The Best Ground Coffee for Keurig to Elevate Your K-Cup Experience

There are many different coffee choices out there, so why limit yourself to just the K-Cup options from Keurig? By using a reusable K-Cup, you can add specialty ground coffee and make a bright, complex, and powerful mug to start your day. 

Here, we’ll discuss choosing the best ground coffee for your reusable pods, maintenance tips, and everything else you need to know to get the most out of your machine.

How To Select The Best Ground Coffee Product For A Keurig

Need help narrowing down your list of coffee?

Here are some things you should keep in mind when choosing the best ground coffee for your Keurig:

1. Organic — Organic coffee is grown with practices to ensure that there are as few chemicals in your coffee as possible. On top of this, the plants are encouraged to grow stronger, so the final flavor of your coffee is usually more intense.
2. Certified Mold-Free — In some grain-like crops like coffee beans, mold colonies can form during international shipping. To prevent mold or the mycotoxins it produces from getting into your cup, always opt for a coffee that has been tested and certified mold-free.
3. Fairtrade — When a coffee is Fairtrade certified, that means the farmers are fairly compensated for their hard work and quality products. By buying Fairtrade coffee, you’re providing independent farmers enough money to continue producing stunning crops.
4. Freshly Roasted — Coffee is at its most flavorful when it’s just been roasted. After an initial resting period, the flavors slowly fade as the beans become stale. To ensure your coffee has a great taste in every sip, always buy coffee that’s freshly roasted. Old beans will taste stale and flat by comparison — you’ll know them if you taste them.
5. Light, Medium, or Dark Roast — To experience specialty coffees with your Keurig, we suggest a medium roast for a balanced combination of gentle nuttiness and intense roasted flavors.
6. No Added Sugar — Some producers may add sugars. Look for coffee products with natural sweeteners like organic monk fruit.

Your Personal Taste

When picking the best coffee, you should follow your tastebuds. You already know if those super-sweet flavored drinks Keurig produces sound ideal for you or if you’d rather have a complex, bold cup made with a dark roast blend.

With that said, it’s worth experimenting a little with the coffees you select for your Keurig. At the end of the day, this is a new brewing method for you, so perhaps different flavors and aromas will end up in the mug compared to normal.

Our Best Coffees for your Keurig

We’ve selected three amazing offerings from Cafely that work well with the Keurig. 

Here are our recommendations:

1. SaiGon OG Blend — Our flagship coffee balances robusta, arabica, and peaberry beans. Our roasters add butter before roasting the beans dark, giving the final cup a rich, velvety flavor. This blend works particularly well in a Keurig because of its dark roast profile.
2. DaLat Coffee — Our light and fruity DaLat coffee is made from 100% arabica beans. Sourced from the high mountains of Vietnam, they have a bright, citrus flavor. The inherent notes of caramel, blackberry, and stone fruit are perfect for strong, black Keurig coffee. 
3. DaNang Coffee — The medium-dark DaNang blend pairs arabica and robusta, bringing the best of both beans to your final brew. This coffee has powerful notes of hazelnut and maple syrup, as well as notes of citrus zest that pair with a medium body.

Using a Reusable K-Cup

You can find a wide variety of refillable K-Cup pods online, and they’re often sold in pairs or sets of several pods. To use them effectively, you need to keep a few things in mind.

1. Brewing Coffee With Reusable K-Cups: Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s our step-by-step guide to using a refillable pod in your Keurig:

1. Ensure the pod is clean and dry to prevent flavor contamination before brewing.
2. Add coffee to the K-Cup pod. Around 10 to 12 grams is ideal for most pods, but you may need to use more or less depending on the coffee you use. Just make sure to add enough coffee to cover the mesh filters on both sides of the pod.
3. Tap the pod on the counter to ensure the coffee is level and break up any clumps.
4. Seal the pod tightly, ensuring no grounds are caught within the seal. That would compromise the seal and lead to reduced pressure.
5. Finally, put the filled pod into the Keurig and brew a cup of coffee as usual. If your coffee is too weak or too strong, you may need to add a little more or less coffee for your next brew.

2. Tips to Brew Best Coffee With Reusable K-Cups

Getting the most out of our reusable K-Cups might seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be.

Here are three tips to follow every time you use a reusable K-Cup:

1. Cleaning — Always make sure that you clean the pods thoroughly between uses. This will remove grounds and won’t contaminate the next brew with the flavor of the old one. On top of this, regular cleaning will ensure you don’t ingest any mold or bacteria that may form between brews.
2. Filling the pods — Reusable K-Cup pods should be filled with around 10 grams of coffee. For most of the reusable pods, this is just enough coffee to completely cover the mesh on the sides of the pod. Overfilling the pods can lead to poor water circulation and extraction.
3. Using fresh coffee — Using fresh coffee is always the best way to get the most intense flavor. To prevent the grounds from going stale while within the pod, fill it as close to brewing as possible.

