Keurig B-70 B70 Platinum Single-Cup Home Brewing System
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Keurig B-70 B70 Platinum Single-Cup Home Brewing System
Customer Review: Awesome Brewing System!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned this particular model (B70 Platinum)for about 7 months now with no major issues. I could go with 4 stars, but I put 5 because I do love my Keurig and the over all concept!! I drink coffee and tea regularly,(and use it to make my oatmeal and cup of noodles too :)) and I have always ran into the problem of wasting more coffee by brewing a pot on my old coffee maker. I would make about 4 to 8 cups with the intention on drinking it, but never happened that way, or it would taste stale after sitting a few hours. Yes, the K-cups can be a bit on the pricey side, but in my case it is far more cheaper to go this route (I drink anywhere between 2-6 cups a day). I haven't tried the filter to add my own coffee yet. So here we go based on my few months of use and other reviews:
-Yes the machine makes some noise, but to say it is loud may be a little extreme in my opinion (unless it's about to blow up). It has to heat and pump the water. It may be a tad bit louder than a traditional coffee maker brewing a pot of coffee if thats even considered loud.
-K-cups: There may have been about 4 or 5 times where I ended up with coffee grind in my cup and from what I observed, it seems that some companies are packing too much coffee into the K-cup. I had this problem only when I had purchased a 24 ct box of The Original Donut Shop by Coffee People and the Green Mountain variety pack. (not all of the cups did this though, so I would say that some K-cups that make it off the line can be faulty, but thats not very common)
-There were 2 times where the coffee was short changed and didn't brew completly. I figured I might have done something wrong, but I really couldn't tell you. Haven't had the problem since.
-The temp. is great. It brews hot everytime. I do use a lot of liquid creamer so it does cool it down to the perfect drinking temp. If you prefer it mouth burning hot, you can always heat up your milk or creamer prior to adding it to your coffee. But, I have yet to do that because it comes out fine.
-can purchase K-cups from Amazon, grocery store, and some other well known stores as well. Which makes it great when you don't want to pay for the shipping from the Keurig site or you don't want to wait. Plus, there are so many types of coffee,tea, hot chocolate, lattes, etc to choose from. If your not sure, buy a 5 K-cup sample pack from Keurig until you find your favorite.
-Brews a fresh cup of coffee/tea/hot water everytime in 3 minutes or less. No more wasting a pot of coffee or stale/burnt coffee from sitting too long. No more filters or messy coffee grind (use to hate measuring, spilling, and cleaning with my traditional coffee maker which half the time lead me to go buy a cup from somewhere)
-this model comes with 4 brewing options. I keep mine set to the standard cup. I have used the brew over ice option, and am not too big of a fan of that because it melts the ice and waters down the K-cup ice tea (which isn't strong or sweet enough, but that has to do with the Celestial Sweet Tea K-cup); I may need to lower the temp. When I make hot tea w/ the K-cups I use the smallest cup (sorry don't know the exact size) because it gives it a better/stronger flavor as I tend to add a lot of milk to it.
-Flavor is great. I have sampled many flavors and brands of coffee and tea, and figured out the ones I really liked best. I've learned that for a good flavor coffee, stick with the standard size brewing option because it seems that is how they package the K-cups. This is also the perfect option for you fellow Cup of Noodle eaters:) If I use my 16oz travel mug, I just brew 2 K-cups (thats where the price can get you) because the coffee isn't as strong as I like it, but still drinkable.
-Once again, I haven't tried it, but you can purchase a filter to use your own coffee with. I also purchased the water filter to put in the water resevoir because I have pretty hard water. I did use bottled water for the first month, but became lazy shortly there after!
All in all, I could have went with a cheaper model with less brewing options because I don't really use the others as much as I use the standard size cup option. But, I just bought this after my friend told me about Keurig, so I just bought the one I thought was fancy!! haha (stupid ol' me)So, if you don't think your going to use all the features, you may consider going for a cheaper model that has one or two brewing options. I do like Keurig because of the design and ease of use.
