thm Senior Member Joined: 18 Jul 2003 Posts: 1 Location: Washington, DC Expertise: Advanced
Posted Fri Jul 18, 2003, 2:35pm Subject: coffee for a crowd?
I've got a great caterer for my wedding reception--interesting menu, good references, etc. The only problem is the coffee. Its a dinner reception, and we will (of course) serve coffee (and tea) with cake after dinner. But the caterer's standard coffee maker is one of those huge percolator coffee urns from the party rental places, and I want to serve decent, non-percolated coffee!
So I ask: what sort of machine should I look to rent to make coffee for about 100 people (not all of whom will drink coffee--but then again, if it's *good* coffee, maybe they will!)?
(The wedding's in Dallas, if anyone knows a specific rental outfit.)
ljguitar Senior Member Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 2,450 Location: Cheyenne Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Expobar Pulsar Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly, Solis Drip: Bunn Roaster: iRoast2
Posted Fri Jul 18, 2003, 4:22pm Subject: Re: coffee for a crowd?
thm Said:
--- the caterer's standard coffee maker is one of those huge percolator coffee urns from the party rental places, and I want to serve decent, non-percolated coffee! --- So I ask: what sort of machine should I look to rent to make coffee for about 100 people...
Hi Tom... We serve coffee at quite a few large gatherings, and use Bunn commercial pourover units. They use 3/4 cup grounds per half gallon of coffee we produce. Bunn makers, by design, pre-heat about two pots of heated water in their reservoir, and once heated (10 minutes) produce a half gallon of coffee every 4-5 minutes.
A pourover version of their resturant maker (two or three hot plates) should allow you to make enough coffee to serve people, unless you plan to make it all fresh on the fly. Then you need two units and separate electrical circuits to not blow breakers.
The water heater in them heats water fast enough that you can pull a lot of pots in a row before resting a unit for 5 minutes to catch up.
We use 3 gallon stainless steel insulated serving containers to put coffee in (people can dispense their own, or a server can dispense from them). They will keep coffee hot for hours!! If I were making for 100 people at a wedding (steady line), I'd have at least one of these full for the first run, and then man the pots for fresh when the 3 gallons was gone.
For quantity, do the math...8 or 12 ounce cups and 128 ounces of fluid per gallon.
I'd personally rent one unit and a stainless insulated serving container or two.
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