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"K-Cup" Coffee Makers (Read 379 times)

xor


    Another con, it is the super spendy way to make coffee... although you can get the little keurig cup thingy that allows you to use your own coffee.  My dad got that and proceeded to dump coffee all over the kitchen.

     

    And yeah, about 1-2 years into it, your unit may sit in "needs to descale" mode and do nothing.  My sister apparently pitched hers in the trash because she couldn't get it to descale properly and it wouldn't budge on its need to be descaled.

     

    They are convenient as can be and nonmessy (with the actual prepackaged coffee), but I haven't done it.  I do, however, like that my dentist's office has one.  Because nothing says YUM to your dental hygienist quite like a coffee-coated mouth.

     

    (also they make tea and damn good hot chocolate.  Very spendy tea and hot chocolate)

     

    Edited to add: my parents also went through 3 grind-and-brew machines.  Don't do it.  They all broke weirdly quickly - too much going on in there.  A simple pot and a simple grinder will last for yeeeeears.

     


    Prince of Fatness

      you can get the little keurig cup thingy that allows you to use your own coffee.  My dad got that and proceeded to dump coffee all over the kitchen.

       

      If I was using one of those all of the time I think that I would go this route.  I like composting my spent grounds.  I bet that there is some kind of system that you could come up with that is less messy, although the occasional spill may be inevitable.

      Not at it at all. 

      xor


        Not just dumping it while you are trying to fill or pour out... but he also managed to get coffee grounds all in the keurig pod holder dealie.  I have spent a couple different afternoons cleaning that crap out with q-tips and toothpicks.  Fun way to spend a day (while, in my case, watching Spanish talk shows.  El Gordo y La Flaca sucks.)

         


        Prince of Fatness

          We had a grinder but it was more of a pain than it was worth.  We get the whole bean 8 o'clock coffee and now just grind it in the store.  Less mess.  A bag is gone quick enough that it does not do any good to wait to grind it anyway.  The machine is just a plain old percolator.  Fill it the night before, plug it in first thing in the morning.  Good enough.

          Not at it at all. 


          Not dead. Yet.

             If I was using one of those all of the time I think that I would go this route.  I like composting my spent grounds.  I bet that there is some kind of system that you could come up with that is less messy, although the occasional spill may be inevitable.

             

            I use one of those every morning, and it's just too hard not to make a mess.  Both when filling it and when emptying it.  I use a spoon and try to fill it up cleanly, but inevitably some grounds leak out onto the counter when I measure a little too much.  And when emptying it, you just have to bang it in the trashcan and the rinse the rest out in the sink.  That always leaves grounds behind unless you spend extra time to wash them down the drain.  It's a definite pain in the ass, but it saves me tons of money.  Sometimes I get the actual k-cups just for convenience sake.

             

            I worked at Starbucks back in the day when they had Espresso machines that you actually had to operate.  None of that "hit a button and get an espresso" BS!  We had bean hoppers that ground the beans as you pulled a little lever to fill the little cup with grounds.  I dream about a hopper like that for my little K-cup.  It would make life much simpler!

            How can we know our limits if we don't test them?


            Prince of Fatness

              I use one of those every morning, and it's just too hard not to make a mess.  Both when filling it and when emptying it.  I use a spoon and try to fill it up cleanly, but inevitably some grounds leak out onto the counter when I measure a little too much.  And when emptying it, you just have to bang it in the trashcan and the rinse the rest out in the sink.  That always leaves grounds behind unless you spend extra time to wash them down the drain.  It's a definite pain in the ass, but it saves me tons of money.  Sometimes I get the actual k-cups just for convenience sake.

               

              I was thinking that a small kitchen funnel may be useful for filling.  We have a tupperware container for kitchen waste that we compost and tap the spent grounds into that.  Most of them get in there.  When the tupperware is full we run it down to the compost bin.  I am thinking that it wouldn't be any more of a mess that we make now with the percolator.