I do love my Keurig and everyone has their own opinion and experiance with it, but I would recommend this to a friend as I plan on purchasing one for my father-in-law and parents for Christmas. If I could do it all over again I would still purchase this because I am truely satisfied with it and I am sure you will be too.
Customer Review: Outstanding, Fast Single-Serve Brewer, Great Fresh Coffee
Summary: 5 Stars
I own the B60 (Special Edition) and B70 (Platinum/Gourmet Edition). I bought in July 2009 so you have an idea of the revisions I am reviewing since they have released updated revisions. I couldn't pick so I got one of each (one for work and one for home). I am extremely happy with both, and slightly happier with the B70. At first I really liked the B60 (Special Edition) since it seemed like such a solid, sturdy design. But I prefer the slimmer look of the B70 and its design seems very sturdy and solid under daily use. I love the variety of fresh coffee in the kcups and have been very happy with most coffees I have tried. I like not having to commit to a whole pot of coffee and have never felt like having the same type of coffee for my 2nd cup later in the day when I want another. I bought this primarily for the variety and fresh coffee system. I don't drink a ton of coffee and want to have the choice of flavors and switching from regular to decaf without wasting a whole pot. This has been working perfectly for me. My wife has been using it too who typically doesn't drink coffee. The aroma of the coffees (especially flavored coffees) are really enticing.
The B60 has only 3 size settings (small cup, normal 6oz cup, and mug) while the B70 has 5 (ice coffee, small cup, normal 6oz cup, mug, and huge mug). The 2 extra sizes really aren't necessary. I don't think any kcup has enough coffee to properly flavor the huge mug setting, but at least it has the option if you don't want to feel like you are missing out. I've never made iced coffee, but I use the ice coffee setting all the time to rinse and pre-heat my cup or mug, not that you need to. The coffee is plenty hot for any cup or mug, but to last extra long while sipping slowly, I like to heat my mug so it lasts even longer. My wife never heats the mug because she thinks it is too hot if she does. So I like to use minimal water for this so the iced setting works perfectly from the B70. But the B60 works too, you just have to use a little more water with the small cup setting. Again, you really don't have to pre-heat anything. It seems designed for the right temperature without preheating your cup. I mean it seems really hot, as hot as you'd expect from any coffee maker.
I was really worried about noise after reading some reviews, so I have to comment on the results of my B60 (Special Edition) and B70 (Platinum/Gourmet Edition). Both are very quiet. The B70 is slightly quieter than the B60. The loudest it gets is when you first turn it on and it tries to heat the water as fast as possible you hear a boiling noise that is very noticeable, but not "loud", and seems to only last a minute. I wouldn't have it in my bedroom while someone was sleeping, but fine for a kitchen. That is the loudest it gets for me. Bewing is quiet on both for me, and the pumping of the water is also reasonably quiet. I mean you can hear it pump, but nothing remotely distracting. It is possible that any problems were fixed that were reported by some earlier reviews. The models I bought in July 2009 are really quiet. I have my B70 on a tile counter and my B60 on laminate desk top against a common wall. I'm never worried about drawing attention.
Power-wise, I was concerned about the 1500 watt initial usage while it tries to heat as fast as it can. Sure, at 1500 watts you don't want to be using much anyhting else on the same circuit at the same time. I tested the power usage over the weekend at my work office with two monitors, two laptops, and the lights on and then turned it on and didn't blow a fuse. At home I just use a set of outlets in the kitchen that don't have to be used concurrently. It only uses 1500 Watts for 1 - 3 minutes and seems to be ready very fast. After that I think they say it only uses 60 watts to maintain, and 300 watts here or there to reheat for a minute or less. I've never tripped my 15 amp circuit and don't dedicate any circuit for it. But I'm just careful not to use a microwave or toaster anytime it is going to do a heating cycle. I also didn't notice anything on my energy bill relative to other energy sources in the summer.
