# Alternative uses for your coffee machine



## tommyp215 (Apr 2, 2016)

Whilst i'm sure some of you will see this as sacrilege and wouldn't envisage using you coffee machine for anything other than coffee, I believe these big hunks of hot metal may have some ingenious uses, I'll go first:

1. Cup warmers - Leave a block of cold butter from the fridge on it for 5 minutes perfect if you are baking and need softened butter or just for your toast. You can then make you cake batter and have a fully warmed up coffee machine ready to brew.


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## 4515 (Jan 30, 2013)

Havent tried this personally


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## 9719 (Mar 29, 2015)

Be very careful of ^^^ as illustrated courtesy of grumpydaddy

Forgot to take butter out of fridge yesterday

No problem I thought get a side plate put still wrapped butter on it and place on top of coffee machine

Doing other stuff in mean time and suddenly click 8 hours later that is still there......

Well most of it...... I guess I am stripping the coffee machine tomorrow and putting panels through dish washer while I investigate where else it got to

If it had not been already on I would have put butter in microwave for a few short bursts... I'm sure I used to have more and better connected brain cells than this


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## MSM (Mar 12, 2015)

Not a use I recommend, but it does heat my office quite nicely after a few hours.


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## Talk_Coffee (Sep 2, 2017)

tommyp215 said:


> Whilst i'm sure some of you will see this as sacrilege and wouldn't envisage using you coffee machine for anything other than coffee, I believe these big hunks of hot metal may have some ingenious uses, I'll go first:
> 
> 1. Cup warmers - Leave a block of cold butter from the fridge on it for 5 minutes perfect if you are baking and need softened butter or just for your toast. You can then make you cake batter and have a fully warmed up coffee machine ready to brew.


Butter. Yeah- Love this one. We got a sale of a brand spanker when the butter melted into the pressurestat. Fortunately, only the owners machine caught fire, not the whole house!

3. Instant warm hot cross buns courtesy of the steam wand...


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## ashcroc (Oct 28, 2016)

tommyp215 said:


> Whilst i'm sure some of you will see this as sacrilege and wouldn't envisage using you coffee machine for anything other than coffee, I believe these big hunks of hot metal may have some ingenious uses, I'll go first:
> 
> 1. Cup warmers - Leave a block of cold butter from the fridge on it for 5 minutes perfect if you are baking and need softened butter or just for your toast. You can then make you cake batter and have a fully warmed up coffee machine ready to brew.


Wouldn't that risk butter pouring into your machine if you forget about it? Better just to warm a glass & invert it over the butter for 5 mins.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Doh - thought I had seen a use for the steam wand but they produced pretty crappy scrambled egg. It can be used to preheat a mug - the top of a Sage doesn't get very hot.

We tried using the hot water outlet for tea - it tasted a bit odd, water probably not hot enough so bought hot water dispenser.

John

-


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Amazingly, I simply use my machines for making coffee.....boring I know


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

girls at work use the wand to heat up whatever liquid they need to, lately it was sugar syrup


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## tommyp215 (Apr 2, 2016)

Edit:1. block of butter in a bowl that can contain its liquid volume, if said baker forgets about it.


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## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

ashcroc said:


> Wouldn't that risk butter pouring into your machine if you forget about it? Better just to warm a glass & invert it over the butter for 5 mins.


Honestly, you wouldn't think anyone would be as daft as to do that, would you . . .


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## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

Mirror


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

MildredM said:


> Mirror


that's what spades are for


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Stanic said:


> that's what spades are for


Hahaha did you polish your spade, or get it chromed?! Depending on which side you look into, you'll appear very thin or very fat.

I've never attempted to use my machine or grinder for anything other than coffee (and certainly not grinding star anise!) but as I keep a microfibre cloth over it when not in use, I dare say it would make a pretty good cloth drying device ad it warms up...

_______

Eat, drink and be merry


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## khampal (Feb 6, 2017)

I use my coffee machine for the occasional guilty pleasure that is hot chocolate. For steaming the milk obviously, I haven't tried sticking chocolate in the portafilter yet!


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

hotmetal said:


> Hahaha did you polish your spade, or get it chromed?! Depending on which side you look into, you'll appear very thin or very fat.
> 
> I've never attempted to use my machine or grinder for anything other than coffee (and certainly not grinding star anise!) but as I keep a microfibre cloth over it when not in use, I dare say it would make a pretty good cloth drying device ad it warms up...
> 
> ...


I was referring to this


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## ashcroc (Oct 28, 2016)

MildredM said:


> Honestly, you wouldn't think anyone would be as daft as to do that, would you . . .


Having zoned out & beaten cream into butter before, it's the sort of thing I'd do!


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## ashcroc (Oct 28, 2016)

I may have sterilised the odd knife after dropping it on the floor with the steam wand once or twice.


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

khampal said:


> I use my coffee machine for the occasional guilty pleasure that is hot chocolate. For steaming the milk obviously, I haven't tried sticking chocolate in the portafilter yet!


I lied when I said I'd only ever used my machine to make coffee. (Was thinking about truly left field uses and forgot about choc). Hot choc a la steam wand rules. I have enjoyed a few of those. Not as many as you'd think though, because the machine tends to be only on until mid afternoon and hot choc is usually a bedtime drink here. But oh so smooth and creamy when steamed.

