto fill coffee makers:
1. Keurig K2500 Plumbed Single Serve
2. Brew Express BEC-110BS
3. BUNN My Cafe MCO Single Serve
Keep reading below to see my picks and how you can level up your home coffee making.
Considering A Coffee Maker With A Water Line
Making the transition from a regular coffee maker that you have to manually fill to one that connects to your water line is a big decision for some people.
The available plumbed coffee makers on the market right now is quite small, so you don’t have a lot of options to choose from.
In fact, there are more commercial plumbed coffee makers than home (consumer use) plumbed coffee makers.
This means that your upgrade to an auto-fill coffee maker just might be more expensive than you expect.
As a result, some coffee drinkers opt to kind of cobble their own DIY solution together with a traditional coffee maker and a plumbing kit to get what they want.
Why Choose A Plumbed Coffee Maker?
There are a few good reasons to go with a plumbed coffee maker that connects to your water line.
The top two reasons are:
- Ease of use
- Fewer germs and bacteria
- More compact than traditional coffee makers
There’s no doubt that eliminating the step of having to fill a water reservoir, or water tank, makes it easier to make a pot of coffee.
I mean, you’re eliminating an entire step, which also is time saving.
The water tank area of most coffee pots is really just a breeding ground for bacteria.
If your current coffee maker just holds the water for you, then that stale water can breed bacteria.
Even if your coffee maker doesn’t store water for later use, all that condensation that forms after making a pot of coffee can lead to things like mold buildup.
You don’t have to worry about that with an auto-fill coffee maker that connects directly to your home’s water.
Since a coffee maker that connects to your water line doesn’t need a water reservoir, the size of the machine tends to be smaller than a traditional coffee maker.
Why A Plumbed Coffee Maker May Not Be The Right Choice For You
Despite how great plumbed-in coffee makers are, they do have their disadvantages that you need to be aware of from the start.
The main disadvantages are:
- You cannot put it anywhere you want
- Tends to have a higher cost than a traditional coffee maker
If you’re already okay with the cost of an auto-fill coffee maker, then you do need to consider its other limitations.
You can only put a plumbed coffee maker where it can reach the water line.
This means that you cannot just put it anywhere in your kitchen.
And, once you get it connected to the water line, you cannot just move it around.
What About Plumbing Kits?
While some people prefer to go with a plumbing kit, they really have more disadvantages than they do advantages.
If you want something that works the way that it should with no leaks, then a plumbed coffee maker is the right choice.
Going the DIY route opens up the possibility of leaks since you’re using a coffee maker that was never intended to be connected to a water line.
Often that means a higher chance of leaks in the kitchen from the kit installation.
That being said, Keurig and
So, that may be a better option for you if you don’t want to go with a dedicated plumbed coffee maker.
Top Picks: Best Coffee Makers With Water Line
Ready to shop for a new coffee maker that connects to your water line?
Here’s a look at our top picks to get you started.
1. Keurig K2500 Plumbed Single Serve – Editor’s Pick
We think that this is overall the best choice if you’re going to buy a plumbed coffee maker.
It is a single-serve plumbed coffee maker.
And it lets you make cups of coffee in the following sizes: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 ounces.
As you may expect from the brand, this machine does brew with K Cups.
You should know that this is considered to be a commercial machine, but we still recommend it because you can pick your serving size and because it has a compact size.
2. Brew Express BEC-110BS – Best Value
If you want something that is compact and looks more like a traditional coffee maker, then this is a great choice for you.
You can make up to 10 cups of coffee at a time with this one, which is great for people who want more than a single serve machine.
But it also gives you the option to brew just a single cup of coffee.
As far as automatic filling coffee makers go, I think this is definitely one of the best machines on the market right now.
3. BUNN My Cafe MCO Single Serve
Any self respecting coffee drinker already knows that Bunn makes some of the best coffee machines on the market.
And this commercial automatic coffee maker with water line is no exception.
You might be surprised to learn that this machine uses K Cups for brewing.
And it lets you make cups of coffee in the following sizes: 4 to 16 ounces and anything in between in 0.25 ounce increments.
What’s crazy about this plumbed coffee maker is that it can make 60 cups of coffee per hour.
Check Out Our Recommended Plumbing Kits
If you’ve decided that you’d rather use your existing coffee maker with a plumbing kit than by a new plumbed coffee maker, then we can help you out with that.
Below we share our top picks for the best plumbing kits for coffee makers.
Final Word
As you can see, there are some great options out there for plumbed coffee makers.
And, if you decide one of those isn’t for you after all, then you can use one of the plumbing kits to DIY it with your existing coffee maker.
Here’s a quick summary of our top picks for auto fill coffee makers: