If I'm staying in an Airbnb and want to be able to make something like an espresso, are these any good? I'm not really a fan of plunger coffee, which seems like the other travel-friendly non-instant alternative?
With good coffee, (preferably freshly ground, but you do what you have to) and a bit of technique, yeah, they can make quite good coffee. It's stronger than pour over or french press, but still probably only a third to a half as strong as espresso.
I've never had an aeropress so it's hard for me to compare quality etc., but when I've had coffee with friends who use them, the aeropress does seem bit more cumbersome and messy than the mokka pot.
However for people who already like aeropress, they are kind of popular to being for camping/hiking. But sharing coffee with more than one person takes time.
For me, aeropress is much less cumbersome than mokka pot and much easier to clean. Both make good coffee, but since I've found one specific coffee brand that I like (one of the cheaper ones), no other coffee tastes as good for me, but I'll drink anything that's available.
With aeropress, the brewing is more manual (you control how hot is the water, how long you keep it brewing, etc), which has its pros and cons. So you can make really good coffee, or really bad coffee.
But one thing where aeropress shines is cleaning. I'd use my moka pot more often, purely for consistency without effort, if it was as easy to clean as aeropress.
Whenever I go camping I always take a small moka pot with me. If you use good quality coffee then it never fails to deliver a very decent cup. It's not going to be equal to a coffee shop espresso, but it gets you 80% there. And you may be able to pick one up for 20 bucks. The only part that needs replacing every now and then is the rubber ring that seals the pot when you screw it together. Other than that they're virtually indestructible. At home I have the large De'Longhi, but if that can't be used there is always a moka pot on standby.
Dirty secret about coffee brewing... it's 90% the quality of the beans. If you use stale Starbucks beans, you will never have good coffee. If you use ones from a local roaster that are fresh, and grind them at brew time, you'll have amazing coffee even if you just throw the grounds in a pot (cowboy coffee, Turkish coffee, or Ethiopian brewing are all valid methods that are unfiltered). Before you go crazy testing Aeropress vs. v60 vs. chemex... Just try whatever brewing method you use with beans from a local roaster.
If I use Starbucks beans I get something that tastes like coffee. If I use fancy beans from coffee hipsters I get something that tastes like manure. Not a fan.
They must be spectacularly difficult to brew, because they taste just as bad when I have them at coffee shops. I basically can't order coffee in most places now because these flavours have taken over. I'd love to be able to live vicariously through someone else's palate and understand the appeal.
Real coffee does taste "bad" if you're not used to it. What you're enjoying is bland coffee. If that's enough for you, there's no imperative to go for the better stuff.
There's no reason to claim that the better stuff is not better, that's just pointless anti-elitism. As a kid, I certainly enjoyed a McDonalds burger over a rare tenderloin. The tenderloin obviously was better though.
I've been trying for several years! I have worked hard to acquire many acquired tastes, I don't want to have to flash my snob card here. But this taste just completely eludes me. My only hope is that other comments elsethread are right, and my town in Yorkshire maybe isn't home to the most talented or knowledgeable baristas and roasters, and they genuinely are serving garbage. In the meantime, when I need a coffee, I will have a cup of coffee and not a mouthful of the water at the bottom of my fridge's vegetable drawer.
I'll be honest, if they're using an automatic coffee maker (one where the puck is ground and processed internally), this very well could be the case. Also keep in mind that flavor profiles are generally targeted for espresso (either a double shot of something slightly watered down).
Using the the same methods and amounts for stale coffee (whole beans or ground) and fresh recently roasted beans will not work.
You need to adjust it for each new roast, even when the bean is from the same origin as the previous batch you used. Fluctuations will be smaller though.
Also be aware that some people do not enjoy some roast levels.
I for one used to think I loved dark French roasts in my early twenties.
Now I am more for the lighter floral notes in my filters and the earthier nutty notes in my espresso. But nothing ever as dark as French roast.
Rules of thumb;
* buy fresh whole bean
* that are all from the same source
* not a robusta
* that has its roast date on the packaging
* store in airtight container away from sunlight
* do not freeze the beans
* and use it within 3-4 weeks of that date (earlier for espresso)
* enjoy the coffee you like and do not let anyone else tell you otherwise. But perhaps, experiment with your tastes.