_______

Eat, drink and be merry


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## ashcroc (Oct 28, 2016)

hotmetal said:


> I lied when I said I'd only ever used my machine to make coffee. (Was thinking about truly left field uses and forgot about choc). Hot choc a la steam wand rules. I have enjoyed a few of those. Not as many as you'd think though, because the machine tends to be only on until mid afternoon and hot choc is usually a bedtime drink here. But oh so smooth and creamy when steamed.
> 
> _______
> 
> Eat, drink and be merry


The warmup time for hot choc is alot less than for coffee as the group temp don't matter.


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

Lead me not into temptation ?

I wonder what grind and extraction rate would be needed?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Organic-Raw-Cacao-Nibs-Certified-Organic/262967169784?var=561975769369&hash=item3d3a1092f8:m:mhHS_4y6SWlXDTmt9DtxCwA

Joking aside, after coarse grinding with an Aldi blade grinder, they extract well into.....

95% proof spirit, to make a liqueur.

Available in all good East European shops in your town!


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

DavecUK said:


> Amazingly, I simply use my machines for making coffee.....boring I know


...And hot chocolate for the nibblets.


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## pgarrish (May 20, 2017)

They forgot the butter in the eggs  you need butter in scrambled eggs


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

^^ +1


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## J_Fo (Dec 24, 2017)

ashcroc said:


> The warmup time for hot choc is alot less than for coffee as the group temp don't matter.


When you make hot chocolate do you just heat the milk then add the chocolate or heat milk and chocolate that's already mixed...?


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## ashcroc (Oct 28, 2016)

Jon_Foster said:


> When you make hot chocolate do you just heat the milk then add the chocolate or heat milk and chocolate that's already mixed...?


Usually just the milk then add the choc. Done it the other way before but couldn't get as thick & cleanup a bit harder.


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## khampal (Feb 6, 2017)

Jon_Foster said:


> When you make hot chocolate do you just heat the milk then add the chocolate or heat milk and chocolate that's already mixed...?


I usually mix the hot chocolate with some hot water to make something like a concentrated syrup, then add milk. Good for latte art practice too.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

I use mine to make a nice cup of tea. The water is filtered and instantly hot.

I put the steam wand vertically in a milk pitcher, wrap a facecloth round the top to seal it and let it rip. It sterilises the pitcher after I've rinsed it out (dries in no time as the steam is 132 degrees) and also the facecloth is nice and hot for wrapping round my chops if I have a shave (I use traditional razors, straight and DE)

I also steam milk to pour on my Weetabix (if I have them).


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## martinierius (Sep 28, 2014)

I use the streamwand to remove labels or stamps.

And maybe someone else mentioned this before but whenever I need to boil potato's, rice, ... I fill the cooking pot from my machine's boiler. That way the boiler water is refreshed regularly.


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## Mmiah (Feb 13, 2015)

when i make hot choc for the kids in the house i always add the choc to the milk and steam it together

once done i run the pump until boiling water comes out the wand onto a cloth to wash out any choc mix from the wand and then use the boiling damp cloth to clean the wand


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## khampal (Feb 6, 2017)

Rhys said:


> I also steam milk to pour on my Weetabix (if I have them).


Thank you for this idea! I've now started doing this myself, works very well!


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## PaulL (May 5, 2014)

For hot chocolate I put a small amount of milk in an espresso cup and steam it until warm so that the chocolate dissolves nicely, then top up with cold milk from jug and go backwards and forwards 3 or 4 times so it's nicely combined, cold and ready to steam the whole mix. With children I usually give them the espresso cup and saucer and jug, they feel grown up pouring their own, they only risk spilling a small amount at a time, girls in particular love that tea party thing. A mate called round to collect something one day and had one of his small daughters with him, the shy one he told me. Sitting at the breakfast bar with her little cup and jug she quickly felt grown up and was chatting away, much to his surprise.

I generally keep 3 or 4 different types of chocolate around because us adults tend to like something deeper in taste than the kids who normally seem to prefer the sugar hit of Cadburys.

I typically found the top tray good for bread warming/rising with a damp tea towel on top although less well insulated machines I had in the past are better at this!


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## richwade80 (Aug 25, 2017)

I will now only drink tea using the coffee machine hot water. The bottled water has made so much difference I can't use tap water at all anymore.

I didn't really think about this perk when I bought it, so it was quite welcome. Sometimes coffee just doesn't go - as in with my eggs and soldiers.


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## richwade80 (Aug 25, 2017)

For the hot chocolate record, I make a paste in the pitcher using a small amount of cold milk first.

I gradually add small amounts of milk until I get to a honey like consistency. It doesn't work if you have too much milk from the start, as it will split.

From there I chug in some more milk and steam that bad boy.

Simples.


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## Obnic (Jan 14, 2014)

Haven't done it for a while but I melt real chocolate using hot water and a small amount of steamed milk until I have a consistency akin to gloopy espresso, I then pour steamed microfoam to make chocolate latte art. And, there's not much chance of me doing it anytime soon given how the kids are behaving at the moment! I'm thinking boarding school!


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

my ratio is 20g of chocolate to 200 ml milk, first froth till 50°C, then put the choc in, whisk well until mostly melted and roll it a tiny bit more with the wand


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