How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn - Tutorial With [Video]

How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn – Tutorial With [Video]

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Last updated on December 8th, 2023 at 11:36

If you bought an urn and want to make a lot more than coffee in it then this article is for you as I talk about how to make hot chocolate in a coffee urn. 

I’ll show you how to do it the easy way, trouble free and what to watch out for! Let’s get right on with making hot chocolate in batches.

How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn – The Instructions

With a coffee urn you can make a lot more than just coffee in it as it is a multipurpose device. You can make hot milk, hot chocolate, tea and other hot water or milk based drinks within reason.

How much you can make will depend on the size of the urn. Each urn comes in various sizes measured in cups with each cup size being commonly defined as a 6 ounce (180 ml) quantity.

Common sizes are: 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 and 200 cup sizes.

Keep that cup size in mind when working out the size of your party or event as if you are serving standard 8 ounce cups, you will find yourself running out quicker and will need to manage appropriately and factor that in.

Note a 30 cup urn at 8 ounces will fill 21-22 cups.

How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn
Make Delicious, Hot Chocolate With Your Urn

Read: 30 cup coffee urn instructions

Making Hot Chocolate In An Urn Step-By-Step Instructions

The means here is not to provide you with a recipe for making chocolate. I’m sure you can find world-class ones on specialist chocolate blogs. Let’s get right to it!

First find a fairly large saucepan and add cocoa, sugar and chocolate chips to the saucepan. With your pot at a medium heat slowly and at a low boil while gently simmering, stir the pot gently and constantly.

Now add the mixture into your urn. Add milk and keep stirring to mix well and combine with the chocolate mix. Keep stirring until your hot chocolate is ready to drink.

Add in cinnamon for extra taste, entirely optional.

Never put in or use marshmallows, no matter how small and how few. This will destroy your urn and do not use the steel rod, remove it from the center. This only serves for making coffee (or tea) and most certainly not hot chocolate.

With the rod in place you will only end up with a messy chocolate fountain in the middle that serves no purpose and makes a mess! Do not use the rod at all.

Immediately as you are finished serving up the hot chocolate, fill your urn with cold water and start cleaning your machine. If you wait, you will be in for one heck of a job scrubbing it. Don’t make your life difficult!

Boil water in it until it is clean. Filling it with water and letting it steep and clean for a few hours. Scrub the hole where the long steel rod goes in the middle.

When you are cleaning, do not forget to clean the spigot and rinse it with boiling water and clean with a pipe cleaner as any dried hardened chocolate will be difficult to remove. This should be your first thing to clean.

Can You Put Milk In A Coffee Urn?

Yes, with a decent sized coffee urn you will have the ability to make approximately 5 gallons (22.7 liters) of hot milk in around half an hour. A coffee urn can be used for making a number of hot drinks and not exclusively for making hot tea and hot coffee. You can make hot milk, and of course hot chocolate.

It might be a good idea for your function to hire extra urns to give your party guests options.

How To Heat Milk In A Coffee Urn

Perhaps making hot milk as well as coffee and hot chocolate is what you want to make. An advantage at large events that you are making coffee, heating milk in your urn gives you plenty of coffee options for making Latte’s and other milk based coffee drinks.

This sounds like a simple task, but do it wrong, and you will end up with hot burnt milk that curdles and is rather smelly!

Fill your coffee urn with the amount of milk that you need. Make sure that you fill it with fresh, refrigerated cold milk while it is switched off.

If your urn has the ability for you to control the heat, use a medium heat setting. If you do not have this facility, be sure to use a thermometer to keep a close eye on the temperature of your milk.

Continuously stir your milk with a big wooden spoon. You must keep stirring, otherwise you will get burnt milk.

Once your milk reaches 160F, you are ready to serve it. If you have a lot of children, you would be better to serve the milk at a cooler temperature of 130F to 140F.

Once the ideal temperature has been reached, put your urn on a warm setting to maintain the heat.

How To Heat Milk In A Coffee Urn
Heating Milk In A Coffee Urn In More Convenient Than A Milk Steamer

Read: How does a coffee urn work 

Can You Use An Urn To Keep Hot Chocolate Warm?

Yes,

use the instructions above to make the hot chocolate and, as you would keep your milk warm or coffee for that matter, keep the plugged in and on a warm setting to maintain the temperature.
Simply keep an eye on the urn and top up with milk, mini chocolate bits and sugar as needed. You can make  this with quality cocoa powder if you want, entirely optional.

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Can You Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Machine?

Yes,

you must be careful of which coffee machine you are using to make hot chocolate with and how you wish to make it.

With an urn and percolator, you can follow the technique above. With other machines, you will need to adjust your technique and method.

Can You Make Hot Chocolate In An Espresso Machine?

Yes,

I have done so many times, countless times. I have seen some websites giving advice of filling the portafilter with good quality cocoa powder.

Please do not do this.

This will make a mess of both your portafilter and the part that it is in contact with where water falls from. Besides a cocoa mixture, the majority of them are water-soluble. To put them in your portafilter is literally pointless and does not make the end drink any better in terms of quality.

