It’s been a long week, and even though the stars are coming out, I can’t seem to get coffee off my mind. I figured this would be a good time to rave about one of our family’s favorite pieces of kitchen technology – our Keurig coffee maker. And no, this is not a paid ad for Keurig, I’m just sharing a good thing our family loves.
I remember one summer morning half a year after we purchased the machine. I was driving my son to work and realized that I had made one cup of decaf coffee, one cup of caffeinated coffee, a cup of hot chocolate, and a cup of tea in less than ten minutes while getting ready to head out the door. Now that’s pretty cool.
The Kitchen Appliance With the K-Cup® or The Filter?
What is a Keurig coffee maker? It’s this delightful machine that makes hot drinks one cup at a time in a matter of seconds. People can use a pre-measured K-Cup® purchased online or in a store such as Sears or Walmart. I will admit that we use selections from our K-Cup® collection sometimes when we have guests over. Generally, however, we’re not thrilled with the price or the waste. The K-Cup® averages $.50 a cup and the plastic liners aren’t very biodegradable.
Instead of using the K-Cup®, we use refillable filter inserts. Since the water is so pressurized going through, it takes cheap coffee and makes it taste great. We compost the grounds, rinse out the filter, and prepare the next cup. We keep six filters on hand for ease-of-use, and they have lasted for years.
Why We Love Our Keurig
You know those amazing $4.00 coffee store drinks? They haven’t even tempted me since we bought our machine. When we want a fancy drink, we just make our own froth and drizzle some caramel or peppermint shards over it.
As an additional perk, we always have hot chocolate ready for the kids before they even get their boots off after coming in out of the snow. I don’t have to keep a tea-pot at the ready – all I have to do is press a button.
Our Really Good Deal That Was, Then Wasn’t, Then Was Again
I’m a tightwad so when I decided to get the Keurig machine as a Christmas present for my husband, I turned to Ebay. The good news was that I got a really great deal. The bad news was that when I received the Keurig B60 from Ebay and turned it on, the “not ready” message was blinking. I called the company and honestly told them my problem and also mentioned that it was an Ebay purchase with no warranty. They fixed my problem for free anyway, and they were very friendly. I will definitely consider purchasing more from them in the future based on this experience. We reset my machine by doing the following two steps:
- Press the small and medium cup buttons at the same time then immediately press the menu button three times (the number listed there showed how many cups of coffee the machine had made–mine said 0:04 which was four cups).
- Hold the medium cup button and hit menu button then the small cup button quickly while still holding the medium button then release the small and medium quickly.
- Watch your grind. If it’s too fine, the filter clogs. If it’s too coarse, you won’t get the flavor. We find that Folgers® has the perfect mix. Black Silk is our favorite.
- Do surgery on a K-Cup®. If the water flows through your filter too fast, you can create your own homemade baffle. We got this idea from the Amazon forums. To do this you:
- Enjoy a fabulous cup of coffee using a store-bought K-Cup® (most new machines come with a K-Cup® sampler).
- Peel the top of the K-Cup® off and throw it out.
- Carefully cut the top of the K-Cup® along the horizontal line near the top of the k-cup.
- Make sure the hole knock-out at the base of the K-Cup® is fully knocked out, preventing blockage.
- Insert the K-Cup® liner into the plastic filter cartridge that the filter goes into (it generally comes with the filter package).
- Fill your filter with fresh coffee grounds.
- Insert the filter into the cartridge, nestling it into the homemade baffle.
- Twist on the lid.
- Place the filter into the Keurig per the directions on the cartridge and make your coffee.
