Douwe Egbert Coffee Maker Hack

Work perk : free coffee! You may have one of these at your dorm as well. The only catch is that it's bad coffee. The Douwe Egbert cafitesse delivers a hot cup at the press of a button by mixing refrigerated coffee concentrate with hot water. It's passable, but I like my coffee a little stronger in the mornings and sometimes an iced coffee in the afternoon. This instructable will show you how to make both of these, plus a passable espresso.

Remove the Housing

Pull straight down on this piece. It is designed to be removed easily for cleaning.

Remove the Mixing Nozzle

Likewise, this nozzle pops right off for cleaning. It is here that the hot water is mixed with the cold coffee syrup.

Watch What You're Doing

The larger hole is where the syrup comes out. The smaller hole supplies the hot water. Now would be an excellent time to clean up the sludge and scale that collects here. Your coworkers will thank you.

Un-Combine Your Ingredients

This is the tricky part. Using two of the smallest diameter cups you can find, place them under the liquid outlets. The coffee doesn't come straight out on ours, so that receiving cup gets positioned slightly over the water cup.
Press the coffee button on the front of the machine until your water mug is full. Watch carefully so you don't overflow and burn yourself.
Congratulations! You've extracted one shot of your base ingredient. If you just want a stronger cup of coffee, reassemble your coffee maker and add the stock coffee solution to your extract. Read on for other options.

Espresso?

This is the easiest. Just add a little hot water from the side spigot. It doesn't take much. Fix it up to your personal taste.

Iced Coffee?

My old method was to dispense some coffee and put it in the freezer, but that takes forethought as it takes time to cool off the hot coffee. Adding ice makes it much to watery.

But now that we've figured out to get our extract, that's not a problem.
My personal recipe depends on what I can scavenge that day. Most days it's what lies in the condiment basket. Double shot of coffee concentrate, two sugars, two creamers, a little ice and some cold water will do it. There's usually some cinnamon in the cupboard and, if I'm lucky, someone will have donated some hot chocolate mix.

But today we've hit the motherload! We have a plethora of options available to us today. Chocolate milk for a mocha option, if that's your thing. Boba Fett seems to be the new poster boy for italian sweet cream flavored coffee creamer. Usually there's some hazelnut in here that adds a good flavor. Today we have a special treat of Rediwhip to top off our concoction. Go nuts!

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you've discovered a few new options to help liven up a dull coffee routine. Please vote.