The advice I always had from local roasters is to store the beans in a fridge.
I have the luxury to have a stepless grinder, and I can observe the difference when I have to adjust the grain size between beans that are freshly roasted, stored in fridge and stored at room temperature.
At fridge temperatures, beans stay wet and oily much longer.
I'll be honest, I have this problem in most cafes the last few years as well, it's not just at home. It just all tastes disgustingly sour to me (and again, horrible hints of compost and manure). I assume I just don't like what modern coffee drinkers like, but I cannot imagine ever acquiring a taste for it however hard I try.
I'm the same way. I find that I can't even enjoy drinking the coffee at those shops. It's not a manure flavor, but there's definitely an acidity and strong flavor that I do not enjoy.
And, ftr, I am tired of Starbucks coffees too. It's hard to find an in between.
I mean, I don't know what manure tastes like obviously, but it's not a flavour I like being in my mouth. I've tried, I would love to be able to partake of this culture, but I just can't physically force 'third wave' coffee down my throat.
I've had some really high end coffees that I thought tasted like garbage. Then again I wasn't prepared for what they were going to taste like. For instance, when I tried light roasts for the first time, I thought they were absolute trash. I only drank dark roasts though and based my expectations on that. I've since warmed up to them and now prefer a medium roast for my daily drink.
Some people have different tastes. Some folks really like the burnt flavors of Starbucks and associate it with coffee, so everything else tastes terrible. That's especially true if you don't drink coffee black and require a certain flavor after adding heaps of cream and sugar. Other people are more sensitive to bitterness or acidity and need something to cater to their tastes.
Personally I just stick with Peet's beans because I find them to be cheap and convenient and not all that bad. I still occasionally get a bag of terrible coffee from them, but it's terrible in the sense that I just can't get a cup of coffee that I like after adjusting all the parameters(temp, time, dilution(yeah, I use an aeropress), etc).
Tastes are a subjective thing. I've had $400 Michelin dinners that tasted like shit, and $8 burritos that were some of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. People like to get all judgmental about it but really you just have to know yourself and go with it.
I love the aeropress for ease of use, would definitely recommend.
I've only used a moka pot a few times (one provided at an airBnB actually), and I'm interested in getting one, but haven't yet.
I think there's less temperature control with a Moka pot, and I'd say cleanup is more effort than a simple aeropress puck.
I love my aeropress. Light weight. Super easy to clean by just giving it a rinse. And most importantly, makes a very good clean cup of coffee no matter what.
I like the moka as well. But it's harder to master. It will play different on different stoves. The original is in aluminum, so won't work on induction. But when you get the nack it will make you steaming darkness.
I'll swear by the Aeropress esp for travel since it's plastic and lightweight. You can get the metal filters to be eco & travel friendly.
In my personal order of importance for good coffee:
1. Beans
2. Water Temp
3. Method
4. Grind
A distant 5 is process and by process I mean exact steps, timing etc. If you follow the world champion steps[0], even loosely, it will significantly up your coffee game. While you don't need a fancy grinder at all, I def covet the EK43.
However a moka pot generally doesn't make espresso as much as strong coffee. If you want something that makes espresso, check out the 9bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZMGx15QBU
Of course you'll want a good hand grinder for either, but especially espresso. You can't get anything close to espresso with pre-ground or a cheap grinder.
- Presses, like Picopresso, where you need to use your own muscles to create the espresso. If you got any pains in your hands or wrists there are a no go.
- Stovepots like Moka pots, but who create enough pressure, like 9Barista, expensive, needs to cool down between making shots
- Aeropress alikes, like Cafflano Kompresso, who are cheaper and lighter than the rest, but it depends on your control how the resulting espresso tastes.
Aeropress is for coffee. If coffee is good enough I recommend Espro P1 or P0, they filter is its money worth and they allow for making a mug of coffee on the go and keep it warm. I was able to make multiple on the go with just a small box of ground coffee and an insulation can with hot water. Personally I got a P1, and the lid can be hard to open, without also screwing open the middle part, but one gets used to it.
It depends on whether you're ok with something that resembles espresso, or if you actually want espresso.
