For my 23rd birthday, I finally got gifted what I have been dying to buy for the past 5 years: A keurig. The system is a K-Mini Plus that came with 36 K-Cups (Donut Shoppe & Mountain Breakfast Blend) and a one-year return warranty. Although the products has 2.8 stars from others having difficulty, I'm personally in love with this little machine. It's so nice to wake up and brew my favorite coffee in my favorite mug with just the right strength/temperature. But, while it is perfect with its own K-Cups, there is one hitch though we've been having. When we purchased the Keurig, it was described as being universal and able to brew any type of coffee (including outside K-Cups). It took it an hour to figure this out, but it does somewhat work. However, we keep getting 'silt' from the coffee not being as coarse as the K-Cups. Another hitch is that because we do not have K-Caps, we cannot use the K-Cups more than once without grounds getting into the machine or our cups. I also read on several other reviews, that scaling is a common thing that happens as well to the needles, which supposedly can be cleaned by using a paperclip and running hot water through.

Do any of you all have a Keurig? And if so, have you ever had it scaled? How did you clean it? Does scaling happen often? If you use store-bought grounds instead of K-Cups how do you stop the silting? Do you think that K-Caps are worth investing into? (It's obvious from my questions this is my first ever Keurig :P)

Thank-you all in advance! :)

P.S. - While we're talking about K-Cups and the like, I've been looking into buying a carousel to get more flavours to try. The Donut Shoppe right now is an absolute favorite for me. I like the boldness of it that you can still taste it over the creamer and - because its strong - it gives a nice, potent kick to wake you up in the morning. But, while I like strong coffee, I do not like Arabica beans as they give me a severe migrane (as does Espresso which I also avoid). Do you drink - or know someone who does drink - any strong blends? What is yours/their favorites?

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/h-e-b-cafe-ole-texas-pecan-medium-roast-single-serve-coffee-cups/1604429

ill respond to other stuff later but this stuff is AMAZING and the only coffee i drink

I have had a keurig since they came out and I periodically clean it by running it through a tank of water with some cleaner that available at bed bath & beyond.I haven't ever had any issues with the needles or it not working/producing decent coffee. Keurig is big on using their own cups with their machines so I think your best bet is just swallowing your pride and solely using K-cups, unfortunately. Regular coffee (like just folgers or whatever you may use) is best in a standard coffee maker imo. I don't like the refillable cups much and they just seem like a pain to me, but of course that's just my opinion.

I hope I understood your questions and said something helpful!

We've had a keurig for years, and really have had no problems with it (I think we might've replaced it at some point...?) I don't drink coffee but my parents often put ground coffee in special cups for the keurig and don't seem to have any problems with it. They still usually use a coffeemaker but for the middle of the day the keurig is good. It's a good idea to run it through a cup of water before making something that isn't coffee, b/c the grounds will get in what you're drinking and the water will taste like coffee. (It's gross.) My parents love the donut shoppe coffee too, and there's a keurig apple cider I like a lot! it's nice to have in cold weather. I don't believe we've ever actually cleaned the keurig though so not sure on that.

My boyfriend and I have a Keurig and it's great - haven't had to clean it yet but I think he just has the tabs or solution that you run through from the tank and hasn't had issues. (Ours is the K250 model.)

I like the Donut Shop Vanilla Creampuff, Starbucks Caffe Verona, and Green Mountain Brown Sugar Crumble the best - currently dropping in a bit of Pumpkin Spice creamer because I'm in denial that it's winter now. :P

As for issues with Arabica beans - it's very difficult to find anything these days that isn't Arabica. Your alternative is Robusta beans, which are inferior in quality so most brands don't even use them in any of their blends. The coffees you're already drinking are almost assuredly using Arabica beans. If you want strong flavor look for dark roasts - the Caffe Verona I mentioned before is a dark roast with nice cocoa notes, so you might like it!

@Maharet - I'll definitely look into this brew! My mother loves pecan-caramel (and she's been using my Keurig), this would be a perfect stocking stuffer for her. Thank-you!

@ Kit - The main issue for us is that we drink a lot of coffee (Between me and mom, we go through 8 cups a day), so K-Cups would start getting very expensive. That's why we wanted to try the K-Caps or the universal filter for standard coffee (which was said it could do. Clearly, it can only do it if you don't mind having silt in the last swallow of your coffee, so that's rather disappointing).Good to know though on cleaning! I'm still learning - as is mom - how to care for the thing and how often. We seem to be slowly getting the hang, but why I was asking for other owner suggestions. Thanks for your input! :)

@prismatics - Very good to know, I will definitely make note of this when switching brews! We had heard that Keurigs had a pretty decent lifespan, which is one of the things that drew us to it in the first place. Namely right now, we just brew coffee (either the K-Cups or the universal brew) and we haven't had to clean it since we ran water through it right out of packaging. But since this is our first, we didn't know how frequently that'd occur for us. The apple cider sounds delicious! I may give that a go :)

@Mero - Seems cleaning is actually very minimal on the Keurig, given the comments here. Which is a nice change to other things we've tried that we had to clean pretty frequently. The Donut Shoppe Creampuff and Starbuck's Caffe Verona sound very delicious, I want these!! As with the Arabica, perhaps I should've worded it a little better. I usually can handle Arabica, most of what I like contains it, but when I tried the Breakfast Blend, it was just straight bitter and harsh. Even my creamer was little help for this. I love strong, but this was way too much and gave me a headache. I more so want roasts where the beans are "softened" per say. I like potent but that was too potent lol. So mainly I'm asking for ones that aren't just straight bitter like the Breakfast Blend was.

Hmmm, maybe it's not the Arabica beans themselves but just how that specific coffee is processed? I have a friend who can't drink Tim Horton's coffee because they use a specific additive in the process that makes her feel very ill, but she's okay with pretty much any other variety of commercially-available coffee. Which brand is the Breakfast Blend that you had a bad reaction to?

Pardon the following reformed-barista-ramble but the easiest way to tell how a coffee is geared is to look at the roast. Light roasts have a weaker, brighter flavor profile (generally enjoyed by people who don't like super strong-tasting coffee) but also has a higher caffeine content (since the roasting process burns off caffeine; light roasts are "cooked" for a shorter time than medium and dark). Medium roasts are what the majority of regular coffees would fall under - usually very drinkable and approachable for average coffeedrinkers. Dark roasts are the really strong-tasting ones, though you can tweak the intensity of the flavor by messing with the ratio of grounds to water that you use. If you like the flavor of a dark roast but don't want it to be too strong/punchy, you can add extra water to dilute it somewhat.

Espresso is not a a different category of bean/roast - they're usually a dark roast but are ground very very finely and the water is pressed through under high temperature/pressure to release the oils in the coffee a different way. Similarly, you can prepare coffee in a French press (with a coarser grind and no paper filter) to get a totally different flavor out of the beans. (bc using a paper filter absorbs some of the oils that carry flavor) It's actually kind of neat to try a certain roast from a French press vs. a traditional drip brew to compare the flavor - baristas at Starbucks are required to sample all the coffee offerings both ways to better advise customers!

If the bitter was what killed the Breakfast Blend for you I'd say look for blends that use the buzzwords "bright" "cocoa" "mild" "clean" etc. I'd say stay away from those that mention "earthy" or "smoky."

/barista sperg

I have no idea because I don't drink caffeine/coffee and Joel doesn't know what's good for him and won't buy a keurig, but happy birthday!