To me, the Moka pot is always a funny (and reliable) example of design and the many ways people make their own interpretations of it. Ask any friend to describe how, exactly, they make coffee with it. There should only be one way, and everyone is sure that their way is the correct one. Yet, there are so many variations of this, it's crazy. From grind size (more coarse than espresso, less than filter), to grams and fill-level (brush off, or exact measure?), to those still convinced it needs tamping (it does not!). Then temperature (as hot as, gas stove burn-it-with-fire, or slow-build) and even lid philosophy (open while it heats, open after it has started bubbling) — and when to close it off, after the first bubbles, once it's been bubbling, until the water is gone, etc. Also, what beans and roast profile? Espresso? Crema? Filter?
Nuances, sure, but every single time I ask someone about their Moka pot, they have a slightly different way of using it than I have.
Case in point: I fill water up to just touching/under the valve, then use a medium-coarse grind with dark espresso beans, with enough coffee to fill the basket level, no tamping brushing off or touching. Then heat it hard on gas if available, leave the lid closed while it builds up but open immediately with the first bubble and put it off the heat. Let it continue for another half minute and then pour. And you?
Most likely you've seen this, but it should be mentioned James Hoffman has spend some time experimenting with the Moka pot and has published his preferred technique on youtube [1]
There's also a fantastic Youtube video in a neutron beam facility of a Moka pot, in which you can see the full process of brewing. The water and plastic handle appear 'black' as hydrogen scatters neutrons so strongly.
Wow, it's really a shame about the new Bialetti pots. I've recently gotten one off Amazon and now I'm not sure if I should instead hunt for a used old model.
I really like that video. However, I think this could have been done with X-rays by adding heavy salts (ex. sodium metatungstate or vastly more hazardous thallium salts) to the water or using a heavy organic liquid (ex. diiodomethane).
However, if you have a neutron imaging beamline you probably are motivated to make a cool demo.
I would not put too much stock into James Hoffman's confident assertions. He claims to be able to taste difference between different coffee grinders - but doesn't do it in a blind test.
Just tried out his suggestions combined with some of the comments there (what I tried: put boiling water in the moka to start, pre-heat my electric stove while preparing the moka, use a full but not overly full basket, and avoid sputtering by actively controlling the applied heat with the lid open and taking the moka off the heat the moment sputtering starts) and my impression was that it makes a noticeable difference. Specifically, I had always just accepted that moka coffee is fast and easy but bitter, and this was much less bitter: I preferred it and I think I'll keep these changes.
One thing to add: If you want to think even less in the morning. Just weigh the beans and water with a kitchen scale. 18 gr of beans, 160gr of (boiling) water (basically a 1:9 ratio regarding on the size of your basket).
The CT scan page https://www.scanofthemonth.com/scans/coffee mentions that detail too: Take it off the heat before the volcanic sputtering phase at the end; this only adds bitterness to your coffee..
Maybe that's exactly what you noticed. I cannot think how starting from already hot water vs. letting the water warm up and boil from the stove, could make any noticeable difference.
I also think there might be more of a heat gradient in the moka itself, i.e. the upper compartment including the vertical tube might end up with a lower temperature throughout the process.
Many people, including myself can taste day and night difference from result of different grinders. You can easily verify this by variance of particle distribution of different grinders.
The difference between quality grinders is super easy to replicate. Buy some freshly roasted beans from a specialty coffee roaster, then have the shop ground half and grind the other half at home on your home grinder of choice.
High-end (specialty coffee standard) commercial grinders produce a tighter variance amongst the ground coffee particles which leads to a way more even extraction, i.e. a more pleasant and balanced taste in the cup. Perhaps the most common model is the Mahlkonig EK43S, which is a ~$3,000 grinder.
Home grinders are far cheaper, in the range of ~$75–300 or so for popular ones, and tend to produce a broader variance of particle sizes which leads to big particles ("boulders") getting overextracted, thus imparting bitter flavors; and small particles ("fines") getting underextracted, thus imparting sour flavors. The higher quality and lighter roast your coffee is, the more noticeable the impact of the grinder is.
You don't have to take James Hoffmann's word for it at all, this is standard issue coffee grinder theory 101, which any specialty coffee professional would agree with. It's also easily testable at home, even if you haven't experiencend it in an experiment context. I took a short class on the theory of coffee once and the major experiments were comparing the same beans ground across different grinders (and then with or without use of a coffee sieve for further refinement) and the same beans across different brewing methods and techniques. The particle size distribution from the grinder is one of the most important variables in the whole process.
