Reusing the Keurig one cup K cups for making coffee
Posted By RichC on December 28, 2009
Thanks to my wife Brenda, who gave me a Keurig one-cup coffee maker for Christmas, I’ve been enjoying fresh coffee every day since Friday. In my opinion, the new Keurig brews coffee as good or better than most coffee shops. The engineering beauty of these design is that the hot water and steam stays in the small prepackaged “k-cups” of coffee, brewing the fresh sealed grounds at the correct temperature and time producing a near perfect cup of coffee. These “k-cups” can be purchased from a variety of coffee brewers, including one of my favorites, Caribou coffee — but they don’t come cheap. For those of us that drink multiple cups of coffee each day, this is method is not the most cost effective way to make coffee.
The options to expensive pre-packed k-cups as I see it are:
- Purchase a removable, washable and reloadable cup that fits the “k-cup” slot (photo above).
This works pretty well, but I noticed some overflow due to either my use of too many grounds or the lack of a seal on the top? Still, I have it working fairly well if I only want to make a smallish cups of coffee (the Keurig model I have makes two sizes — small and medium). As for sizes, I do wish there was a large mug option … although running two smalls through one k-cup does work, but unfortunately produces a relatively weak cup of Joe. - Purchase replacement plastic lids (see My-Kap) for a used k-cup that has been cleaned out. This may be a decent option, but does require peeling or cutting off the foil and buying a box of plastic snap on lids.
- Use a small square of GLAD Press’n Seal® wrap to reuse a washed out k-cup. So far this works well although isn’t the most convenient. What I do like about this technique is that it’s “cheap,” and allows me to use my 1/2 decaf, 1/2 caffeinated blend of Sumatra coffee that Caribou grinds for me.
Click slide show below displaying a series of photos of how I used the GLAD Press’n Seal® wrap to reuse Keurig K-cups.
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