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Keurig coffee makers are fairly synonymous with convenience, if not always with quality coffee (although some K-Cup pods are better than others). But while the coffee may brew at the simple touch of a button, the machine itself requires a little more care and attention when it comes to cleaning. Failing to clean your Keurig properly can lead to mold, negatively impact the brewing mechanism, alter the taste of your coffee, and shorten the lifespan of the machine. Recommended Keurig cleaning procedures for great tasting coffee include wiping down external surfaces as well as regularly cleaning internal areas such as the pod holder assembly and even the needle that pierces your K-cups. And while this may all sound like a lot, thankfully, there are products designed to make it easier, like Quick & Clean’s Keurig Cleaning Pods.
Quick & Clean’s Keurig Cleaning Pods come in a six-pack for about $10 on Amazon; other package sizes are available as well. They are designed to cut through residues that may affect the taste of your coffee and your machine’s performance, using a proprietary, non-toxic cleaning formula encapsulated in a pod that is compatible with any Keurig. To use a Quick & Clean cleaning pod, simply insert it as you would any coffee or tea pod and run two brewing cycles — one to clean, and one to rinse the system internally. The product has a 4.5-star rating on Amazon at the time of writing, but what’s even more impressive is that this rating is aggregated from more than 60,000 reviews.
What people like about these cleaning pods
Overall, people seem to appreciate how easy the pods are to use and how well they work. One reviewer said that they used to clean their machine by hand, and this method is far more effective. That may in part due to the design of the cups, which feature small holes spaced around the circumference, allowing for a more even release of the cleaning element. Some reviewers do say that they prefer to run at least two rinse cycles after the cleaning cycle, rather than the one that Quick & Clean recommends.
While the Amazon product description doesn’t spell out how often you should use these pods, one reviewer said that their six-pack lasted for six months, acknowledging that other people’s use rate may vary. For the record, Keurig recommends cleaning the pod holder assembly and needle weekly. But of course, it’s easy to find people who claim to have ignored all cleaning recommendations and are still enjoying a long-lived machine.
One note of caution: While The Quick & Clean cleaning pods reportedly do a great job at cleaning, they will not descale your machine (aka, remove mineral buildup). Quick & Clean does produce a liquid descaler that you can purchase separately (like this pack of two on Amazon), or bundled together with the cleaning pods (like this four cleaning pods plus descaler pack); and of course, there are other descaling options as well, including vinegar. According to Keurig, you’ll want to descale your machine about every three months.
