If you follow me anywhere on social media you are probably well aware of my coffee obsession.  If Starbucks had a ‘Platinum Member’ status, I would qualify.
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I drink so much coffee, I have not one, but TWO recent projects that involve my multitude of leftover K-cups.

Because of this (probably unhealthy) obsession with coffee, last year the fine people at Keurig sent me a Keurig2.0 to play with and test out.  The big “claim to fame’ of the 2.0 is that it not only brews single serving K-Cups, but it also brews full pots of coffee.  That is the “2.0” part of this machine.  But this post isn’t really a review of the 2.0.  I don’t love it enough to plug it here. This is more of a ‘hack’ to get around one of the biggest drawbacks this new version has.



Because I already have a plethora of coffee brewing machines, I’m pretty picky about coffee brewers. So when I learned that the 2.0 ONLY ACCEPTS KERUIG 2.0 K-CUPS I was annoyed.

All my previous Keurigs accepted ANY K-cup style pod.  Even non-Keurig brand cups and the refillable K-Cup (which cuts down on all the plastic waste.)  I always loved to buy those huge variety packs of different flavors and types, but this new machine wouldn't accept them.

I also had become slightly obsessed with these Gevalia Lattes and Cappuccinos and when I realized the new Keurig wouldn’t take them, I was not a happy camper. 
I was willing to accept that (I mean, I understand, Keurig wants you to buy THEIR cups) but then one day I tried a “Keurig Compatiable” K-Cup (in this case it was Hazelnut flavored Seatttle’s Best Brand)...
and it didn’t work! It gave me the error message on the 2.0.   I was peeved.  Here I had spent almost $20 on a box of useless K-Cups!
All the information I had read about the 2.0 said that any cups with that white outer ring would work.  But in this case, even THAT wasn’t true.   It was getting to be a total crap shoot.
So that was that!  I was determined to FORCE the machine to accept any K-Cup!

I knew the way the machine worked was a sensor detecting the outer ring on the lid of the K-Cups, so I found a K-Cup that I knew worked and I removed the lid.
(I did this after I had used the cup so I was left with a piece of foil that had a hole in the center and a slit where I peeled it off the cup:
I then laid that right on top of my incompatible KCup and lined up that center hole:

Here is what it looked like right before closing the brewer:  (You really only need to cover the outer edge of the cup, but this works best since it stays in place without sliding off.)
And VOILA!  It is ready to brew my Seattle’s Best KCup! 
Now I just keep that extra foil lid on top of my machine and anytime I get the error message, I just put it over the top of the “bad” KCup and brew away! 
Please keep in mind that this is NOT a Keurig approved way of using your Keurig 2.0 and doing this will probably void the warranty and has the potential to damage your machine.  I am not responsible for any damage resulting from following this tutorial.