Ninja 12-Cup Programmable Coffee Brewer
The Ninja CE251 Coffee Maker is an impressive entry-level machine that punches well above its price point. Built with Ninja’s reputation for innovation, this model features two distinct brewing styles — Classic and Rich — to suit varying taste preferences. Whether you’re preparing a single mug or a full carafe, the CE251 ensures optimal flavor extraction and temperature. It’s also thoughtfully equipped with a 24-hour programmable timer, a detachable 60-ounce reservoir for easy refills, and an auto-warming plate to keep your brew hot for hours.
Users praise its superior brewing temperature, flavorful output, and user-friendly controls, although some mention mixed experiences with long-term durability.
🌟 Product Highlights & Features
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Two Brew Styles: Choose between Classic (standard) or Rich (stronger flavor) to suit your taste.
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12-Cup Glass Carafe: Ideal for both solo drinkers and family gatherings.
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Hotter Brewing Technology: Consistent and optimized temperature control for better extraction.
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Small Batch Function: Avoid diluted brews when making just 1-4 cups.
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24-Hour Delay Brew: Schedule your coffee a day ahead.
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Removable 60-oz Water Reservoir: Easy filling at the sink, with clear measurement markers.
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Adjustable Warming Plate: Keeps coffee hot for up to 4 hours.
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Sleek, Compact Design: Fits modern kitchens while saving counter space.
📊 Technical Specifications
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Ninja |
| Model Number | CE251 |
| Color | Black/Stainless Steel |
| Coffee Maker Type | Drip Coffee Machine |
| Brew Styles | Classic, Rich |
| Carafe | 12-cup glass |
| Water Reservoir | 60 oz, removable |
| Special Features | Delay Brew, Warming Plate, Small Batch Mode |
| Dimensions (D x W x H) | 8″ x 10″ x 14″ |
| Weight | 6.6 lbs (approx. 2.99 kg) |
| Wattage | 1100 watts |
| Voltage | 110V |
| Material | Plastic, Glass |
| Filter Type | Reusable |
| User Interface | Button-controlled |
| Included Components | Coffee Brewer, 12-Cup Carafe, Scoop, Filter |
✅ Final Verdict
The Ninja CE251 is a standout coffee machine for its price category. It’s easy to use, stylish, and delivers rich, hot coffee whether you’re brewing a full pot or a single cup. Features like the removable water reservoir, brew strength control, and programmable delay function make it ideal for busy households or casual coffee aficionados.
While long-term durability varies among users, its performance, taste quality, and thoughtful design earn it high marks. If you want a reliable, flavorful, and flexible coffee maker without spending a fortune, the Ninja CE251 is a smart choice.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆ (4.4/5)
John1011 –
Makes better coffee than our previous coffee maker.
Fortunately our previous coffee maker stopped working and we ordered the Ninja coffee maker. Coffee definitely tastes better and is warmer also. Filling with water is easy, brew speed is fast, and less coffee grounds are needed for a good brew (an attachable measuring spoon is included). A separate button allows for smaller coffee brewing and it will brew up to12 cups. Cleaning is a cinch as the water tank is removable as is the coffee grounds basket. It appears to be well-made, but the most important feature is that it makes great coffee especially if you grind your own coffee beans.
5 people found this helpful
MarkMark –
Best coffee after 50 years of addiction.
I must say after a week of using the pot. I have never been so pleased with the quality and performance. My pot never gets dirty from coffee stains due to the center tube in the glass pot. Removing the water container has made it never so easier especially at 3am when I’m freaking tired. Well done Ninja.
eclaire –
Clear, detachable reservoir separates this coffee maker from the masses.
