Home roasted beans and a Keurig filter

[mpkelley20]

I am a huge user of my Keurig single serving (k-cups) machine for my quick fix in the morning. For what I need, it makes a decent cup of coffee when I only want one cup.

I am also an amateur home roaster buying most of my green beans from sweetmarias. I use a vaccum brewer when I use my home roasted beans but it requires I make at least a 6 cup minimum which I can never finish myself.

I noticed that Keurig offers a removable filter that allows you to use your own coffee in the single serving machine. This would be great for me so I don't have to make a half a pot and waste what I can't drink.

Would I be making a huge mistake and wasting good coffee by trying the filter?

 

[mpkelley20]

Ok, since I received no responses, I decided to give i a try. I am in the middle of my first cup of coffee using the filter and here are my thoughts:

I roasted a batch of Venezuelan beans that I've had for a little while. I roasted them 2 days ago. Using my vaccum brewer I would rate this coffee an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10 (I love Venezuelan coffee). Using the Keurig filter, I would rate it a 6 so far. It is a little weaker than normal after using what I though was the proper amount. I suppose it will take time to figure out the proper amount of coffee needed to get the desired strength.

I ground the coffee to a coarse grind based on the instructions (similar to a french press grind) but maybe I could go a little finer to bring out some of the strength.


Overall, I would say that it is definitley better than drip coffee using a store bought generic brand but it is not as good as using my usual home roast coffee in my normal machine. I think I will continue to use it but mainly for making ice coffee as it seems easier to adjust the amount and strength (rather than 2 k-cups on the smaller brew size).. It will sure be cheaper!

Oh, the cleanup isn't bad but there is still a cleanup process compared to using the k-cups.

 

[Ellie]

In my mind, the vacuum brewer CAN NOT be beat! Every batch I've brewed in that thing has resulted in a cup that's like velvet!

 

[javahill]

I don't know the shape of the do-it-yourself filter with the keurig machine, but in the normal k-cup there are 9 grams of coffee give or take. In the bold versions, they use a different shape filter that holds 12 grams of coffee.

Part of the weakness you're tasting may be becasue of what you can fit in the filter. The other part might be the grind. The keurig is, i think, a slightly pressurized system so it can take a finer grind than a normal drip. I recommend you dissect a k-cup to see what kind of grind they use in the normal k-cups.

if you want to be very scieitific about it, you could take apart a normal k-cup and put that coffee in the do it yourself version. does all the coffee fit/ does it taste the same.

 

[mpkelley20]

Good tips! I've actually experimented with various amounts and various grinds and I do notice huge differences. The filter itelf can hold more than a standrd k-cup (maybe similar to the bold versions). But since I control the darkness of the roast and the grind, I can adjust the taste that way as well.

Now, the filter is a good thing for the brewer especially if I want just one cup of java in the morning, however, when there is a need to more coffee when guests are over, I will not serve my home roast to them this way. I will break out the vacuum brewer for those occasions.

Its not that the coffee comes out bad in the filter. It is hard to place but it just tastes different. I hate to say it becasue it will sound way too negative but it tastes a little like "instant" coffee. (or very high quality instant coffee if that really exists!).

So to summarize:

Filter good for times when I only want to make one cup.
Filter bad when company is coming over.

 

[meg_wlu]

From what I've read so far in other forums, you do in fact need to use a finer grind when using the filter in the Keurig. I assume this is because the water runs through the coffee quicker than a regular drip machine, and this allows for more coffee to water contact in that short time.

 

[javahill]

I believe the water in Keurig machine is slightly pressurized so it runs though faster. Not espresso pressure, but more than gravity. That's why the finer grind.