To Brew Large Quantities Of Coffee, Turn To Your Slow Cooker

Preparing your morning cup of joe in a Keurig or French press can be an enjoyable ritual, but when you need to make coffee for a crowd, whipping up those individual servings can be a time-consuming pain. What you can turn to, however, is your slow cooker — and yes, it's entirely possible to make big batches of brew this way. All you need are the same ingredients you'd use to make java normally: coffee grounds and water.

While it's difficult to brew hot cups of coffee in a slow cooker, you can easily make cold brew in this device. The Crockpot essentially just acts as a large container, as you won't even need to turn it on to make your java. Follow a recipe for standard cold brew, but multiply the amounts of water and grounds so that your slow cooker is almost completely filled. After letting the mixture sit for up to 48 hours, strain out the grounds using a cheesecloth and transfer the coffee to the fridge to chill. You'll have a ton of refreshing cold brew, whether you're using it for a brunch or just for yourself for the week ahead.

As a typical large slow cooker can hold 6 to 7 quarts, you'll want to adjust your water and coffee quantities accordingly. If you normally use 1 tablespoon of grounds for every cup of water when making cold brew, use 1.5 to 1.75 cups (aka 24 to 28 tablespoons) for the 6 to 7 quarts of water in the slow cooker. Then, place cheesecloth over a strainer to ensure no grounds make it into your cold brew. When the java has chilled, simply pour a cup and add ice, milk, and sugar as desired.

If you prefer hot coffee, you can also make a recipe for flavored lattes in your Crockpot, although it will require you to brew the coffee in a separate device beforehand. But once that's done, you can pour your warm brew into the slow cooker with milk and any other ingredients for flavor — such as pumpkin pie spice, sugar, and pumpkin purée for DIY pumpkin spiced lattes, for example. Then, just set your device to low for a few hours until everything is nice and toasty. 

This method is ideal for holiday parties, Christmas brunch, or just a Sunday morning making breakfast for your whole family. So, whether you want to brew actual java or just make some yummy drink concoctions in your slow cooker, whip out this device the next time you need to make coffee in bulk.