The Real Reason You Shouldn't Use Distilled Water In Your Keurig

As wonderful as a fancy espresso machine can be, it can be tiresome to jump through all the hoops to make a perfect cup of coffee. The grinding and the brushing and the tamping can be a bit much in the early hours of the morning before any caffeine is had.

Keurig machines have their own series of drawbacks (depending on the model, they can be pricey, and there have been concerns about the environmental impact associated with using Keurig cups, according to Story of Stuff). However, they certainly have one thing going for them — they're super convenient.

Since coffee is some 98 percent water, the water quality will affect the taste of your cup of coffee as well as how your machine operates over the long run (via Another Cuppa Joe). If you use hard water that comes out of your kitchen tap, for example, which is often packed with a number of minerals like calcium, it can build up in your machine, requiring a decalcifying method such as vinegar or lemon juice to break up the white buildup in the machine (via The Kitchn).

Given that minerals in the tap water can cause problems for the machine, it might stand to reason that the best option for a Keurig is distilled water, which has had any impurities and minerals removed (via Healthline). However, this isn't the answer either, as most Keurig machines are built with sensors that are meant to detect the mineral content in water. If there's no mineral content, as is the case with distilled water, you'll get an error message.

Instead of distilled water, you can try using bottled filtered water, although it can get pricey and produce quite a lot of plastic as well. Instead, you can try filtering your tap water through a home filter, such as a Brita filter. You can also purchase carbon filters that live in the water reservoir of the machine. Even if you are using another method to filter your water, you might consider using the Keurig branded carbon filters just as a backup since it can't hurt to filter twice.