3. Benefits of a Reusable K-Cup

Using a reusable K-Cup is a great way to expand your Keurig's offerings. Making the switch has three main benefits — better coffee, less environmental impact, and lower costs.

While K-Cups are available in a range of flavors, there’s a world of different brews to explore by using ground coffee. 

K-Cups and other mass-produced coffee options are often roasted very dark. To get some flavor variation, you can fill your reusable pod with a lighter roast to bring citrus and floral notes to the cup.

Consider the environmental impact of using a reusable pod compared to disposable K-Cups. Single-use items are exceptionally convenient, but they do take a toll on the natural world. By switching to reusable pods, you can reduce the amount of plastic you’re putting out into the environment.

While premium coffee can be a little pricey, using grounds in reusable cups is more affordable per cup than a K-Cup. This is especially true if you're using disposable K-Cups produced by big brands like Starbucks since they charge a premium.

4. Matching and Exceeding the Quality of a K-Cup

One of the main reasons why K-Cup coffee can last longer than regular pre-ground coffee is the container you buy it in — the pod. That pod is designed to encapsulate the coffee — ensuring it doesn’t go stale.

Several factors impact coffee's shelf life — moisture, UV light, oxygen, and heat. These can work together to remove flavor and aroma from your precious coffee. K-Cups are opaque so no light or air gets to the coffee.

To match and exceed the K-Cups you love, you must opt for an opaque, airtight case for your coffee. This goes for both an opened bag of ground coffee and a pre-filled K-Cup. Any airtight, opaque container will work well, but you can find coffee-focused options with vacuum seals online.

How to Get the Best Coffee Out of Your Keurig

Once you have your coffee of choice locked in, here’s the best way to make the most out of your coffee grounds when using a Keurig machine.

Grind Size

Grind size is the most important factor in getting the best flavor from your pod. Since you can’t alter the amount of pressure your Keurig is doling out, you may have to adjust the coffee’s grind size.

You should start with a medium grind and judge the flavor. From here, see if it's weak and under-extracted, or strong, bitter, and over-extracted. For under extraction, grind finer. For over-extraction, grind coarser. You’ll soon find your perfect grind in no time. 

Dose

Dosing the correct amount of coffee is something seasoned coffee lovers may not consider much — they’ve already got it nailed down. However, you're entering uncharted waters when using your Keurig to brew your own ground coffee.

Some Keurig coffee makers can create up to 15 bars of pressure, which is high compared to many modern espresso machines, which typically sit around 9 bars of pressure on average. Plus, you’re using your Keurig to make a long coffee drink instead of just an espresso. 

A 1:15 to 1:18 coffee-to-water ratio works well for high-pressure brewing. For every gram of coffee you use, you will need 15 to 18 mL of pure water.  

FAQs: Coffee for Keurig

Now that we’ve spoken exhaustively about the complex world of brewing coffee with a Keurig, let’s take a look at some of the most common questions.

1. Can You Brew Your Own Ground Coffee in a Keurig?

Yes, you certainly can. There is a vast range of refillable K-Cup pods online. Fill them with ground coffee, snap them shut, and brew.

2. What Coffee Should I Use for a Keurig?

While you can technically use any coffee for your Keurig brews, your best bet is to mimic the coffee commonly used in K-Cup pods already. Opt for dark or medium roast arabica or blends as they make the most out of the high-pressure brewing system of the Keurig.

3. How Can I Get the Best Out of the Coffee I’m Using?

We suggest starting with a medium grind and a dose of around 1 gram of coffee to 15 to 18 mL water, as those are fairly forgiving numbers for your first brew. From there, you can adjust the ratio until you get the best cup of coffee.

4. Can I Prep Coffees With My Keurig?

Yes. The best way to do this is to get several of the refillable pods and fill them with grounds beforehand. Then, store the pre-filled pods in an airtight, opaque container with any other ground coffee that you might be using to maintain their flavor and aroma as much as possible.

5. Can I Use A Keurig For Things Other Than Coffee?

Yes, you can use a Keurig for many tasks. Essentially, it’s just a machine that dispenses increments of hot water — 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 ounces. With that in mind, it can be used for any purpose you might need hot water for, from instant oatmeal to ramen.