I’ve owned this coffee maker over a month now and love it. Intuitive-to-operate controls and a very attractive appearance are among its virtues. Of course, hot water dripping over coffee grinds isn’t rocket science and is something most coffee makers do comparably well, and the Ninja likewise makes excellent-tasting coffee.Other reviews were mildly critical of the “sneak a cup” functionality, but I’ve found it on par with that of my last two coffee makers (Krups and Cuisinart). Yes, a couple of drops of coffee will still splash on the hot plate while you pull the carafe out, but I’ve never used or seen a pot yet that didn’t do that, and the spring mechanism on this carafe is at least as robust as any I’ve seen on other coffee makers.Where this pot really shines is in the clear, detachable water reservoir. That obviously offers you the (completely?) unique option of detaching the tank to fill it over the sink before brewing, which I’ve done a few times and anticipated doing regularly. Frankly, however, I find it unnecessary because the reservoir itself provides an unusually large opening/target for pouring directly from my filtered water pitcher.But there are other benefits to the reservoir design, including the fact that it allows you to easily monitor the conditions inside . . . i.e., when the moist environment inevitably leads to mildew, you will know it (and, because the reservoir is transparent to any ambient sunlight, mold/mildew should theoretically take longer to manifest in many kitchens.) More importantly, you’ll be able to easily clean the reservoir in a sink of hot soapy water (with a little bleach) without repeated electric cleaning and rinse cycles for the whole brewer, followed by awkward attempts to wipe the nooks and crannies of the integral, typically black reservoir with a white paper towel to see if any undesirable residues remain.But perhaps the greatest advantage of this design is in what it will save you if you should *ahem* forget to put your carafe in place before you hit “brew.” I’ve only done this twice in my life but, ironically, both times occurred within the last six weeks: once with my last Krups pot and once with this new Ninja. (Put aside for the moment what such forgetfulness might be saying about me.:-) At the very least, I gained valuable, first-hand experience in how the Ninja’s design saved my a$$ while the typical integral design on the Krups resulted in a ruined coffee maker, which prompted my purchase of the Ninja in the first place.)When you fail to put the carafe under the filter spout on a coffee maker that offers the increasingly ubiquitous “sneak a cup” feature, the spring mechanism on the filter holder is never engaged and the water that’s dripping down over your grinds to make coffee is never given proper egress below. So your mistake may go unnoticed for quite some time since you won’t hear the kind of gushing and sizzling sound that an older model without the sneak a cup feature would produce when dripping coffee is merrily dispensing and burning on the naked hotplate below. Instead, the water stays in the filter holder, eventually having nowhere to go but over the sides, which, on the vast majority of drip coffee makers, means that the brewed coffee–complete with floating grinds–will spill over and back into the reservoir itself. That is exactly what happened to my Krups, and, despite hours of repeated cleaning cycles and an aborted effort to dismantle the innards, I realized the pot was shot (no pun intended) and would never process water properly through its (clogged) pump pathway again.Enter the Ninja. After making delicious coffee for a week or so, I, once again, got distracted by something (probably my Yorkie yapping to get out for a morning pee) and neglected to actually seat the carafe on the coffee maker before hitting brew. When I got back in, I noticed the problem just before the brewing coffee was about to overflow the filter holder. The difference was, even had I been a bit later, I would have only had to deal with a messy countertop and not a ruined $80+ coffee maker. In other words, if the Ninja coffee filter overflows, the brewed coffee will NOT go back into the reservoir because the latter is physically higher and isolated from the former in a way that would not permit that. So, should you repeat my negligence, you will hear coffee suddenly dripping on your hotplate and counter top, but you won’t have to buy a new coffee maker.The only “negative” to the pot is that the carafe lid does not flip up via the common thumb depression above the handle. You have to slide/turn it to remove, which is more easily done with two hands. But this is a very, very minor ding in my view and not worth deducting a star for an otherwise very well-designed, highly practical, and elegant-looking appliance.
369 people found this helpful
nikki –
Great taste!
Amazing taste! I have tried 3 coffee makers over the course of a few weeks and finally settled on this one! Using the “rich” setting the coffee had a pretty significate taste difference than the other coffee makers in terms of quality of taste. I recently had The Smeg coffee maker, and this taste very similar but keeps the coffee even hoter, which is something I didn’t like about The Smeg, the coffee got cold quick.
Cynthia –
Better design, better results
This coffee maker simply makes better coffee. We have had an expensive kitchenaid coffee maker for some years. Good coffee maker. But when we moved recently we decide to get a new pot that would be better suited to our new, larger kitchen. The Ninja has the removable water reservoir which makes preparing it a bit easier. And so it did.What I did not expect was better coffee. It is more flavorful and fuller bodied that what we got from our regularly cleaned and fresh filtered kitchenaid. Maybe it’s a because it brews a bit hotter, maybe is the different design for how the water is distributed across the grounds. In any case, it really is better. Great coffee maker choice!
13 people found this helpful
Lisa S. Turner –
Love it
I’ve always had a missed coffee, which is great in itself, but I do really like this ninja coffee maker. It comes with its own filter and you can remove the water reservoir, which I absolutely love now if they can just come up with a coffee machine that if I’m laying in bed, not wanting to get up yet and I can just hit remote start from my phone. That would be really cool.
Mel P. –
Great machine
Honestly, best coffee maker I’ve ever owned. I’ve owned a crap load of coffee makers and even the expensive Bunn that heats the water all the time and brews fast, blah blah blah. Now that I’ve owned this since October 2024, I taste coffee from other makers, when I’m not home, and the coffee doesn’t even come close to the taste from this machine. It’s really quite awesome. Brews quite fast and don’t know what voodoo magic they use in the brewing process that makes it taste so good, but I really don’t care. It’s awesome. Highly recommend.
