How Many Cups in a Gallon?

Count drinks before you count gallons

Guests are the wrong unit for planning a punch bowl. Drinks are the right one: twenty people having two 6 fl oz cups each comes to 40 punch cups, or 240 fl oz, which is just under 2 gallons. Make the 2 gallons, because running out at nine o'clock is a worse problem than a pitcher of leftover iced tea.

One gallon divides up as 16 servings at 8 fl oz, 21 punch cups at 6 fl oz with 2 fl oz left in the ladle, or 10 tall glasses at 12 fl oz. Those counts assume a glass full of drink. Ice takes up space, so a poured glass holds less liquid than its size suggests, and that works in your favor.

A gallon of iced tea from a half-gallon pot

Split it. Brew half a gallon, which is 8 cups, at double the strength the tea package calls for, then add 8 cups of cold water when it's time to serve. You land on 16 cups at normal strength with a pot half the size. That's the route I'd take even with a large pot in the cupboard, because cold water is already at the temperature you want and a gallon of hot tea is a heavy, slow thing to chill.

Punch works best when you write it as parts that add up to 16 cups. Say 8 cups of tea, 4 of juice and 4 of sparkling water makes a gallon, and doubling it is just doubling three numbers. For a smaller bowl, run the parts through the kitchen conversion calculator and read them back in quarts. I'd hold back the sparkling water until the last minute, since there's little point in buying bubbles and then letting them sit in a bowl for an hour.

Two 2-liter bottles, with a little to spare

Each 2-liter bottle is about 8.45 cups, so a pair comes to 16.91 cups, just under a cup more than a gallon. For a punch where soda is a major ingredient, I'd buy by the bottle and let that small surplus ride along.

Filling a stockpot or a brine bucket

Sixteen trips to the sink per gallon is no way to fill a pot. Four pours of a quart measure make a gallon, and a 2-quart pitcher does it in two; see how many cups are in a quart if you're splitting the difference. Ask the converter above for 2 gallons and it comes to the same conclusion: no more counting scoops, just 8 quarts in a large liquid measure.

Brine has one extra wrinkle: the food goes in too, and the liquid rises when it does. So a container that holds exactly one gallon can't hold a gallon of brine plus a bird. Before you mix anything, put the food in the empty container, cover it with plain water, then lift the food out and measure that water. Wash the container and your hands well afterward, since raw poultry has just been sitting in it. Now you know the real amount, and the brine calculator can work out the salt by weight for it. I'd take that step over a recipe's round number any day, because a brine that doesn't cover the food isn't doing its job.