Faulty Keurig Mini

Photo of a bright green K10 brewer

From:

Rachel.

Date:

June 12, 2015.

Question:

Hi, my mini Keurig had not been working properly. It has only made enough coffee for a quarter of the cup I have filled. The coffee tastes horrible. It was once awesome and is only a year & 3 months old. But for the price I would’ve thought I would last longer. I’ve had other coffee makers that have lasted much longer! I hope you can help otherwise this product was an absolute waste & that news should be shared!

Response:

Rachel certainly hasn’t been having a good time with her Keurig mini recently, with the partial cup issue probably being at the root of the two problems she identifies.

Partial Cup

The partial cup problem generally arises with a fault in the solenoid or air pump of the unit. The brewer is unable to produce air pressure sufficiently to move the heated water from the boiler unit and into the coffee cup (of course while passing if through the K-Cup).

Photo showing you a Keurig air pump for a B60

Although we have a guide to solving the partial cup problem, including a separate repair manual for replacing the air pump, what we don’t have is any material in how to get the Keurig mini’s outer casing off. The guidance material we have put together for that procedure is for the larger B40, B50, B60 and B70 models. But as we mentioned the other day to Andrew we can’t offer any specific help with the mini brewers (something we are going to have to address and buy one to take apart).

However, what Rachel could try is the Keurig Burp process where by we can try to give the air pump a jolt and see if that might bring it back into life somewhat (well, at least an improvement to where it is at the moment).

A firm and gentle slap on the side of a Keurig

Horrible Taste

In regards to the coffee taste problem, other than a good clean of the machine there isn’t much we can suggest here. We do have a guide dealing with the plastic taste that can sometimes come through with newer machines, but not as what Rachel describes. I’m sure this has been tried already, but running a good descale process through the machine might help with this. For this process we are now recommending a product by Bosch that we think is much better than using lime (pictured below).

Bosch Original Tassimo Descaling Tablets