Keurig K-cup question - Can they be used twice?

[mickeysgal]

Got a Keurig Platinum for Christmas...so excited to have it!

Can you use the k-cups twice? Seems like an awful lot of grounds in the cup for only a single cup of coffee - and a small one at that. I have the setting at the one below the travel mug size and it still doesn't fill up my Disney mugs. So, I was wondering, since the puncture mark on the kcup on the underside is not centered, so can you turn it around and use it again - on the smallest cup size to fill the rest of a large mug? I did it - it worked, but I don't know if I'm screwing up my new machine.

Don't laugh...I'm sure this is a silly question, but I had to ask!!

 

[MichelleVW]

Got a Keurig Platinum for Christmas...so excited to have it!

Can you use the k-cups twice? Seems like an awful lot of grounds in the cup for only a single cup of coffee - and a small one at that. I have the setting at the one below the travel mug size and it still doesn't fill up my Disney mugs. So, I was wondering, since the puncture mark on the kcup on the underside is not centered, so can you turn it around and use it again - on the smallest cup size to fill the rest of a large mug? I did it - it worked, but I don't know if I'm screwing up my new machine.

Don't laugh...I'm sure this is a silly question, but I had to ask!!

You can sometimes get a cup and a half out of one of them, but only if they are the stronger coffees to begin with. Otherwise it's just pretty much a cup of brown water....blech.

 

[LOVETHATMOUSE]

I have done this with the stronger coffees...I use the reg mug size, then the tea cup size...works out perfectly and fills my disney mugs to the top. I take the used cup out, shake it over the sink and put it back so it lines up again. I made the mistake of rotating it once and grounds were all over the place (the water comes out with such force it exploded it!) . Took forever to clean it up

 

[mickeysgal]

You can sometimes get a cup and a half out of one of them, but only if they are the stronger coffees to begin with. Otherwise it's just pretty much a cup of brown water....blech.

Yeah, I pretty much came to that conclusion already. I tried it last night with a hazelnut Green Mountain coffee which I thought was too weak to begin with. This morning with a Caribou Coffee blend, it was much stronger and much more to my liking.

I'm just not sure if I can mess up the machine by trying to cheat the system here.

 

[bicker]

It's actually worse than that. Alton Brown explained it very well, in his landmark episode, True Brew. Coffee brewing is the process of extracting flavor from ground beans. The challenge comes from the fact that there is a lot of stuff that you can extract from ground beans, besides just flavor... most notably distasteful levels of bitterness. How to avoid this? Well, part of it is the temperature of the water used for brewing, but most of it is a matter of how long has water been flowing across the grounds... anything longer than six minutes and you're beginning to get far too much bitterness and far too little flavor. So if you try to use the same grounds for a second cup, practically all you're getting is distasteful bitterness, and practically no flavor.

Coffee is expensive and there is a very strong drive to try to economize the use of the beans, but that's typically a penny-wise/pound-foolish enterprise: By trying to economize too much, you essentially end up decimating the value of what you've purchased. It's better to simply drink a lot less coffee, using sufficient ground coffee for each pot/cup, rather than to drink more coffee using insufficient ground coffee.

 

[wvjules]

I use them twice. Once on the medium setting and then again on the tea cup setting. I just open the cover and close it again to get it ready for another brew cycle. I don't move it to make a new hole in it. Seems that would make a big mess.

 

[bicker]

I meant to mention something along those lines... Some folks I know like what is basically just coffee-flavored water, or coffee-flavored milk. They really don't want their coffee to be rich and full-bodied... they just want a hint of coffee flavor. So for those folks, half-brewing twice would work, I guess, though I think those folks might be just as well-off brewing a rich, full-bodied cup of coffee, and then splitting it into two separate cups, filling the rest of the cup with hot water, before putting in the milk/cream.

 

[Toad_Passenger]

It's actually worse than that. Alton Brown explained it very well, in his landmark episode, True Brew. Coffee brewing is the process of extracting flavor from ground beans. The challenge comes from the fact that there is a lot of stuff that you can extract from ground beans, besides just flavor... most notably distasteful levels of bitterness. How to avoid this? Well, part of it is the temperature of the water used for brewing, but most of it is a matter of how long has water been flowing across the grounds... anything longer than six minutes and you're beginning to get far too much bitterness and far too little flavor. So if you try to use the same grounds for a second cup, practically all you're getting is distasteful bitterness, and practically no flavor.