Espresso is nothing more than hot water pushed through coffee grounds at 7-9+ PSI or pressure. There are several travel brewers, such as the Flair NEO, that aren't particularly expensive and will brew perfectly fine espresso.
The issue, though, is that the main determinant for espresso isn't how you make it, but the quality and grind of the coffee bean. Are you willing to purchase a burr grinder and take it with you on vacation? If yes, and if you want actual espresso, then this is the best route to go.
From experience, a Moka pot will give you something slightly (but only slightly) closer to espresso than a french press. However, I've consistently gotten much better results with a french press. As far as going with an Aeropress over a french press, the former should give a cleaner result, but my best guess not ever having used one is that the final result will take about the same, without some of the finer coffee grounds getting into the cup (which can mostly be prevented on a french press if you do it right).
I think there's a small typo there, 9 bar would be more regular for espresso.
I agree otherwise. I treat moka or aeropress coffee as its own thing; it's not espresso and that's OK.
I see a lot of people talk about "grind" as important.
Really it's just a way of varying pressure and to keep it roughly in that 9 bar zone.
The only magic in a good bur grinder is its consistency. You can look at what you're getting out and bump the pressure up or down slightly compared to your last shot.
So as the beans dry out with age, you can increase the extraction so you don't get a flat, sour shot with no crema. If you put in a new bag of beans you can make the grind courser so that pressure is reduced and you` don't over extract.
I love a morning espresso but I'm less keen on all the connoisseurship around it.
The only magic in a good bur grinder is its consistency. You can look at what you're getting out and bump the pressure up or down slightly compared to your last shot.
It's not just consistency. It's grind size distribution. The cost of a high end burr grinder is crazy and I don't understand what's going on but you can do simple comparative tests.
I have a 2 different burr sets for my grinder with different cutter geometries and the mechanical properties of the grinds and the puck are different. Never mind the taste. The way the water pours through the puck and what's happening inside the basket as you pull the shot is different. You can easily tell by the amount of channeling I get and the integrity of the puck after the shot.
The espresso also tastes different BTW.
I've also done blind taste testing with my grinder pitted against 3 other grinders. Having only tasted the coffee from 1 of these, I matched the coffee to the grinders only based on the theoretical properties of the burr sets.
I'm a simple soul, if I can't measure it really easily I don't worry about it.
It's not like any two beans are the same and I'm tamping them by hand anyway.
Worrying about the shape of the blades in the grinder is like worrying about the type of power cable on your hifi amp. It's too much connoisseurship for me personally but more power to you if that's your bag.
A good burr grinder is all about consistent grind size and is very easy to observe.
Spread a small amount of ground coffee out on a piece of paper. Observe the varying sizes and shapes within the grounds. Better grinders produce more even grinds which produce more even extraction during brewing.
It’s an exceedingly simple concept. As an extreme example try and brew an espresso using a simple blade style ‘grinder’. It will be impossible. The refinement of a good grinder is simply optimizing along this axis.
Prefer aeropress over moka pot - quicker and easier to clean, requires less attention, better consistency, and prefer the fresher taste of aeropress. Only need a kettle instead of stove so generally quicker (US: whats a kettle).
Heh, yeah, the design is like the cylinder version of a cuisinart top. But it works quite well for small amounts of coffee, and is very portable. Compared to a french press, the filter is much finer, and the rubber end seals way better.
Unfortunately, because the volume is small, I would have to use it multiple times, which was such a pain, I eventually stopped using it in favor of a V60 pourover.
The Porlex is really terrible. They aren't that cheap anymore and are still ceramic. If you want to go the cheap and compact route, get the Rhinowares.
Otherwise spend a bit more money and get the 1Zpresso Q2. I think this is the cheapest grinder with 34mm stainless steel burrs you can get that fits inside the Aeropress plunger.
You'll thank yourself later for getting the stainless steel burrs.
> A quick Google search of ceramic vs steel burs also seems to indicate the ceramic offers better longevity.
I have a theory that people who start with a Hario Skerton or its clones (all of which have ceramic burrs) tend to be turned off manual grinding because of how bad the grinding experience is.
Steel burrs supposedly cut better and faster.
