I don’t know how many, but I presume at least some of you have Keurig style coffee brewers. I’m sure some of you just buy prefilled k-cups, but I suspect some of you do as I do and use refillable k-cups, like these:
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A few months ago, my wonderful Bunn MyCafe brewer died. I tried to fix it, get spare parts, or buy a new one. Unfortunately, it’s no longer made [SIZE=22px]?[/SIZE]
I finally bought a new Keurig K155. This is not a standard home use brewer; it’s designed for office use, so it has better & more robust parts. Given the amount of coffee I drink every day (decaf), I determined a consumer model would die in a year.
The brewer has worked well, but I ran into 1 issue: water leaking out around the top of some k-cups. It would spill onto the sides of my mug, the drop tray under the mug, and the counter top. There wasn’t a ton of it, but it was pretty annoying, not to mention it should be going into the coffee.
A few days ago, I noticed a pattern: it seems the only time water leaks out is when I brew with a k-cup that has a larger hole in its lid. You can see the difference by looking at the photo above. And this type of k-cup seems to be the only ones available on Amazon that will fit my brewer. I still don’t understand why a larger hole should cause this: the pad of the brewer that presses down on the k-cup seems to be more than wide enough to cover the hole. Still, it leaks.
I wondered if I could print a small adapter plate that could reduce the size of the hole in the k-cups with the larger hole, and if that would actually make a difference. So, I quickly designed & printed this our of white PETG (so it’s food safe):
Crossing my fingers, I placed it on the top of a leaky k-cup and brewed a mug of coffee. And, guess what, it worked!! I got a nice, steady stream of coffee into the mug, without water spilling out all over.[SIZE=22px]?[/SIZE]
Here’s how it’s used:
I do have to fess up & say it doesn’t stop ALL the water. During the brew, it does. After brewing, however, when I go to remove the k-cup, there are a few drops of water on the top of the k-cup, but it’s nothing like it was.
I have printed half a dozen of these & placed them on the top of the brewer, so they’re always on hand.
