Takes 5 minutes to Make a Cup of Coffee

From:

Warren.

Question:

Have cleaned everything I can. Have bought your 12.00 cleaner. Still won’t make coffee like it should and always makes a smaller cup than normal. Any suggestions?

Response:

From what Warren describes it does sound like a partial cup brewing problem he is having with his Keurig. We have a couple of suggestions that might help get it back into action.

Causes

The cause of this problem is generally around the air pump (pictured below), which has the express purpose of building air pressure in the boiler unit to the correct setting, which the brewer uses to force the heated water out of the boiler unit, across the top assembly, and in to the portion pack holder (ie where the K-Cup is sitting).

In the photo below the tube that I’m pointing to is where the water is forced to feed across the top assembly of the brewer and through the entry needle.

The build-up of contamination in the air pump, through lime scale or other particles, can cause the air pump to become clogged. Even with regular cleaning this type of problem can still arise (although regular descaling using a good cleaning agent, we have a couple recommended on our parts replacement page, helps to minimise this problem).

And over the years in helping people with Keurig problems we are not sure on the quality of the components that Keurig is putting in to their brewers. It does seem the components suffer from a high rate of failure – part of this we feel is through some poor design (although the internals do look better laid out in the new 2.0 series of brewers) and perhaps the quality of the pumps etc.

Solution 1 – The Keurig Burp

This is a solution a reader recommended to us a few years back and we are still amazed at how simple and yet effective it can be in solving this particular problem.

What it is designed to do is provide a short, sharp, yet gentle, jolt to the area of the air pump and so “encouraging” it back in to life. What it does in fact do is help to dislodge any contaminant build-up and so help the air pump back to producing the full pressure it needs to.

Check out our short guide that will take you through the few simple steps involved.

Solution 2 – Air Pump Replacement

If the burp or slap has not worked then we recommend an air pump, and while you are at it, a solenoid replacement. This will ensure the brewer has a new lease on life and hopefully provide many more years of use.

It can be a daunting task in replacing any component on these brewers as getting inside is quite difficult. We assume Keurig meant it this way as we notice they don’t repair machines under warranty but rather just replace it. Having said that the new 2.0 brewers are much easier to repair (more on this to come in our New and Views section).

We have a comprehensive guide on how to replace the air pump (accessed here) including material on how to remove the outer casing (you can access the videos here).

An air pump will cost between $10 to $20 on eBay or Amazon and the part you are looking for is pictured below.

And if you want to replace the solenoid at the same time, as they are normally housed next to each other in most classic Keurig models, a solenoid costs around the same and is pictured below. Again we have a comprehensive guide, with descriptions and photos, showing how to replace this part too.