Admittedly, I've tried my friend's Porlex Tall, and it wasn't unpleasant to use.
The Porlex is expensive for what you get. It used to be cheaper. The Rhinowares grinder is very similar and still cheap.
Stainless steel 34mm burrs also cut significantly faster and more consistently in a similarly sized grinder. This is the main reason you want stainless steel.
I wouldn't worry about longevity since we're talking about a decade or more for whatever type you chose. But yes, ceramic will last longer.
In fact if you don't want the grinder to fit in the plunger of an aeropress, you can get Taiwanese grinders with stainless steel burrs, well stabilised shafts, ball bearings, a milled Al body for less than the Porlex mini and only slightly more than a Rhinowares.
Those Moka coffee pots are the next best thing to a full blown Barista grade Espresso maker. And thus the overall best option cost wise, you can get the classic Bialettis, 4-6 cups, for around 30 bucks. For the difference to a Barista machine you can get a lot of top grade coffee to brew.
We use only those, in all sizes. And being really portable you can take them everywhere. Camping, vacation,... you name it. They only thing you struggle to get, even with the dedicated ones marketed as such, is the crema a barista machine will produce.
No, they are so inconsistent in my experience. There had been times in which the coffee tasted so good it would beat any premium cafe. But on repeating the same with same beans, same grind setting, same water and same setting it then taste like rubber. I suspect it is due to random channeling pattern in coffee. If the water passes more through the area in which fine particles are there, it tastes bitter.
I love my Bialettis (own 3 of different sizes) as well as my espresso machine.
A moka pot will never be able to give coffee anywhere close to propper espresso.
That's not me being subjective. The moka can not create the pressure needed to extract the oils in the same way as a propper espresso machine.
Not to mention that the water to oil ratio is way off compared to an espresso. And a fine enough grind level would simply fall through into the water tank.
A moka pot is one device on the coffee spectrum. It doesnt need to compete or be like any other equipment. It is it's own thing.
Moka pots make great coffee but I found it really hard to get the brewing right - the most important factor was the grind size. If I change it even slightly, I get much worse results and unlike Aeropress there are fewer other variables to adjust. So to answer your question I would say yes if you're also travelling with your own grinder.
“Moka 101”: an (almost) scientific approach for the perfect coffee by Ubi de Feo (an obsessive compulsive coffee maniac and great hacker, among other things).
I adopted a few tricks from either [1] or a similar video from James Hoffman’s Youtube channel some time ago (including the foaming milk with a French press one) and it vastly improved my lockdowns. The one useful thing they don’t say is (imo) it’s easier to get it right with a smaller size pot.
I brew coffee using what's IMO the ultimate moka pot: the Alessi 9090. It's designed by Richard Sapper who also designed the first ThinkPad.
I still think a proper espresso machine produces better... espressos, but in my tiny apartment the moka pot is a great alternative. There's certainly a fair bit of technique involved, so you probably won't produce your best coffee on the first go.
It's not the ultimate thread, though, until someone mentions that ThinkPads are made by Lenovo who got caught including spyware in their laptops. That reply will get at least 2 replies that say, 'yah but never in the thinkpad lineup'
I believe the 9090 doesn’t usually have a red flourish, but this[0] anniversary edition does, and if you look at other Sapper work[1] you’ll see how the red highlight, like the track point[2] seems to fit into a theme of his he works into various products.
The problem with traditional moka pots is that they can not be used on induction stoves. As people move from gaz to induction, they abandon Bialetti and Alessi gadgets.
From what I've seen, stainless steel Bialettis (what you need for induction) are not the original "made in Italy". Not that it is necessarily a bad thing, but there is little point sticking with the Bialetti brand if you want an induction moka pot.
I've found that you have to use less heat on them so that the coffee extracts slower than the traditional bialetti and the "knockoff" that I bought was about as good. With similar heat I coudl tell just by the color it wasn't extracting the same
Generally you want to use as little heat as possible when brewing with a moka pot. The most common issue people have with them is bitter coffee caused by burning their ground. The usual advice is to boil the water before filling and chilling as soon as the pot starts bubbling.
From my point of view, if what you are looking for is a very finicky way of making coffee, you have two options: a cheap moka pot or an expensive coffee machine. Then again, I do have a Silvia. Finicky has a certain appeal.
