Why is my drip-coffee machine making watery coffee lately? Lately, coffee from my very basic Mr. Coffee 5-cup drip brewer has been watery tasting, and I am hoping for some troubleshooting help.

I recently purchased of a Cuisinart DBM-8 (a basic automatic grinder) to replace an even more basic blade grinder. This grinder has allows for a grind amounts in increments of "2 coffee cups" starting from 4 cups.

My coffee did not become watery upon first use of the DBM-8. I usually brew using 16 to 20 fluid oz of water, and I have switched between the 4-cup and the 6-cup setting on the grinder. I found that the 6-cup setting tasted pretty good, but seemed to use up a lot of beans.

With all that said, what has happened for the past week is that coffee made using my brewer has been tasting watery, no matter if I use the 4-cup or the 6-cup grind setting, and whether I try more or less water. I have set the coarseness of the grind to medium, which I believe is appropriate. All I am getting is colored hot water.

When I inspect the coffee filter and the grounds after brewing with the 6-cup grind, I observe a portion of the coffee grounds appear dry on top, although beneath that, the coffee grounds appear wet. It's as if the hot water is going directly through the filter without soaking enough in the grounds.

Is my coffee maker broken? I tried cleaning with diluted vinegar, but this did not change things.

Is it the beans? I do switch around, but the beans I buy are in the 10-20$ range per pound. I keep the beans in the closed hopper of the grinder.
Well this is a strange problem but it seems to have to do with the new grinder you are using or the way you use it since the grind is the only variable that has changed (according to your story).

Watery coffee most often means that you don't use enough ground coffee. Try using 6g of coffee per 100ml of water for a medium roast. If the roast is very light you may use a slightly higher coffee to water ratio. If it is not the quantity of coffee it is probably the grinder setting. Try a finer grind, something between table salt and sand (probably just the medium-fine setting on your grinder, however do check with your fingers). The problem may be what was suggested in the comments. If the grind is too coarse, the water is just running through the coffee and doesn't leave the time to spread and steep. This is in line with the hole in the center of the coffee bed you are describing. Maybe try to measure the time the coffee needs to run through and see if it changes if you grind finer.

If this doesn't help then I'd suggest you properly clean the spout and make sure the water is dripping out the way it is supposed to. Maybe scale has built up which is channeling the water, forcing it through the spout in a stream that hits the coffee grounds with too much pressure.

I suggest you try all of the above which will most likely solve your problem. Additionally however you could cut up some standard paper filters and place them on the ground coffee so that it is completely covered. In theory the water should then distribute much more evenly through the grounds. I'd suggest you do this only after you have solved the general problem as a means to improve the flavor. It'd definitely be a quite "hacky" solution and I think first of all your machine should work the way it is supposed to.