Btw - the B60's power button is on the front and the B70's on the back. B60 is more convenient to turn on, but I've never once felt like the B70 was any difficulty and I turn it on every morning and off every night.
So I'm extrely happy with both. I think the B70 is slightly better and seems to occupy less space. The B60 feels a little more bulky due to its shape and black plastic. I find if I store a silver mug on my B60 it feels more elegant due to the change in color. The silver on the B70 just seems to help it feel slimmer, and it isn't as deep too.
Customer Review: One Fantastic Beverage System
Summary: 5 Stars
The Keurig Platinum brewer arrived on my doorstep two months ago from MS&L Group North America for demo purposes regardless of my reviews, and it has been performing perfectly since I set it up. Right out of the box it was easy to set up and took only 15 minutes to clean, fill with water and get it ready for my first cup of coffee. One really cool feature you noticed right away was the blue lighting under the water reservoir and the blue display LCD Control Panel.
The LCD panel is the brains of the operation, you can decide what cup size to brew, small cup, small mug, large mug, travel mug or iced beverage setting. Each one brews to a specific amount of fluid so you can tweak your desired strength of beverage to your personal taste. Now, you become the Barista and decide how you want your coffee, and without the wait or hassle! If you wake up dragging your feet perhaps you need a small cup of espresso or maybe you the sun is shining and birds are singing and you are looking for a light, full-bodied large mug of Morning Roast coffee. In either case with a simple touch of a button, adding your special K-cup blend and pressing the handle brings you a fresh cup of coffee your way!
The cleaning of the unit is also very straightforward. The drip tray holds 12oz of overflow and is easy to remove, rinse and replace. The K-Cup holder Assembly simply snaps out and back in and can either be hand washed or placed onto the top shelf of a dishwasher. Once in a while you may need to clean the Funnel or Exit needle but a simple clog due to grinds can be expressed with a small paperclip pushed up into the needle to loosen the clog. If you live in a heavy lime area instructions to handle De-scaling are included and require you to use white vinegar run through a few brewing cycles and the machine will be good as new.
Enough on the setup and procedures, the real reason this review is being written is to discuss the wonderful beverage selections possible with the Keurig beverage System. There are over 200 varieties of K-Cups so you will never tire of the same old coffee or tea day after day. I prefer to experiment with the blends and actually create some flavor profiles of my own. For instance I like to mix a small brew of Green Mountain Mocha Nut Fudge with Caribou Coffee Caribou Blend. The flavors blend well together and give you almost a liquid snickers bar taste. The blends I've found most flavorful were from Caribou Coffee, Green Mountain Coffee, Timothy's, Tully's and Gloria Jeans. They do make a reusable coffee filter but with so man choices why bother unless you crave that special blend needed to get you through the day. That's not to say that the other blends out there are not superb in their own way, I just prefer the medium and light roasts of the blends previously mentioned. Once in a while I'll build up to an Extra Bold or Dark Roast for that extra kick in the pants, but not too often. There are also some really wonderful teas in the K-Cup line and I'd be remiss if I didn't discuss the subtle flavors that emanate from the freshly steeped tea. Twinings, Bigelow, Gloria Jeans, Timothy's and Celestial Seasonings all have some really nice tea profiles.
I will say that I've been sadly disappointed with the Hot chocolate blends and honestly disgusted with Timothy's White Hot Chocolate. The box states "...decadent white chocolate infused with hints of cream and vanilla..." but that is far from the truth. Imagine an overly sweetened cup of warm milk with a white chocolate Easter bunny left to melt in the cup, and that's being nice! The flavor was way too sweet, and looked like skim milk as it was being brewed. The Green mountain Hot Cocoa certainly wasn't this bad but it too was very sweet and lacked any depth of chocolate flavor. My suggestion is to stick with packets of your favorite hot cocoa and brew hot water into your cup from the Keurig and then add the cocoa and stir.
