I buy a lot of coffee so it makes sense for me to get a coffee maker. To limit my trash and costs I am interested in getting reusable k cups and then buying coffee. Do these reusable cups really work? Are they worth it? Any information is appreciated.
Yes, depending on which ones you get. The kind where you have to swap out the liner, like so,
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Keurig-My-K-Cup-Reusable-Coffee-Filter-Set-3-Piece/
in the Keurig is not worth it.
But I’ve had good success with this type: https://www.kitchenstuffplus.com/as-seen-on-tv-cafe-cup-k-cup-reusable-filter-with-scoop-set-of-5 I’ve gotten them cheaply from Bed, Bath & Beyond.
There are others, too, but these are the only ones I’ve had experience of.
They work fine. I use both the adapter that comes with the machine and ones that look like Tapiotar’s second link. I do use the paper lining in those. It makes for easier clean up.
They make MUCH better coffee than the pre-packaged pods. I don’t use paper liners, but I don’t mind fine grounds in my coffee such as you get with French press.
Hell, I bought one at the Dollar Tree and it works well. Using your own coffee is a lot cheaper than buying Keurig cups.
Thanks everyone. I will give it a shot once I get the coffee maker.
I’d like to put a plug in for the Aeropress coffee maker. I got one for Christmas and it only took a couple of weeks for me to put my Keurig into storage. The coffee made in the Aeropress is far superior to the Keurig, and it barely takes any more time, as long as you use an electric kettle for the water.
May I ask why you’re looking at K-Cup brewers if you’re not looking to buy pods?
K-cups are not a very good method of brewing coffee. The only reason to buy into the system is if you’re VERY lazy convenience-orientated and are going to use the pre-made cups. The only reason to use those refillable cups is if your work only has a k-cup brewer or you already own one and have gotten sick of the stale taste of prefilled pods. Or if you have a partner who really, really wants one. They’re also wildly wasteful (as you’ve noted) and have been pretty anti-consumer.
Making a very good cup of coffee is very cheap and very easy. An Aeropress, as Bill Door noted, is excellent.
If you want even simpler, buy a single-cup pourover brewer (they’re basically a little plastic, glass, or ceramic cone that sits on your mug). Brewing is as simple as put in filter, add scoop of coffee, pour on water. Cleanup is as simple as throwing the filter away and rinsing the cone if you’re fancy. There’s a reason pourover is the de facto standard in high-end coffee shops. It’s dead-simple, fast, and makes a nearly perfect cup.
You can buy a nice pourover and a perfectly serviceable electric kettle (assuming you don’t have one) for under $50 together.
Seriously. Don’t buy a Keurig. You deserve better.
I have one and they make a great cup of coffee. But I can’t agree with the 'barely any more time than a Keurig" comment. With a french press I have to grind the coffee, clean the grinder, boil water, steep the coffee in the water for a few minutes, pour my cup, then wash out the press.
With the Keurig I drop in a pod, put my cup under the spout, and push a button. For cleanup, I open the pod thing and throw it away. Done.
I used to be a coffee snob. I’ve had different presses, grinders, expensive beans, and all the rest. And sure, doing that you can make a superlative cup of coffee for sitting and savoring. But most of my coffee drinking is done as I’m working at my computer focused on other things, and for that, a cup of Keurig coffee is fine. And If I’m in the middle of some complex task and need a refill, I’m not breaking out the French Press and doing the whole dance. I’m punching a button on a machine while my brain is thinking about my project, and grabbing a cup when it’s done and getting back to work.
To the OP: Yeah, the generic K-cup adapters work fine. But I find I don’t even use them. I buy K-cups at Costco, and they’re cheap. I just bought 110 Kirkland Breakfast Blend cups for $28.
I appreciate the suggestion but I already have a few different stove top coffee makers and I want to replace them for a few reasons:
The clean up sucks.
I would rather make one cup at time.
I find that the k-cup refillable pods are messy to use, they are too small to neatly get the grinds into them, and filling little cups is not what I want to be doing in the morning, or anytime - though mindless repetitive chores I despise.
I have considered getting a grind and brew system where the coffee maker grinds beans for itself right before brewing.
I consider both aeropress and french press to be easy to clean up and both are single cup solutions that will produce way less terrible coffee than a keurig. Even using good fresh coffee in a reusable pod will still result in sad, weak brew.
I guess I don’t see how filling then cleaning a re-usable K-cup is easier/better than filling then cleaning a pourover brewer or aeropress (or a mini-Mr. Coffee, designed for one cup at a time).
In all cases, you’re still putting a filter in a container, pouring grounds into it, putting the container above your mug, brewing, then emptying the grounds and filter from the container and rinsing it. The actual brewing stage is simpler with a K-cup compared to a pour-over, but the set-up and clean-up take the most time anyway, so I don’t see saving much time in the scheme of things.
Or get a $20 electric one-cup coffee maker with a permanent filter. It’s basically exactly the same as a Keurig with refillable cups, but a quarter the price and probably easier set-up and clean-up.
Keurig coffee just isn’t that bad. My machine has settings for brew temperature and cup size. The maximum brew temperature is only 3 degrees below the optimal. Close enough. And the strength of the coffee can be controlled by the cup size setting.
And no matter how easy it is to clean a french press, if you’re having six cups of coffee a day that takes up quite a bit of time. With a Keurig, ‘cleanup’ takes literally two seconds. But for me it’s not the time, but the distraction. If I’m in the middle of a problem, disconnecting from it to grind coffee, put water on, wait for it to boil, steep the grounds, wait, pour, clean the grinder, clean the press… There’s 10-15 minutes of my day gone and my productive flow broken. I can go grab a Keurig coffee and be back in my chair working in a minute or so.
But your mileage may vary. Some people like French press coffee precisely because they love the ritual, the smell of fresh ground beans, a break from work, whatever. Decide what’s important to you.
But if you don’t want the hassle of making coffee other ways, a Keurig with a good blend makes a completely acceptable cup of coffee.
An Aeropress isn’t a French press. Different animal entirely, and much faster. They only take 30-60 seconds to brew, and the grounds and filter are ejected as a dry-ish puck straight into the trash. 2-3 minutes total.
OP was asking about using refillable k-cups, and I actually agree an Aeropress is about as fast and barely more manual work.
If you think k-cup coffee is fine, then go for it. I’ve never had a k-cup cup I’d actually call good; mostly ranging from “fine” to absolutely undrinkable. If you’re happy with it, more power to ya but I think it’s a genuinely lousy way to brew coffee whose only advantage is convenience.
heres a side question i have so the thread dosent get derailed … https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=875141
I guess I’m glad I have a philistine coffee palate. To be more discerning sounds like a PITA.
I have a Cuisinart grind and brew, and it is great. It makes 10 cups, so we heat up left over coffee, but that is still better than the Keurig our daughter has. The only problem is that the amount of whole bean coffee bags in our supermarket seems to be decreasing. You can also set a timer for it, but since it has a stop-brew feature if we set it up the night before and hit the button in the morning, it takes only seconds to brew enough for a cup.
She has one because she does not drink coffee, so it is for guests. I’d never buy one. She does have a reusable K-cup which we used one visit, but I didn’t think it was acceptable. Messy and it got grinds all over everything.
I’ve used two different kinds (one that you just put in like a regular cup, one that you have to take the “needle thingy” out of the machine first) and they both work perfectly well and produce perfectly fine coffee (I’m not terribly picky), but are a little bit of a hassle to use, and a much bigger hassle to clean up compared to commercial k-cups. Still not as bad as messing with a full pot if you’re not planning to use more than a cup or two at a time.