> The problem with traditional moka pots is that they can not be used on induction stoves.
Wrong. Any kind of ferromagnetic sheet of metal (ie even your random iron pie pan) will pick up induction. I regularly use a standard moka pot on my induction stove.
The traditional ones are aluminum and therefore need an adapter to use on an induction stove which can be a simple ferrous sheet. The gp was quite obnoxious about saying that though.
Well then TIL that my moka is not a standard one... It was bought recently tho (like ~5 years ago), so perhaps it's gone standard to put some ferrous thing at the bottom, idk.
Bialetti (and others) manufactures also stainless steel ones, not sure why would one buy aluminium ones (when we phased out aluminium from basically all other cookware).
I am super happy with mine, close to a thousand coffees made with 0 maintenance, for 5% of the price of a good coffee machine. And the only waste is coffee grind itself.
We have an aluminium Bialetti, but I really hate the feel of the aluminium after a while; I touch it with my fingers but I feel it in my teeth, I honestly can't stand it, just thinking about it puts my teeth on edge.
Long story short, we bought a stainless steel version, and I love it so much. Probably made 3,000 coffees with it, and it's almost as good as the day we bought it. No a single part replaced or damaged.
Really happy to hear they are coming back from the brink.
Yes, just get a steel one. Aluminium ones feel unpleasant to the touch and they don't survive the dishwasher. Two of mine have been killed that way. (To be clear, it's not me who put them in the dishwasher).
I prefer Giannina's - they're steel as well and the lock mechanism is wonderfully solid. In my family we had exactly 3: one at my grandparents', one at my parents', and one at my house. The 3-6 cup filter is a nice touch for when people comes over for dinner.
I thought $200 for the Thinkpad Designer's was expensive. Then I saw the price of the Giannina.
I'm sure the locking mechanism and aesthetics are much better, and they're a pleasure to use. But something about a $10 thrift store moka pot works well. And no qualms about taking it on a camping trip, to use over a fire.
anyway, I'd bring a Giannina over a campfire than any aluminium thrift moka. sure bottom will blacken a little externally, but ours lasted so long they all eventually blackened outside anyway.
Thank you. I should've specified I was looking at larger 6/3 cup variant. Seems like Amazon.it has that for 75€ versus 120 USD, but I agree that it's a fair price given import costs, running a business, and theoretical customer support.
How’s long have you been using it? How do you like it as a daily driver? If the handle/latch stays tight, it certainly does improve on the twist/twist/twist/twist… of (eg) Bialetti pots.
Three months only, but without a doubt it's the best moka I've had. As a daily driver it's great:
- For some reason it succeeds at temperatures lower than other mokas I've had, which is good for the taste as well as for energy savings and the life expectancy of the rubber piece.
- It doesn't drip! All mokas I've had dripped at some point.
- It doesn't have a plastic handle that will melt if you
forget to turn off the stove (yup I've done this).
I'm comparing it to an IKEA moka and several Bialetti mokas. Not fair in terms of price.
This is my daily driver coffee maker. Mine is over 15 years old.
Drinking coffee like an Italian grandma makes me happy.
As an aside, in 2008, I saw a production of Tosca, by Opera North (Yorkshire, England). https://web.archive.org/web/20081025105247/http://www.leedsg...
In it was a priest, who glumly watched the action unfold around him, powerless to stop it. His only consolation was the ritual of making coffee in his Moka. Sometimes I think about that opera while brewing my coffee...
Italian born and raised, but moved around in various contries.
I own a handful of Bialetti mokas of different sizes. A couple of those are from my teenager years, I don't even remember buying them, they might have been from my parents. I still use them multiple times daily.
Mokas are for life. As long as you replace the plastic gasket once in a while (a couple bucks) and you don't accidentally melt the handle (which you can replace anyway) they'll outlive all of us.
Came here to say this. Everytime i look at a moka I am delighted about how sturdy it is, and think about how no one builds stuff built to last as long anymore. cast aluminum ftw.
Pressed steel panels and all parts available since 1946. They're made for caterers so you probably won't ever need to repair it if you're using it domestically.