Italian households throw the thing on the stove without such meticulous (and time expensive) ceremony every morning, so this falls under the classic “American can’t cook” gag
I don’t even know if the guy is American, just anecdata from my Facebook feed
He's English, not American, and became a coffee influencer like this after winning the World Barista Championship in 2007. This is, in fact, a "world" championship, not like the MLB World Series which is really just American. It's been held in the USA a few times, but also all over Europe, Australia, Japan, and Korea. Making coffee meticulously is hardly something specific to Americans or even typical of Americans. It's very weird you would even have this stereotype when the very word "barista" is Italian, the WBC itself started in Norway, and Europe in general is usually far more associated with fine cuisine and caring about craftmanship in food and drink than the US, which is associated with hot dogs, light beer, and deep frying everything in butter.
in English, we have a suffix -ist for a person who does something: machinist, pianist, flautist. In Italian, they instead use the suffixes -isto or -ista to mean the same thing (which suggests English got "ist" from Norman French)
what does this particular -ista do? stands at a bar, that's why they are bar-isti. What's a bar, in Italy? well, "bar" not an Italian word, they borrowed the word from English.
He is obsessive and meticulous about coffee, that's kind of the whole point of his channel. I came to mostly the same conclusions as him through trial and error while trying to get consistently rich coffee with it. It's actually quite easy to end up with something that tastes burnt, obscenely bitter, or metallic. It tastes delicious when you get it just right, but it can end up tasting considerably worse than good old set it & forget it drip coffee if you are careless/clueless.
Kind of weird this became a meme, since Italians are stereotypically supposed to really care about good coffee. My best guess is that for many households, the Bialetti is their version of Mr Coffee that they fire up in the morning to get out of the house before work and don't have the time or inclination to care about how it tastes. If they want something fancy and delicious that's what the 50 cafes within walking distance are for. That or their following a sub-optimal family tradition for how to brew with it.
Anyway, I only watched the video once but from what I recall the only thing that seemed especially over the top was the trivet to buffer the heat of the stove.
That is way more than I'll ever do. I just use regular fresh ground coffee, some water, half and half, a teaspoon of sugar and you're good. He's right about lowering the heat though, but you can get 90% the same result with just fresh ground coffee and low heat, you don't need a ton of gadgets. I prefer the stainless steel pot to avoid aluminum leeching.
A key quality of life improvement for me was to realise that you can eject the grounds from the filter funnel by putting the tube to your lips and blowing gently, ejecting the coffee puck into the food waste / compost bin. The Moka pot then becomes an almost zero-cleanup way of making coffee.
You need to do this after the pot has cooled enough that the aluminium won't burn your lips, but soon enough that the coffee grounds haven't continued to swell and wedge themselves in place.
This works similarly well with the Flair brand espresso maker filter cup -- though suggested nowhere in Flair's written or video instructions. Too undignified an act I suppose for prospective customers to imagine themselves performing every morning in future.
I've tapped to eject the spent puck for many years and it is not a problem. Maybe if you were aggressively whacking it against something much harder than the metal funnel it might become an issue, but against a hand or some soft plastic it's not an issue at all; there's been no change to the seal or shape.
I've seen that happen, but every time there was some other obstruction in addition to the coffee: popsicle sticks, silverware, pencils, etc. Usually something too long to make it around the trap. Those things will eventually glob up with hair or worse and clog the drain anyway.
In my experience if you wash grounds down the drain with plenty of water there's never any problem.
Another common myth among moka machine coffe drinker is that ground coffee is somehow "good" for your drains. I believed it naively until my landlord came and unclogged a ground coffee-filled drain.
We have the same process but I add a bit more coffee so that there's a little "mound" in the middle, heat it low&slow and after the coffee starts to come out I'll sometimes pour my cup when it's about 3/4 done[0]. But you're right everyone has their own little process, I guess that's the beauty of having something a bit more flexible than "push button, receive nespresso"
[0] - The "tails" (to borrow distilling terminology) can be a little bit watery - if you do this and put it back on the hob for a few minutes you'll see that the rest of the coffee is noticeably more translucent.
> There should only be one way, and everyone is sure that their way is the correct one
I'm 100% sure the way I do it is correct, and that this is the only correct way to do it: put water in the bottom, coffee grounds in the filter, close the whole thing, put it on the stove top, wait for it to brew.
The rest is details, even if we can obviously optimise the shit out of those details.
This was my take on the description you're replying to as well. I couldn't help but think "There should only be one way to pour water into a glass...Some people keep the glass level while pouring, some tilt at a slight angle; some use a faucet, others a pitcher..." etc.
Another comparison: the details of every other coffee brewing device.