I experimented trying it out and ended up with clumps of guey powder very horrible looking and gunge. The end chocolate, due to your machine working with water, will not have that milky taste and texture. It will end up watery.

You have a milk wand, use it to heat your milk and serve cocoa with milk. This is the best way to make hot chocolate with an espresso machine.

Can You Make Hot Chocolate In An Espresso Machine
Don’t Put Cacao In Your Portafilter

Can You Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Maker With Milk?

Yes,

If you want to make hot chocolate in your coffee maker with milk you will need to put some chocolate power in a cup and add 2 ounces (60 ml) of hot water from the coffee machine and mix well. The next step is to steam the milk in your milk pitcher then slowly add it to the molten chocolate powder in a separate cup and stir well.

The result is a delicious milk chocolate drink. Rinse and clean all parts of your machine. Do not leave any milk or powder in your coffee maker.

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Frequently Asked Questions About How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn

Yes, and here is how!

  1. Fill your coffee maker with fresh filtered water to the 4 cup mark maximum.
  2. Using the chocolate brand that you love, open 4 packs of them and put them into your coffee carafe. Alternatively, you can measure 4 heaped tablespoons of chocolate powder and put them into your coffee carafe.
  3. Switch on your coffee maker and wait until it is finished.
  4. Stir your hot water and chocolate powder and mix until it is completely dissolved.
  5. Pour and enjoy. Optional add milk and marshmallows.
Yes, and very easily. Simply follow the instruction in the section above related to making coffee in an urn. A coffee urn is really just an oversized giant coffee percolator. They both function in the same way.
 
Since there is no need to use the basket and the central tube can be awkward to clean with a lot of chocolate getting stuck there, you can consider removing the tube if you want to make hot cocoa with your percolator.
If you want to keep the central rod there, be sure to run a good long almost boiling water cycle to rinse the pipe of any chocolate that may get stuck there.
 
3 long boiling cycles should be fine.
 
Yes, if you want to put hot chocolate in your carafe directly, make sure it has simmered, is well stirred, well mixed and cooled down for about a minute, so it is just below the simmering point and then pour your hot chocolate into your carafe for serving.
You can keep your hot chocolate warm by using a thermos coffee carafe, a crockpot, stainless steel double walled thermos, a pump or gravity powered dispenser or by serving in Styrofoam cups.
But by far, if serving inside or outside is by using a coffee urn to make your hot chocolate. Your urn will heat your chocolate for you and keep it nice and warm.

Can You Heat Milk In A Coffee Urn

Yes, using a coffee urn to heat a large quantity of milk is a very practical and efficient way to heat it. Your coffee urn can heat 3 to 5 gallons (11.35 to 18.92 liters) of hot milk in half an hour. 

Be sure to clean and rinse it out well after you use it to heat milk to prevent the build up of bacteria. 

Can You Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Carafe?

Yes, open a few packets of hot chocolate mix or three or four tablespoons of chocolate powder into your coffee carafe and fill the water reservoir with fresh clean water.

Remove all coffee from the coffee chamber and put your coffee carafe on the hot plate to catch the hot water that falls into it. Stire your hot chocolate liquid well until it is completely dissolved and add more if needed.

Can You Make Hot Chocolate In A Hot Water Urn?

Yes, you can make hot chocolate in a hot water urn and a coffee urn.

Can You Put Hot Chocolate In Reusable Coffee Pods?

Yes, fill your reusable coffee pod with powdered hot chocolate. Fill to the max fill line and gently shake your reusable coffee pod to help it settle down. Add more if you need to or if there is space.

 

FrappĂ©-Ing It All Up – How To Make Hot Chocolate In A Coffee Urn

Now you know how to make hot chocolate in a coffee urn, you can go right ahead and make delicious batches of chocolate, hot milk and coffee. Do not forget to remove the metal rod in the middle and to clean with hot water immediately after you have finished serving hot chocolate.

Did you make hot chocolate in a coffee urn?

Join our active online coffee community on Facebook/Meta where were all things coffee are discussed – Share your own tips about making hot chocolate in an urn.

Last update on 2024-04-16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Derek Marshall, a certified barista by the Specialty Coffee Association possesses over two decades of experience in specialty coffee shops. He holds professional certifications for coffee brewing and barista skills. Derek is also an author with authoritative books covering various coffee topics including specialty coffee, sustainability and coffee, coffee brewing, coffee recipes, coffee cocktails and books focusing on Brazilian coffee, Vietnamese coffee, Indonesian coffee and Malaysian coffee. As a barista for over two decades, Derek Marshall has worked in specialty coffee shops across the United Kingdom, Spain, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. His expertise extends to the distinct coffee cultures, specialty beverages, and brewing techniques of each nation. Functioning as a coffee consultant, Derek charges US$50 per hour. To learn more about Derek Marshall and Latte Love Brew, visit his About Me Page. For coffee inquiries, contact him at +34-639-410-375 or Derek@LatteLoveBrew.com, mentioning your name and location

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