As with most coffee brewers, in order to protect the heating element and other parts of the machine that come into contact with water, Keurig recommends that you descale once every six months. It may be necessary to do it once every three months if have hard water in your area. Thankfully, to eliminate the guesswork, many Keurig coffee brewers will flash a warning light to let you know when to descale. This lens will offer you some tips on which products to use and how to do it properly so you can continue enjoying your machine for many years to come.
As I went searching the internet for more maintenance tips that people have shared and I found one posted on Keurig’s Facebook page. This customer received a tip from the Keurig help line (it’s also in the owner’s manual) which involves using a bent paperclip to unclog the water stream near the piercing needle in the top of the machine the base of the K cup holder.
Okay, if you’re not too familiar with Keurig coffee makers you might be a little confused at this point. K cups are little “coffee pods” that allow you to brew the perfect single cup of coffee without having to measure out the correct amount each time. All the work is done for you. The term K cups was coined by Keurig, however there are other brands and manufacturers who have come up with their own coffee pods for the Keurig coffee makers. Additionally, if you’re really worried that you’re spending more on these coffee pods you can continue purchasing your cans of coffee and invest in a reusable K cup filter pod for use with your Keurig. This would allow you to fill your reusable pod filter with your regular coffee, eliminating the need to purchase the K cups.
Experts at Coffee Review have tasted the Keurig single serve brewing system and some of the K cups coffees and have rated the machine and the coffee brands. Among all other single cup makers, they were very happy with Keurig, which they found it makes “a style of coffee arguably closer in sensory terms to classic American filter coffee than anything produced by the competing systems”.For the K cup coffees, they said it offers “by far the largest selection of quality coffee choices available in any single serve format” and they rate it between 89 and 84, which is a very decent quality coffee.
Keurig coffee makers are also easy to operate and don’t require much cleanup. However, some people feel that buying the K cups is much more expensive than purchasing a regular can of coffee that you use with traditional coffee makers, but if you purchase your K cups online you’re going to save quite a bit of money in the long run. While supermarkets and grocery stores do carry the single serve K cups that are used with the Keurig, they are typically priced much higher than the K cups that you can find online. For example, you can find a pack of 80 San Francisco Bay French Roast K cups on Amazon for just $200, which means that each cup of coffee is running about .36 cents! If you think about it you are going to spend much more than that on a cup of coffee at a gas station or coffee shop, so it really is saving you money.
Keurig has come out with several options that are made specifically for commercial use rather than household use (however you are able to purchase them for household use as well). The B3000SE model brewer is the most popular commercial brewer from Keurig. These brewers are great for large offices or business and can typically be found in break rooms or lunch rooms etc. This brewer offers an LCD screen with instructions in English, Spanish, and French. This brewer offers the choice of 4 cup sizes as well as an automatic K cup ejector and empty bin that holds up to 35 used K cups before it has to be emptied. This commercial brewer also offers direct water line plumbing (hooks directly to the water source) which means there is no need to refill any water reservoir. This brewer has been rated 6 out of 5 stars and can cost up to $1000 depending on any extras included in the purchase.