Coffee is expensive and there is a very strong drive to try to economize the use of the beans, but that's typically a penny-wise/pound-foolish enterprise: By trying to economize too much, you essentially end up decimating the value of what you've purchased. It's better to simply drink a lot less coffee, using sufficient ground coffee for each pot/cup, rather than to drink more coffee using insufficient ground coffee.

Is that dependent on cup size? The grounds in a K-Cup only contact the water for about 1-minute per brew cycle. I would think sending them through a second time would still be alright.

 

[MickeySP]

I only do this with a heavy dark roast anything lighter and it is coffee flavored water. Especially if you do the larger cup.

 

[bicker]

Is that dependent on cup size? The grounds in a K-Cup only contact the water for about 1-minute per brew cycle. I would think sending them through a second time would still be alright.

Yeah, sorry for the confusion: The 6 minute metric applies to full pots of coffee. (I repeat this info so often that sometimes the fingers just type, y'know?) Figure for a smaller amount of grounds, the time would be proportionately shorter.

You can't get blood from a stone... if brewing smaller amounts of coffee would result in more flavor per ounce of beans, then the best restaurants would be brewing per cup, instead of by the pot.

You can do a little better if you put the whole brewing process under pressure, i.e., espresso.

 

[Avalon_toon]

I do this with mine to get a full mug of coffee, and have been doing it since I got it months ago. It doesn't damage anything. I brew a cup on the largest setting, then immediately, without moving the k-cup (just opening and closing the lid to reset the machine), on the smallest setting - the combination of the two settings fills my Disney mug, and the grounds are only exposed to water for a minute or so each time. I wouldn't try to get two separate cups of coffee out of it, though, and I only do it with "bold" coffee flavors. Wish the "large" size was actually a mug full to begin with!

 

[aml3679]

Not if you really want to enjoy it - they are meant to be used once. If you want to save $ you can use 20% off EXPIRED coupons at Bed, Bath and Beyond for them.

 

[wvjules]

Not if you really want to enjoy it - they are meant to be used once. If you want to save $ you can use 20% off EXPIRED coupons at Bed, Bath and Beyond for them.

I think the issues is getting a full mug out of the K-cup, not so much a direct cost issue.

 

[Jeafl]

I do it all the time in order to fill my travel mug. I brew it on the medium setting, lift the lid and put it right back down again on the smallest setting. I do not rotate the k-cup at all. This gives me the perfect amount of coffee in my travel mug. It does work best with the stronger coffees though.

It does not mess up your machine at all. It has no way of knowing whether you are using the same k-cup of putting a new one in.

 

[lovetoscrap]

I meant to mention something along those lines... Some folks I know like what is basically just coffee-flavored water, or coffee-flavored milk. They really don't want their coffee to be rich and full-bodied... they just want a hint of coffee flavor. So for those folks, half-brewing twice would work, I guess, though I think those folks might be just as well-off brewing a rich, full-bodied cup of coffee, and then splitting it into two separate cups, filling the rest of the cup with hot water, before putting in the milk/cream.

That's me! I like a little coffee with my cream and sugar or flavored creamer. So DH will make his strong Newman's Own coffee on the regular cup size and then I will make another cup at the same size for myself. If he decides to use the large cup size then it is too weak even for me.

And I often fill my travel mug with a double brew from the same cup if it is a strong coffee.

 

[mrsheppo]

I do it all the time in order to fill my coffee mug. I use the larger setting, open and close then use the smaller setting. Perfect for my mug.

 

[WDWBarb]

I do this only when I am filling my Disney travel mug. Only for me, it takes 2 runs on the smallest setting and it actually fills the mug right up to the rim.

I use Donut Shop coffee almost exclusively and a like a strong cup, but I don't notice large difference in the strength when I brew two. I wouldn't want it to "sit" between brews (that just seems wrong - lol).