4 people found this helpful
J. MelartinJ. Melartin –
Comparison with the Cuisinart
I’ve used a Cuisinart coffee maker for over 20 years, probably longer, way back to when Braun was the brand to have. My last one was the 14 cup version and it lasted 8 1/2 years before electrical death. Rather than buying another Cuisinart, I decided to try one of these Ninjas. This then is a story of the differences and how I learned to use a new machine.First, I realize the old machine was… old. That said, the new Ninja sure makes better coffee, there’s clarity, excitement and layers that the old one simply had forgotten.My father taught me pour-over in 1967, with a white ceramic Melita holder over a coffee pot. He taught me the formula “1 tablespoon per cup, plus 1 for the pot” which has never let me down. My mom sent me Starbucks beans way back when they were just a local Seattle store. (She also turned me onto Amazon.)OK on to the comparison.The Ninja involves 100% more work to get started than the Cuisinart. You have to power up the machine AND hit the Brew button. With Cuisinart you just mash in that one button and you’re good. With it you only have one lid to flip to get to the filter and water tank. Ninja has separate lids, and only one flips, the other lifts off.I prefer to fill the pot from the filtered water spigot, and use the pot to fill the tank. That’s actually the way to do the Cuisinart. But Ninja’s tank is removable, see through, and has the cup lines, and you’re supposed to take it off and fill it. But I don’t want to as think the gasket at the bottom that seals the thing is a point of failure that needs to be left alone.The pot doesn’t have cup markers, but I find after the first time (when I also didn’t know I had to hit both power and brew) I find I can eyeball it very accurately nonetheless. It pours out faster and more smoothly than the Cuisinart ever did. And doesn’t drip. The lid is over engineered as you have to twist it in place rather than just snapping it on. And yanking it from under the filter one needs to be more considerate – out horizontally first rather than just snatching it up diagonally. But I have to say the new pot feels nicer than the old.The filter bit. Interestingly the filter crease goes side to side rather than front to back. Another surprise, but this setup is much nicer and aesthetically pleasing, one can just wrap ones fingers and plunge them, inside the paper cone, into the cavity of the filter holder. The old one needed a pivot of the arm and wrist or a two handed tuck of the filter.The Cuisinart slides on the counter while the Ninja has non-slip feet and I have to lift it to put it back under the cabinet after filling it.They are about equally noisy. The Cuisinart beeps much louder. You can turn off the beep though. Neither clock holds the time in a power out. I have used the timed brew twice in the last 67 years, but both machines will do that.What else? What was ‘between 8 and 9 cups’ on the Cuisinart is ‘around 7 cups’ on the Ninja, that is, those amounts comfortably fill 4 mugs with a little bit left over. Interestingly, though the volume of water is about the same, the cups marks work well with the 1 per cup + 1 for the pot formula, and the Ninja works with 8 spoons where the Cuisinart (at the end of its life) needed between 9 and 10. Oh, I use a ‘2 spoon’ big scoop instead of those 1 spoon things that come with machines and sometimes with cans of coffee. Much more efficient and easy to keep count. You know how hard it is to count to 4, much less 8!So, the Ninja coffee is better, though I don’t know if it would be better than with a brand new Cuisinart. How long the thing will last, we’ll see. Overall I’m pleased.
207 people found this helpful
M. JEFFREY MCMAHON –
Produces Better-Tasting, Hotter Coffee Than My Keurig
Our Keurig 12-cup slow-drip maker with thermal carafe works fine and makes pretty good coffee, but I was at my in-laws’ house when I found myself far more impressed with the flavor from the Ninja. I did some research and it’s possible that a glass carafe is better for coffee flavor and that a steel carafe instantly cools the coffee and compromises the ideal temp. It’s also possible that the Ninja has a better heating temp for the water during the brew. Because my in-laws use the same dark roast coffee brands that I use, I was certain the maker made the difference, so I bought a Ninja and my first cup confirms what I thought: It makes better tasting coffee than my Keurig.After two days, I realize the Ninja makes hotter, stronger coffee. That steel carafe must have been cooling down the temp on the Keurig. So the Keurig is boxed up and in the garage as my back-up in the event that the Ninja dies. I’ve ready reviews of dozens of coffee makers and all of them have reports of dying within 6 months to 2 years, so it’s good to have a back-up. In any event, for now, this is my go-to coffee maker.
5 people found this helpful
Amazon Customer –
After 5 yrs its good as new!
Why did you pick this product vs others?:I picked this coffee maker because it was a Ninja product and at the time, five years ago I was impressed with the quality of their products. Now 5 yrs later with this coffee maker I can still give it 5 stars plus. Semi thick. I banged the carafe against the granite counter top and of course it broke. I am replacing it today.Functionality:Glass thickness:This machine works great. The coffee plate is hot! I don’t use the warmer button option. I don’t program it because it does not take long to brew the 6 cups I make everyday. It dings 5 times when done pumping however I would have liked it if the dings were louder (for me).Size:I have the 12 cup capacity.