To sum up the entire review and testing of this machine I would say that it earns 10 whisks out of 10 on Chef's Scott's demo rating system. The machine is easy to setup, and clean, wonderful to operate and maintain and allows you to create individual flavor profiles without the large brewing mess. Now each guest can have his or her specific blend without brewing pot after pot coffee or tea. You will not be disappointed with your purchase of this machine and I look forward to coming back in a few months with an additional review to let you know how it's been performing. Until then - happy brewing!
Customer Review: Coffee for the normal guy.
Summary: 4 Stars
First I'm just a normal coffee drinker (sort of) and this is my first review. I believe in reviews and definitely read them, but never really felt compelled to write one. This coffee maker has changed that.
I'm not a gourmet coffee drinker, but I do like my coffee and I drink it throughout the day. Some background. I work out of my house and I'm the only coffee drinker in the house. I used to drink Folgers via a normal coffee maker but I did have my procedures. At some point I was ruined (by my sister no less) and started drinking Boyer's Coffee (out of Denver). By ruined, now I had to buy beans and grind them as opposed to large containers of coffee that only required a coffee scooper. So here was my procedure. Clean the carafe and fill with hot water. Fill the coffee maker with filtered water. Grind the coffee beans with a grinder (apparently very important as opposed to a chopper) and load the metal basket. Dump the hot water from the carafe and start the brew cycle.
I also had a coffee dispenser. The one with the big button on top that is supposed to keep hot fluids hot for up to eight hours. Well, I would clean it and also fill it with hot water. Clean the plastic parts that ground the coffee. A few more minutes and the coffee is done brewing. Empty the hot water out of the dispenser and pour in the freshly brewed coffee. Clean the carafe and metal filter. Take the dispenser to my office and enjoy coffee for a couple of hours. All in all, it took just under 15 minutes.
As you can see a lot of work for a decent cup of coffee. The main part of all the above was not so much the flavor, but trying to get a hot cup of coffee and coffee that would stay hot for a while, without cooking to a syrup.
Of course as I worked, I would forget about my coffee, that I took two sips of, and would end up getting only a couple of sips per cup. Yes, a lot of effort for very little coffee. But when you only drink water or coffee, well, you end up working at it.
Enter the Keurig. I bought this coffee make because the idea of a single cup coffee maker has always been appealing. Secondly, I could buy a filter that would allow be to use my own coffee. This was the single factor that kept me from buying the other single cup coffee makers. I was concerned that shortly after my purchase the coffee cups / packets would go away. Plus I really liked the Boyer's coffee. I was going to buy the B-60, but after reading the reviews, the B70 just seemed like a better deal.
I didn't even take it out of the box - my wife did. She also set it up. Even she had to admit it looked really cool on the kitchen counter.
I now make coffee one cup at a time. In the nine months that I have had the B-70, I used the coffee filter once. I have found the K-cups just too easy, plus I like the flavor. I eventually removed the coffee grinder from the counter and put it in the pantry. I haven't ordered any coffee on-line, so my sampling has been limited. I get a couple of different coffees from my local Target.
So now you know my coffee procedure, past and present. As far as the coffee maker goes, it's a blast. I really, really enjoy the coffee. I drink three different types of coffee. I like the coffee so much, I now only go to Starbucks while waiting in airports. I even bought disposable coffee cups, so I can take coffee on the go, i.e. in route to the airport.
If you like your coffee fresh and hot - you can't go wrong with this coffee maker. If you like your coffee throughout the day, this coffee maker is a must. If you just like good coffee without any clean up, you still should look at this coffee maker. By the way, clean up is throwing away the K-cup. I've had mine for about nine months and it has yet to tell me it's time to clean the coffee maker - I still use filtered water.
Why I did not give it a perfect 5 stars? I live outside of Boulder, CO, and at this altitude all packages are bloated (about to burst). I've had two of the K-cups burst on me. Don't get me wrong, I've gone through over 60 cups per month, so probably 600 cups. If only 2 cups went bad out of 600, I'm not complaining, I just can't give it a perfect score. Although, it probably should have been a 4.8 on a 5.0 scale.