More interestingly the optimum for the rest of the details is probably quite different from person to person. It's unlikely we like exactly the same coffee so even if we optimise very aggressively we'll probably end up at different optima.
When I first started brewing French press, a (somewhat coffee snobbish) friend of mine told me that he brews his French press for exactly 4 minutes and 10 seconds. He insisted the extra 10 seconds are very important.
Coffee snob + French press is a humorous mix to me. I don't mind using one from time to time, but the poor filtration and rapidly dropping brew temperature are obvious drawbacks, and it is certainly not a fine coffee experience.
Also, the timing of the temperature: I've heard of good results if you start heating the water before assembling the unit, so you don't apply as much direct pressure to the grinds.
"It depends". Someone who prefers a slightly bitter coffee might enjoy slight tamping that slows the rate the water passes through the grounds and creates bitterness.
But your point is accurate: everyone has a slightly different way. I'd argue irrespective of the exact variation, the Moka Pot outperforms most other mechanisms for making coffee (other than cafe espresso machine).
Funnily, if you'd asked me at 6-monthly intervals for the ideal way to use a Moka Pot, I'd have given slightly different answers (i.e. each time I would have thought I'd mastered the technique, but by doing little experiments, and sometimes accidentally, I'd found slight improvements over the years).
Coffee nerd tip: if you want more bitterness, you're probably better off using less coffee for the same amount of water ("weakening" it a bit).
If you tamp it, there's a greater chance that the water breaks an easier path through the coffee and doesn't flow evenly through all of it, which tastes worse.
> But your point is accurate: everyone has a slightly different way. I'd argue irrespective of the exact variation, the Moka Pot outperforms most other mechanisms for making coffee (other than cafe espresso machine).
I'd expect it depends on your coffee preference. I haven't ventured into the home espresso side yet, but regularly use pretty much everything else: SCA-approved drip machine, AeroPress, cold brew, french press and pourover. Of those, my favourite results have been pourovers with light roasts (bean-dependent, of course) - isn't a Moka Pot going to give you notably different flavour profiles?
I find that the Moka Pot makes insufferably bitter coffee, regardless of the recipe. I have two and I tried everything to make it work, but the result is revolting.
This happened to be when I started out because the grounds I used were too fine. Try a more coarsely ground coffee; it will allow the water to pass through faster and will be less bitter.
All of those variables they described are a contention point in other coffee-making methods like espresso as well.
And many of those options are "correct", but depend on your preference - do you like more concentrated coffee? Do you like it less bitter? Do you want more caffeine? Etc.
Fun fact about getting rid of bitter taste in coffee is a tiny bit of salt, a cracker or anything salty, it basically prevent the tongue from tasting bitterness:"Adding it to coffee can actually cut some of the bitterness. In fact, salting coffee is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years in countries like Turkey, Hungary, and Siberia, and more recently, it has become popular in Vietnam, where coffee is combined with whipped salted cream or milk. "
I prefer cold brewing coffee to get rid of bitter taste.
On another note, I have recently won a bet with someone who would not believe that the Moka Coffee Named after the Yemeni city of Mocha, with ch similar to German, unpalatalised ch.
Yeah we all have our ways. To me it makes coffee that is too strong (even though I kinda obsess over how I use my moka pot). And I'm lazy, so although I'm a huge coffee drinker and although I appreciate good coffee, I don't bother anymore...
I bought a full automated coffee machine. I pour grain in it and coffee comes out. It's way better than Nespresso capsules or "Senseo" etc.
Pro tip for for the rich and lazy people who want good coffee: just buy a JURA full auto coffee machine (it's a brand from Switzerland) and call it a day. They're pricey but they do the job very well.
For me it's cold water up to the valve, coffee up to the brim, no tamping, maximum power on induction stove and I turn it off as soon as it starts gurgling. I know some people say you should put hot water in it so it doesn't cook the coffee as long but on induction it boils in seconds anyway.
I used to have the classic aluminium one because I prefer the geometric shape but I switched to stainless steel when I got induction and it seems higher quality in general.
I enjoy the ritual personally, it's my favorite way to make coffee.
I recently switched to induction and got an all steel Alessi 9090, where the top clamps on instead of screwing like most moka pots and am loving it.
You can put it on quickly with one hand with a satisfying click, always perfectly sealed with no need to judge whether over or under tightening. I think the gasket will last longer too, because it doesn't get stray grounds twisted into it while screwing.
The one handed operation also makes it much easier if you do want to preheat or start with hot water in the base.