We've had ours since 2004ish and it still looks and works exactly like new.
What scares me about trying moka is I might enjoy it more than espresso (which I add water or milk to anyway) and obsolete my espresso machine and the effort I’ve gone into mastering the basics!
It's doubtful you will. It doesn't make espresso like an espresso machine does; it's more like coffee. I like them both and like a moka and a french press, they aren't really substitutes for each other.
> Espresso machines, then and now, are gigantic, expensive, difficult to use, and incredibly inefficient from an energy perspective. They do not really make sense for the home.
The author talks about the La Pavoni Ideale, but I don't get how they missed La Pavoni's current bread and butter, the Europiccola and Professional, both of which are more than small enough to fit in a kitchen, make great espresso, and have been sold since the 1960s.
If we are talking about efficiency, you can brew wonderful coffee w/o ever getting up to 100C. Using steam to diffuse out the essence from the grounds is one great way, but there are so many other ones as well.
Coffee brewing is like a thermodynamic engine diagram, lots of different routes along the temperature, pressure, mass, flow rate, ground size and packed density dimensions.
I recommend putting googly eyes on the top lid[0]. That way, even if you're home alone you will start your day with a happy friend who will gladly pour you a cup of comfort. Always cheers me up a bit!
Correct, but it doesn't touch the coffee nor do I have to touch that part of the lid, so I'm not too worried (also I just pretend my buddy is getting old and blind with age)
High temperature silicon based sealants are used for sealing engines. Hardware stores usually sell small tubes (50ml or so) which is enough for odd repair jobs like that.
I used my first Moka whilst I was on family holiday to Tuscany and it produced the best coffee I'd ever tasted. Somehow it tasted creamy despite it just being normal black coffee.
The sad thing about moka pots is that they never break or wear out and no one can sell you a subscription for pods or filters. They have a quiet presence and reassurance which is drowned out by the clamour of commerce hammering at your door to sell you something slightly less messy and slightly more convenient at the expense of the planet and your soul.
The electric moka shuts itself off with the same system as a rice cooker and is extremely durable as long as it is an all metal exterior. I don't know why they are so hard to find.
I got in the habit of setting an alarm on my phone for 5 minutes after I put the pot on. Even if I think I'm going to stay in the kitchen and watch it, I set the alarm. It's amazing how I get distracted, forget that I put the damn thing on as if it never existed, then the alarm goes off and I think "oh yeah!! the coffee!".
I have stopped using the aluminium ones which tend to go bad, very fluffy and rusty-looking. The Stainless steel models seem much cleaner over time and only need new rubber seals. Unless you forget about it on the hob and melt down the handle (don't do this!)
I for one nuked one by placing it in the dishwasher where it enjoyed a full wash cycle. The metal became irreversibly damaged, or discoloured / phased. The beautiful Bialetti pot was not so pretty any more. So I bought another one!
In my experience, aluminum left in the dishwasher leaves a residue that can be hard to get off completely. I'm not an expert on the subject, but aluminum is a neurotoxin and is harmful in large amounts, so I would be hesitant to continue to use it whether or not it's still functional.
Not sure why people don't use stainless steel versions of them, more durable, nicer, can be used on induction plates. Bialetti has excellent products for this (their pans, not so much).
Practically unkillable if taken a bit of care. At home I use it exclusively for making coffee.
“Migration of aluminum from food contact materials to food—a health risk for consumers? Part II of III: migration of aluminum from drinking bottles and moka pots made of aluminum to beverages” ⌘ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388725/
Findings are that drinking coffee from a moka pot made by aluminum will result in a TWI (tolerable weekly intake) of 4%, and that washing the pot in the dishwasher sigificantly increases the aluminum concentration in subsequence brews.
Aren’t they just (nice) hunks of pure aluminum cast pieces? Pure aluminum surfaces are impossible to undo when chemically damaged but quite easy to sand down and refinish.
it happened to a friend of mine. Funny thing, his father was working at Alessi (also another moka maker) and we both come from the town where Bialetti started. So his father did not understand how his son managed to do such a mistake.
You never wash throughly a moka, it loses the taste of coffee and you have to start again. The first few coffees in a new moka are not good. You wash with water and fingers, no soap.
