Understanding Keurig K-Elite High Altitude Mode – What It Is and When To Use It

High altitude brewing, or what some call ‘mountain brewing’ or even ‘high altitude coffee’ is a setting in some coffee makers, including K-Elite, that is especially designed for high altitude cities and places.

What Keurig’s High Altitude Setting Does

k elite high altitude

This setting has to do with the temperature at which your machine will brew the coffee. In places higher than 5,000 feet, the point at which water boils changes. While a Keurig will brew at 192F when at sea level, high altitude mode boils water at 182F. This optimizes your machine to work properly and deliver a better tasting coffee without issues.

The science behind this is that water boils faster in low pressure places. Using the high altitude setting on your Keurig helps it work correctly in elevated towns and extract coffee at a temperature that won’t spoil it or even evaporate it!

Examples of High Elevation Cities (in the United States) That Can Utilize This Feature

There are so many cities in different states that vary in elevation from 5,000 and up to 10,000 feet. Places like Denver, Colorado – Albuquerque, New Mexico and many more.

How High Altitude Setting is Activated on the Keurig K-Elite

Thanks to K-Elite’s display, it’s a straight forward process. Press the settings button, and keep pressing to circulate through the settings. You’ll come across a triangle symbol (Mountain) with the word ON next to it. Using the arrows, you can toggle between On or Off. Make sure it’s set to ON and press the Settings button again to select.

To ensure that the setting is on, you’ll see the Mountain symbol displayed next to the clock on the main display.

To turn it off, follow the same settings and select OFF. The Mountain symbol should disappear from the main display.

One More Thing To Do When You’re in High Altitude…

Keurig users in high altitude cities need to do one more thing to make sure their coffee (or any K-Cup pod) is brewed correctly.

Keurig advises that you actually manually puncture the bottom of your K-Cup pod before closing the lid. To do that, place your K-Cup as usual, but press it down with your hand to puncture the bottom – you should hear it pop. Now you can close the lid and the machine should puncture the top lid on its own.

This has to be done because at higher altitude, sometimes pod inflate more than it should due to difference in pressure.

Important Note

K-Elite has a nice feature that allows you to change the brew temperature settings. When using high altitude setting, this feature will no longer be accessible because the machine will have to operate at a preset temperature made for high altitudes.