Too Much Coffee

Aadje wrote:well you shouldnt clean a teapot either iirc.

or make coffee in it... a visiting friend was once a little irritated by my reaction to quickly swap the clay tea cup she used for tea when she poured coffee into it... a little obsessive perhaps but coffee flavored 1st flush darjeeling is not quite the best combination i can think of.

i think on home barista i once read that the aluminium moka pots need seasoning for several months. it seems that rancid coffee oils are an integral part of its distinct flavor...

hmm interesting . . . but all italy lives on aluminium moka pots, so something must be good about them

I have a collection of about 25 moka pots, half of which are aluminium. As far as I'm concerned the aluminium ones make just as bad a brew as the stainless ones.

bruceb wrote:I have a collection of about 25 moka pots, half of which are aluminium. As far as I'm concerned the aluminium ones make just as bad a brew as the stainless ones.

..and yet you have a collection of 25....interesting..interesting.....

a collection of 25 from wich 12,5 are aluminium . . . interesting . . . interesting

Aadje wrote:a collection of 25 from wich 12,5 are aluminium . . . interesting . . . interesting

It isn't a joke or a typo. One has an aluminium bottom and a porcelain top. I'll try to find a picture of it.

I used to (more than 10 years ago) believe that what came out of a moka pot was espresso. You could pick up a moka pot for 1 DM at flea markets and I bought whatever I could find. We had lots of room in the house and some were quite decorative.

I have never mastered the skill of making good coffee with one. When I drank "espresso" from them I put a pint of hot milk and 2 Tblsp sugar with it and loved it. I remember asking a fellow if he wanted an "espresso" and gave him about 100 ml of the stuff straight and after trying it he almost emptied the sugar bowl into it. Once I got an espresso machine I have hardly every tried to use one again. Maybe I'll dig out my collection and give it a try sometime.

Jessica and I are using mokapots since 5 years now and really only recently learned to handle them to make a nice cup of coffee. It works, but as with any other method, you need good fresh beans and a good grinder and some time to experiment

We now even get much foam on top of it that looks a bit like crema. For me, the mokapot is a tool to taste new espresso blends - there's no real need to adjust grind and dose, it just seems to work when you nailed it once. And the coffee from it gives a good approximation of what the espresso blend can be like.
And Jessica has no espresso machine, so that (and the aeropress) is the only coffee I can get at her place.

It isn't a joke or a typo. One has an aluminium bottom and a porcelain top. I'll try to find a picture of it.

You got me there . . .

lukas wrote:And Jessica has no espresso machine, so that (and the aeropress) is the only coffee I can get at her place.

Sounds like a good excuse to upgrade! Give her your stuff and get something new shiny and BIGGER for yourself

On the moka pot front, I always found that temperature was the biggest variable (which means having a hob which is easy to control), the greatest risk is burning the coffee, and that has the most effect on the cup itself.

That's what I found too. Using not too much water and not too much ground coffee helps, too. There's not only no need to pack/tamp, you just shouldn't do it to get a nice extraction.

well you shouldnt clean a teapot either iirc.

A teapot without glasing shouldn't be cleaned with detergent, or anything else but water for that matter. (the ones without glasing available locally in Sweden are usually red clay, maybe it is different where you live... say, like Romanian black clay, really cool stuff...) You won't need it anyway, a good rub once in a while... I dunno, every other month or so? usually does it for us, and I have a wife who drinks at least 1 liter a day.
But a white clay or porcelain teapot with glasing... naaah, I clean our white glased clay pot out once in a while, I don't like the "loose skin flakes"-coating that sometimes grows on the inside walls, especially if it comes off into the tea.. bleaaahhhh...

Perhaps espresso should taste like that and we have it wrong with our spangly machines and arty techniques!!!!

So many million Italians can't be wrong - can they?

Ed

Italians tend to use mocha pots at home because they know that when they are out they will have no difficulty finding a good espresso for less than a euro.

Many Italians even make the distinction between an espresso and the "Italian coffee" made in a mocha pot.

As far as cleaning is concerned, if limescale deposits slowly build up in the bottom half it doesn't make any discernable difference to the tast of the coffee, so leave well enough alone. For the top half and the filter a good wash in hot water and a brisk wipe with a clean dishcloth (which will no longer look clean when you have finished) is all that is needed. Many of the stainless pots have a cranny at the bottom of the top chamber where the sides and base meet which is just about impossible to keep free from oils but I suspect that it would be very difficult indeed to taste the difference between spotless and "clean enough".

The most important thing to control is the temperature. Don't be impatient and allow it to brew slowly. Watch it like a hawk and switch the heat off as soon as you hear it start to spit steam.

Whatever you do, don't forget that the bottom is very hot indeed and remains so for a long time! Most Italian kitchens more than a couple of years old have at least one scorched ring shaped mark where someone has forgotten this.

I found moka pot coffee tasted just like strongish filter coffee. Seemed easier to just get the filter out.