Pods also aren’t the same. The coffee was roasted and ground a long time ago, and it’s about 6g or coffee, compared to 22g in a cafe “double“ espresso. You get better result buying a grinder and moka pot for the same price as the pod machine and also it’s a lot cheaper per gram.
That's making the assumption of buying beans as an alternative, but the pods are the coffee purchase. You can also buy reusable pods into which you can put your own grinds - but then you are explicitly responsible for grind size, choice of bean etc, at which point you might as well get an espresso machine. The pod machine is very quick, and pours a cup automatically.
Incidentally, I have a Gaggia classic machine, a grinder and bean, as well as a Nespresso pod machine. The Gaggia is more customisable, but also more work, not just how to pour a cup, but the work establishing consistency in the first place e.g. finding a good grinder, and the right setting, how much coffee in the basket and how much pressure to apply, when to clean and what mods to use etc etc etc
Compared to all that, pods are just as available as beans/espresso grind (maybe more so) and v easy. You don't even have to watch the machine while waiting for it to heat up and pour, and with the right pods the results aren't vastly inferior to the espresso, but much more consistent.
Yeah I come from a house using mokas and the Nespresso in comparison is much more idiot-proof: nothing to spill, (almost) nothing to clean, nothing to get burnt with, and the result is extremely consistent. Mokas and traditional espresso machines are much more temperamental, the latter don't even make decent cups until everything is warmed up properly - which is why bars literally throw away the first half-dozen coffees every day.
I get the environmental critique, and the Nespresso system is definitely more expensive, lock-in, etc etc, but DAMN it's so convenient and good enough for the everyday workload of a single or couple.
Came to know these devices after moving from Northern Europe to South few years ago. First two of these were destroyed when I repeatedly forgot to fill them with water - the plastic handle just melted before I realized my error. Seals usually last years even if you use the device several times a day. Apart from that, they indeed never break.
as a digital nomad I struggle to fit everything into my bag and so the Bialetti is the item that always gets left behind as a "present" to who comes after me. I've been doing this the past 14 years now and like to think I'm the reason why this post finally made it into your reality / timeline :)
I used to feed my addiction via Nespresso capsules and am glad I stopped because it was really expensive but also:
All true, of course, which is why I strongly recommend reusable cups like those from Solofill, my favorite. One of those charged with, say, Peet's Mocha-Java, makes a fine cup of coffee.
Still using the first 3-cup ½ Moka pot I bought after moving to Uni when 18yrs old, now serving me for the past 20 years O_O. Have "burned" it three times by forgetting it on the hob and being awaken by the burned smell of plastic. Always managed to get it back to life with a good scrub and a new set of spares.
Some 13 years ago, for the office I got a "modern" Elettrika Bialetti which is a normal 2-cup ½ standard Bialetti with a resistor on the bottom to make it electric. It uses standard computer cables to get power. It powered 11yrs of PhD, postdoc, and academic work.
Last update for my Mokas (~6yrs ago) is to get seals made of silicone. They last a lifetime and now I don't even need to change the seal every four months anymore.
I have a 3 cup Moka pot from them too, recently replaced the seal with a similar rubber one but I'd be very interested in trying out the silicone one as well, but it doesn't seem like a common occurrence - mind if I ask where you got it from? Was it an online store?
Online stores like Amazon or eBay have plenty of those (sometimes called also gaskets). The seal tends to become brown over time as the silicone absorbs some quantity of coffe in the process, but that does not affect the taste of coffee and the seal keeps doing its job impeccably (up until ~6 yrs at least, ymmv).
I've always found "Cup" as a measurement to be fun, in an engine of chaos kind of way.
Tasse - 120ml (4oz-ish), this is historically the base UOM of "coffee cup" originally encountered on coffee things. Often carelessly translated to "cup" in countries new to coffee, regardless of overlap with existing alternate meanings of "cup" as a measurement.
Demitasse - 60ml (2oz-ish), a cup for espresso.
Mug - Wikipedia says 8-12oz.