I know some people say you should put hot water in it so it doesn't cook the coffee as long but on induction it boils in seconds anyway
I do the “Moka pot voodoo” technique [1] where you set the base on the stove and get it boiling first, then drop in the basket and screw on the lid, using a towel to protect my hand while holding the hot base. After that it’s a matter of moving the entire thing on and off the heat to carefully regulate the water temperature so that coffee only trickles out with no gushing. It makes wonderful coffee!
i think the problem is mostly in the relatively thin sheet of steel that isnt able to absorb and distribute to the water that much power in small amount of time. I prefer to go gradually, but to each one his own i guess
This is the thing that pisses me off a bit. You go to Italy, get a coffee from a Moka, it's going to taste dark, very roasted, bitter.
Then you have people that try to push their ideal coffee ideas to people saying that Italians don't know how to make coffee. If that's the case, then isn't it an extreme coincidence that the Bialetti was an Italian product???
I've seen tons of videos and comments about making the perfect coffee with a Moka, and most of them (save for James Hoffmann, where he says you should play around and find which parameters will make the coffee good for you), they try to push this stupid idea that "oh, if your coffee is bitter it's trash". Don't they understand that people have different tastes? For example, US coffee is terrible and tastes just like a very watered down coffee.
I've grown up drinking dark roasted coffee that have an intense flavor (not as intense as the Portuguese one, as that's literally a very black coffee). Anything not in this range tastes bad to me. I have a Moka at home and the thing that annoyed me a bit when I started brewing my coffee is that it had a reminiscent bitter taste that I definitely don't remember dripped coffee or espresso coffee having it. Since then, I watched James' video and decided to give a try to his techniques and some of them actually helped remove this strong, bitter flavor at the end.
Just to make sure people understand, it's not the bitterness of the coffee itself, but it's a bitterness that feels like it's artificial, when you "burn" the coffee in the Moka.
Another thing I strongly disagree with so-called coffee connoisseurs is that they say that Bialetti's claim that the Moka shouldn't be cleaned is a myth. This is like saying you shouldn't listen to your car's manufacturer to go to the mechanic every X thousand kilometers, but should rather go earlier, because, sure, a random dude on the internet knows more than the engineer who designed the car.
FWIW, Bialetti says you Moka pot shouldn't be cleaned with anything else other than running water, if you need to remove limestone you can use vinegar or another product, but then you have to brew 3 coffees before the Moka is ready for daily use again.
I was always ad hoc with my Moka pot. Just up to the valve with water and fill the basket with grounds. If I'm using a Moka pot, I'm okay with a range of strong flavor. Since getting an espresso machine, I don't use it very much anymore. These days, I'm mostly using a Technivorm Moccamaster in the morning and a Gaggia Classic Pro for espresso drinks. A v60 is a love of mine as well when I get some new, fresh beans.
The exact same process right up to the last step. I don't leave it for 30 seconds I dump the coffee straight into a mug. I believe the bitter tastes come through at the first bubble.
Based on your technique of pouring straight into the cup, I wonder if that's the reasoning behind the "coffee fountain" kind of moka pots [1] (apart from convenience).
This instagram account has a nice collection of different ones [2].
I think what you're pointing out is often an indicator of good design. In terms of robustness but also the variation in interaction and use the design facilitates.
Should there? I imagine different people have different characteristics they prefer in their coffee, so different methods of using the pot would be expected and proper.
> Also, what beans and roast profile? Espresso? Crema? Filter?
For what it's worth, and I know I'm playing right into the funny part here, every time I talked to people who deal with coffee for a living - roasters, baristas, growers, coffee shop owners - they all said the same thing for this - espresso. They said filter is wasted here as it's intended for a different method entirely, while crema wasn't ever mentioned.
I put water in. Sometimes I’m below the valve sometimes not.
Put pre ground coffee in. Sometimes I fill it all the way. Sometimes I leave a little room. Whatever.
Blast it with heat until it’s blowing air. Donezo.
I use Lavazza Crema e Gusto. It’s a robusta blend so very forgiving because it’s gonna be a little bit bitter no matter what. I always add some sugar so this isn’t a problem.
Also lol at “dialing in” a moka. Give me a break.
The reason why I use a moka is because I can get a good coffee without fussing.
Nuances, sure, but every single time I ask someone about their Moka pot, they have a slightly different way of using it than I have.
Case in point: I fill water up to just touching/under the valve, then use a medium-coarse grind with dark espresso beans, with enough coffee to fill the basket level, no tamping brushing off or touching. Then heat it hard on gas if available, leave the lid closed while it builds up but open immediately with the first bubble and put it off the heat. Let it continue for another half minute and then pour. And you?