human
Well-known member
I was in Goodwill earlier today and spotted a fancy looking Keurig B70 coffeemaker on a shelf away from the others. It was a little dusty and looked to have a bit of hard water residue in the bottom of the water reservoir but it powered on when I plugged it in so for $12, I decided to take a chance on it. Worst case scenario, I could bring it back within 10 days for a store credit.
Wben I got it home, filled up the water reservoir, and ran out a cup of hot, albeit decidedly cloudy looking water. Running through all the menu functions, I determined that except for one LED on a selector button, the machine was completely functional and whisper quiet. This was further reassuring as some Keurigs tend to get noisy as they age.
So having passed the functionality test, I filled the reservoir with a 50/50 white vinegar and water solution and flushed it out with repeated brew cycles until the reservoir was empty, then repeated the process with clear water. By the time I'd done this, the water was coming out much clearer so I and gave the whole machine a thorough cleaning, which it badly needed.
As a final test, I made a cup of Twinings Chai Latte but it came out tasting sour. It didn't take long to figure out despite running clear water through it, there must have still been some vinegar left in the system and it didn't take much to curdle the milk in the chai so I ran more water through, tasting it each cup that came out, until I was satisfied the vinegar was gone. Then I made another cup of chai latte and it tasted fine.
Goodwill's pricing is so bizarrely random that the other two machines they had in stock, both base model K60 machines missing their drip trays, were priced at $25 each. The B70 was their top-of-the-line prior to the introduction of the Keurig 2.0 line and thus does not have the obnoxious built-in digital rights management to tell me which K-cups I can and cannot use with it. It was also complete except for the optional charcoal filter, which I always use in my Keurigs, even though my water isn't terribly hard. So for now, it has the one out of my K60 and I've ordered another to replace it. I guess I'll now have to decide whether to take the one I've been using in my kitchen to my office whenever we return to teaching face-to-face.
Wben I got it home, filled up the water reservoir, and ran out a cup of hot, albeit decidedly cloudy looking water. Running through all the menu functions, I determined that except for one LED on a selector button, the machine was completely functional and whisper quiet. This was further reassuring as some Keurigs tend to get noisy as they age.
So having passed the functionality test, I filled the reservoir with a 50/50 white vinegar and water solution and flushed it out with repeated brew cycles until the reservoir was empty, then repeated the process with clear water. By the time I'd done this, the water was coming out much clearer so I and gave the whole machine a thorough cleaning, which it badly needed.
As a final test, I made a cup of Twinings Chai Latte but it came out tasting sour. It didn't take long to figure out despite running clear water through it, there must have still been some vinegar left in the system and it didn't take much to curdle the milk in the chai so I ran more water through, tasting it each cup that came out, until I was satisfied the vinegar was gone. Then I made another cup of chai latte and it tasted fine.
Goodwill's pricing is so bizarrely random that the other two machines they had in stock, both base model K60 machines missing their drip trays, were priced at $25 each. The B70 was their top-of-the-line prior to the introduction of the Keurig 2.0 line and thus does not have the obnoxious built-in digital rights management to tell me which K-cups I can and cannot use with it. It was also complete except for the optional charcoal filter, which I always use in my Keurigs, even though my water isn't terribly hard. So for now, it has the one out of my K60 and I've ordered another to replace it. I guess I'll now have to decide whether to take the one I've been using in my kitchen to my office whenever we return to teaching face-to-face.