              Not at it at all. 

              jpdeaux


                Cold brewed coffee, unadulterated, plain black. Heat by the cup if you prefer. I brew 24-48 hours in a quart jar at regular strength, but 12 hours is fine too. No bitterness ever, and the real taste of the bean.

                 

                (BTW Keurig (GMCR) sells about a billion of those every quarter.)

                keeponrunning


                  While handy if you only drink the odd cup, definitely not worth it for my family!  With 4 adults in the same house (2 parents and 2 kids in university) we drink WAY too much coffee!!!  Plus I like strong coffee so I like to keep my grind amount adjustable.

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                  A Saucy Wench

                    FWIW everybody I have known who had grind-and-brews hated them (the online reviews were pretty bad when I looked at them last year).  They don't seem to last long at all before the grinder quite (less than a year for both friends who had them).

                     

                    My wife tried to buy me one last year but clicked on the wrong thing and I ended up with a high end grinder-only instead.  It was a pricey oops at first, but actually it is really nice ad it holds a whole bag of beans in a sealed hopper and the grind is really adjustable.

                     

                    The grounds are deposited in a tidy container for transfer to the brewer...so easy even Ennay couldn't make a mess with it.  Big grin

                     

                    I don't know what brand/model it is without looking; I do recall thinking at the time that it was assinine to spend that much on a coffee machine, especially when we realized it didn't even brew the coffee.

                     

                    I've had mine for 4 or 5 years.  Love. it.  The start button broke a couple weeks ago but a few squirts of contact cleaner and it is all good.  The grinder has never hinted at an issue. 

                    And dont underestimate the amount of mess I am capable of making. 

                    I am glad it was fixable because the new ones whole a crap load of beans in a hopper but we usually brew a pot of regular and then a pot of decaf so only one type of bean can be in there.

                    I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

                     

                    "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7

                    Troy.


                      You really just need this and this. And maybe one of these if you want to be fancy.

                      It should be mathematical, but it's not.

                         

                        Edited to add: my parents also went through 3 grind-and-brew machines.  Don't do it.  They all broke weirdly quickly - too much going on in there.  A simple pot and a simple grinder will last for yeeeeears.

                         

                        I guess that will work out well, since we will never get a grind & brew until our current grinder & brewer break down, which sounds like will never happen. (They are both >15 years old already.) Therefore we will never know the disappointment of the grind & brew, it will just remain a beautiful dream. Unless we sneak into Ennay's house & steal that one, it seems to work pretty well.

                        Dave

                          Picked up the Keurig B70 (Costco) about 6 months ago and absolutely love it. Since I'm the only coffee drinker in the house, this was definitely the way to go. I don't drink coffee with breakfast, but really enjoy having a travel mug to take with me on my commute to work. Takes about 30 seconds to make a cup. FWIW, I'm not picky when it comes to coffee - I drink it black and don't really care where it comes from so I'm not the one to give an opinion on how it tastes. Does make a pretty decent cup of hot chocolate IMO. I've been buying the coffee by the case and it comes out to about .38 cents a cup so not too bad. If you're on the fence about one of these, maybe have a friend or family member who has one make you a cup and then decide.

                           

                           


                          Feeling the growl again

                             

                            Unless we sneak into Ennay's house & steal that one, it seems to work pretty well.

                             

                            If I were in the market for one, that's definitely what I would do.  Better than a warranty.  Wink

                            "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

                             

                            I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

                             

                              I love my Keurig. Our first was the fancy Platinum one from Costco with 5 cup settings--it did the constant "descale me" thing and then died a couple months after the warranty expired. We replaced it with a simpler version with 2 cup sizes and this one has worked perfectly for over 2 years now.

                               

                              The cheap way to make tea with a Keurig is to put two tea bags in the My Cup unit (minus the little basket for coffee grounds). Even using two bags, it's less than half the cost of K-Cup tea. And it's sort of fun to mix different tea flavors together. Okay, I don't have much of a life...

                              Better I Leave


                                Like cellphone technology, we come to accept mediocrity for the sake of convenience. I roast my own and I brew using a vacuum brewer. If I want convenience, I look to a French Press or a Chemex.

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