Now for something completely different . . . . .

I don’t know why but I got it in my head to reuse the Kcups in our office coffee machine. Don’t get me wrong the Keurig, single cup coffee maker is awesome. I have one at home, but I could never get over throwing the little cups away. Seemed a waste.

At home,  I have the reusable containers. This eliminates the need to use the prepackaged Kcups. After a quick Google search I found these little plastic lids that cover the Kcup, allowing you to reuse it. I figured that I could replicate that here in the office.

The first thing I did was bug my buddy Jon. He was already at the coffee machine, making coffee. I asked him to leave the Kcup in the machine. He is a clean freak. I’m not lying to you; in between web designs and image manipulation he goes around cleaning things. You can see how leaving the Kcup in the machine would bother him. Although reluctant, he did leave it in the machine.

I took the Kcup out and headed to the trash. I ripped off the cover and cleaned out the used grinds. The cup has a little filter already in it. From my research I found out that this was a tough filter, so I left it in.

I grabbed a normal coffee filter and cut out a piece that would fit over the side. I needed a rubber band to hold the cover on. I ran into the HR department to grab a rubber band, they always have supplies like that.

At this point Jon caught a glimpse of what I was doing. He quickly said “Oh, no that’s not going to work! You are going to make a mess.” He reminded me of the geek in the the NetFlow Rap.

I pressed on. I filled the container, covered it and then placed it in the machine. Then with one quick press of the blue button the test was started! I have a larger cup so I run through the brew cycles twice.

Results . . . . . . .

Pro’s

• I can reuse the cups.
• It does work.
• It does make a decent cup of coffee.
• I feel green.

Cons

• You still waste stuff (I have half of a filter left over).
• I found that it leaked a little.
• Your friends look at you funny.

There it is, the biggest scientific test of the year! In all fairness, my boss said that he would be more then happy to pay for a couple of the reuseable cups for the Keurig machine.  I just have to go down to my local Target and get them.

____________________________________
Jim Dougherty aka "Jimmy D"
Lead PreSales Support Engineer and
Netflow Evangelist for Plixer International!

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/jimmydnet
____________________________________ Tags: facebook, how to guide, Jimmy D, Maine, Plixer International, support, technical support

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 18th, 2009 at 2:57 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.