Bottom line, you will not be disappointed with this coffee make. If mine broke today, I would order the same one -- today.
Customer Review: Makes Weak Coffee, Not Espresso
Summary: 1 Stars
In this review of the Platinum B70, I am not trying to make fun of people who like weak coffee. My mother likes weak coffee, and so do most of her friends. If you like weak coffee, this unit might be for you. If not, read further to see why this unit is NOT for you.
Yes it looks like a BREWING MONSTER, but its not. The regular K-cups make weakly brewed "camp coffee" or after-mass old-lady coffee. Even the Extra Bold K-cups do NOT produce strong coffee. Yes, they're strongly flavored (Toffee, Vanilla, ect..). Yes, they're extra burnt tasting (the roasting process taken too far). Yes, they're extra bitter tasting (Old coffee, burnt beans and chemically processed beans), but they are not even close to pleasingly strong tasting coffee or espresso (an approiate volumne of mild, medium, or boldly roasted fresh grounds in the K-cups and adaquiate hot water for coffee or adaquiate steam for espresso to extract the flavor from the grounds, both of which depend on the right tempature).
It was exciting to get the B70; because, preivously, I had used one of Keurig's actual Espresso Machines. Wow, the Espresso Machine I used made awesome, strong tasting espresso and pleasent coffee that was not bitter at all. Sorry, I do not remember the unit's number. It also produced a Caffine induced JOLT when desired.
However, the first use of the Keurig B70 Platinum, was truely perplexing. It seemed to make the weak tasting coffee that the old ladys at my mom's church like, and even this was a little on the bitter side for my taste. I took out all of the sample k-cups from a sample pack I picked up and began to brew them to find the one that I would like. After the first few, I realized that I was aiming too high. I needed to find one that would be acceptable. In all honesty, I could not.
Many had a decent, weak flavor in the onset, but a bitter aftertaste soon followed. More importantly, many gave me the heartburn that chemically processed beans often produce. I was about to take the B70 back, but first I wanted to make sure that this machine was not defective.
I called Keurig to inquire about the B70. They asked me if I had used their, "brew your own" Filter kit. I had not. The explained that it was essentually a filter the size of a K-cup that is placed in a grey plastic canster like the black one in the machine that you put the K-cup into. They said that this kit would allows people to use their favorite coffee beans and fill the filter cup to the volume necessary to brew the strength they desired.
Wow, the Filter kit sounded great in theory, but later in practice, there were a few problems. First, I like Espresso, so I really need stronger steam-extraction, not hot water brewing. Second, when I tried this method, it took a lot of coffee grounds to make the right flavor, which will get expensive compared to other machines made to make true espresso and strong coffee.
Thirdly, the filter kit is plastic and plastic takes on the flavor of oils. So after several brews, the oils from the grounds made the filter smell like mildewy coffee. This inturn made my coffee taste like mildewey coffee, like you get when you go to a bad espresso joint that does not clean their espresso machine often enough (yes I cleaned it after every use and even brewed vinegar with the filters in the machine). Finally, filling the grounds to the top of the filter creates to much pressure. The pressure involved hurt the b70 machine, so it began to fail. I have a friend who owns one of the other b60 or b40 machines and they had the same problem (wish I had talked with them first). Anyways, I sent it back in time to get a refund and now I am looking for a better machine.
If you like weaker coffee (again, not trying to make fun of people who do) and you like consistancy, this unit is for you. I only gave it a 1 star cause it provides K-cups labeled as "Espresso" and this machine does not make espresso. Espresso is made from steam, not hot water. Further, it does not even brew strong coffee that is not bitter unless you use the filter kit that is a seperate purchase and even this option eventually fails to make coffee that is not bitter due to the filter being made of plastic. Furthermore, using the filter kit and filling it all the way caused the machine to break prematurely.