Cleaning your Keurig

I would like to preface this post with this: yes, I know Keurigs are expensive and poor for the environment, but I use one anyway. Jess and I rarely drink coffee at home, it is pretty much just on the weekends, and even then it is only one or two cups, therefore it is way more convenient to be able to press a button and get one mug of coffee instead of changing filters, keeping a container of coffee that will probably go stale before we use it, and then having to clean out a pot just for that one or two cups.

Thus: I use a Keurig and will continue to use it. Sorry 'boutcha.

We recently acquired a new one when Jess's office remodeled and they got replaced theirs. We did have the one that you had to add water for each cup of coffee, but now we have one with a reservoir. Moving on up in the world.

Keurigs can get pretty dusty and the inside can get scaly if you just use tap water (like we do), so every now and then (read: whenever you can't take it anymore) you should give it a good cleaning inside and out. While it is probably intuitive to most people that you can and should take it apart and clean it, this is how I clean mine. It's easy!

Here's what you need: soap & water, cleaning wipes, white vinegar, some time

Here's what you do:

Unplug the Keurig and remove the drip pan, water reservoir (if you've got one), and K-cup holder basket. Most of these things can go in the dishwasher, but I just washed them in the sink and let them dry in a strainer.

Wipe down the inside where the K-cups go. You may need to use toothpicks or Q-tips to get down in the crevices. There will probably be coffee grounds abound, so you might have to wipe the counter off later.

Close the lid and wipe the outside down well with the cleaning wipes or spray/paper towels. If there are some spots that are scaly and white, just put a little bit of vinegar on a paper towel and use that to clean off the mineral deposits.

Put it all back together and fill the reservoir up with white vinegar, I just used a whole small bottle. It filled the reservoir up about 2/3 of the way. Run the Keurig through until it tells you to add water, then dump out the remaining vinegar (or not, you do you) and rinse. Fill the reservoir with water and repeat until the water coming back out doesn't smell like vinegar.

Bask in the glory that is the single-cup coffeemaker!