The greatest exquisite yet so typical ingredients to make a sweet cup of sizzling coffee are water and obliviously coffee too. Several factors play a massive role in creating a blissful coffee quality such as water pressure and water temperature; nonetheless, the most important is the water quality you’re using. In regards to Keurig brewers and water quality, this is vital because any erroneous mistakes will result in terrible-tasting coffee and a cherry on top – a wrecked coffee machine.
Why it is essential to consider the type of water
Water comprises of up to 97 percent of the most impressive brew. Therefore, it is crucial to check which water type is suitable to use with Keurig brewer to make tasty coffee.
It is vital to be concerned about the water hardness which emanates from your taps. Should it be hard water, it implies that it has high levels of chloride, sulfate, potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium. These minerals can wreak havoc on most of your showers, laundry, dishes, and plumbing via depositing lime or scale. This case also applies to the Keurig brewer. The minerals can pass via the brewer, leaving a vast trail of lime and scale deposits. Consequently, this reduces your unit’s efficiency as well as altering your coffee taste.
To do away with this, softeners such as salt are used. Salt combats the minerals hence easing plumbing as well as compatibility with soap. However, this does not apply to Keurig® because it will still entail sodium ions, which will form around the tea leaves and coffee grinds hence reducing the porosity. Thus the extraction process slows down, causing clogs and bad taste, which leads to poor performance.
Type of water you can use in Keurig brewers
Tap Water
Tap water is one great option for getting water for the machine.
Should you live in major towns, it is essential to know that the water is precleaned prior to it coming to you. However, it’s never ultra-purified.
It is wise to put this water through a pur filter or even a Brita to efficiently and effectively clean out large particles. Tap water doesn’t profoundly affect your coffee. Tap water is way better compared to other types of water on the list. It has natural percentages and content of minerals that you are already used to.
However, it can affect the taste but not the quality of your coffee in Keurig. The calcium amounts act as tapestry hence making your coffee notes bounce a bit. Nevertheless, if this doesn’t affect your love for coffee and even mess your Keurig, you are good to go. Remember, the mineral content in the tap water differs from city to city. Thus, coffee made in Keurig in Atlanta will not taste the same one made in Houston.
As earlier mentioned, it is wise to scrutinize the hardness of your water to easily know how frequently you will have to descale your machine. You can also opt to use about 50ppm dependent on the hardness scale you utilize before putting it to the Keurig. However, the bright side is that the taste of your coffee is enhanced. On the other hand, you will need to know the appropriate intervals to keep descaling your Keurig machine.
Why Distilled Water is an option but NOT recommended
This type of water possesses no minerals, which means that there are no virtual requirements to have the machine descaled. The term “virtually” here is used to emphasize the need to occasionally descale, keep running, and clean the Keurig machine.
Distilled water is good because it maintains the great flavor of coffee and comes in handy if in case the tap water in your area isn’t high. Distilled water is also a great option if the running water in your place is hard water, which is arduous to soften. Remember, it is also not the best option for coffee, making types of machinery. Here’s why.
You can use distilled water in other primary brewers but not in a classic Keurig 2.0 machinery. This is important to note because distilled water has lately been messing up the Keurig brewer. Keurig brewer has sensors that detect all mineral contents quickly. When you use distilled water, the sensors will not function hence receiving wrong messages when attempting to utilize your machinery.
Filtered Water
This water via the reverse osmosis filtration system comes out pure and is the best option for your Keurig machine. It does away with the need to frequently descaling your brewer but can damage some machines. Refrigerators currently come with inbuilt filters; hence it’s effortless to interpolate one to a sink faucet or even your house filter. Nonetheless, before doing so, it is highly recommendable to discuss with a water professional in your area to ascertain that you’re buying a good one. With that, other Keurig models come with water filters. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to know that they need to be changed every 40 days.
Even though your model has its filter, it’s way safer to utilize external filters before putting the water in. Water filters come in lots of variety hence picking one which will work best for you will depend on where and the extent you’ll be planning to be using it.
Filtered water does not have the taste and smell of iron, sulfur, as well as chlorine.
You can interpolate the filter to your sink, fridge, et al. There are some filters designated explicitly for the Keurig models. The downside of using filtered water is that it can damage some other Keurig models. Also, a brewer can hardly detect if it is full since there is no mineral content in the water.
Bottled Water
Bottled water is the best option if you need a good coffee cup and prolonged durability of Keurig. However, this case is only perfect for primary Keurig machines and not the pro level types.
Should you be utilizing the 2.0 one, it is recommended that you use bottled water or even get to filter your tap water. Nonetheless, you need to ensure that you buy either the filtered or distilled water because opting to use bottled spring water causes similar issues to using tap water.
It is also noteworthy that should you be making one cup daily or utilizing the mini Keurig version, you should opt for individual bottled water packs. Alternatively, you can buy a minute water filter to reduce the impacts on the environment considering the water bottle plastics.
The cons of going for bottled water is that it sometimes becomes very pricey and poses environmental hazards because of the plastic bottles.
Final Word
Having said the needful, it is evident that utilizing the appropriate water type in the Keurig brewer machine is always the foremost step to making great tasting coffee.
Using bottled water or filtered water will come a long way in helping you enjoy sweet tasting coffee. Besides, it will aid in extending your machine’s durability.
We hope that this information will help you make an excellent choice for the Keurig machine type you have.