The USA definition of "coffee cup" as an amount one would serve themselves ranges anywhere from 8oz through over 20oz, depending on who you ask. USA-made coffee machine markings also vary, but are always smaller than consumers expect. Currently Black and Decker's "cup" is 5oz and Bunn's is 7oz, which means Bunn's standard 10 cup machine makes substantially more coffee than B&D's standard 12 cup machine.
Unless of course it is a cup of coffee in a recipe, in which case consider the provenance of your recipe and which standardized (or not...) version of a "cup" measurement is indicated before proceeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_(unit)
Similar experience here, I bought a aluminum one (knockoff I think) when I moved out from my parents, used that throughout higher education and just recently, almost 20 years later "upgraded" to a genuine Bialetti one.
But I somewhat dislike the aluminum ones as they tend to get somewhat yucky over time ... but Bialetti also sells a stainless steel one, the Bialetti Venus. Big fan.
> The sad thing about moka pots is that they never break or wear out
I have a slightly different experience. I have 2 Moka pots, but both no longer seem useable after leaving it on the stove too long. Now anything I brew using them tastes burned. I've tried cleaning them, but I still haven't been able to get rid of blackish residue in the water reservoir base. Any tips on how to fix them?
A few months ago I gave a sturdy, 6-cup Bialetti to a friend as a present. He recently admitted that he managed to accidentally melt (!) the damn thing down, as he forgot to switch off the fire. I was curious if he really managed to melt the metal. But unfortunately he has not shared a picture of it; he was too embarrassed about it, and he just tossed it into the trash.
Some sibling comments mentioned replacing the rubber seal fixes the issue of burnt taste. I took a look at my rubber seals and they did have a burnt smell, so I'm gonna give that a shot. Thanks for sharing and good luck with your friend's Moka pot!
There's no more Moka pot; now he's on his own. ;-) I'm really surprised that my friend managed to melt the goddamned metal. I was wondering did the metal really melt? How long did he leave it on fire for the metal to melt? The bugger didn't answer these questions.
A drill with a small hard sponge attachment could work? Using a drill with a sponge has been the only way I managed to clean my stove top within reasonable time when something particularly nasty has managed to get burnt there. Maybe a smaller version of it could work with Moka pot too?
IDK why they use rubber whereas knock-offs use silicone gaskets which make a more tight seal (even if said knockoffs never really work).
The knockoffs don't function properly (burn and spit coffee) probably due to different dimensions - I invite anyone to explain what is so critical about the original design. Here's one that doesn't work: https://homla.com.pl/mia-mokka-zestaw-kawiarka-czarna-z-2-fi...
Very long article, from which I was unable to ascertain what was so brilliant about the Moka Pot. Unfortunately, this gizmo no longer provides the most convenient coffee-making method ("pods" seem to be more "convenient"), nor the least expensive in terms of equipment cost (that would be the "pour-over"). I can't see a niche for them today, aside from novelty or nostalgia.
Strange that this crops up now because my mother just found one at her second hand store and started using it last week. Showed it to me this weekend when I visited.
She's bosnian so she's made coffee with a turkish coffee pot directly on the stove most of my life. As a kid I would also grind beans for her in an old brass hand cranked grinder from Bosnia. When you grind the beans yourself by hand they do tend to be a bit coarser, fitting for the moka pot.
As an Italian living abroad I can tell you that one or two old Moka always travel with you. There's always space for a Moka in your luggage.
My experience is also that the best coffee comes from the old beaten up and a bit burned Moka owned by your old grandma.
> Espresso machines, then and now, are gigantic, expensive, difficult to use, and incredibly inefficient from an energy perspective.
Every one of these four statements is so comically false that you cannot help to attribute a dose of bad faith in the author. You can buy a real espresso machine that fits in a 15cm x 30cm base (like two bottles of water side by side) for about 100EUR, which is definitely easier to use than a moka pot, and does not waste energy by heating the air in the kitchen.
I don't want to make publicity of a brand here, but I just went to a local shop and got the smallest one that got to 19 bar. It makes excellent expressos with cream and all (if you buy appropriately ground coffee).
EDIT: just look for "thin espresso machine" on a search engine, there's plenty of choice!
> It makes excellent expressos with cream and all (if you buy appropriately ground coffee).
Most cheap espresso machines achieve crema and pressure via a pressurised portafilter [1].
Nothing wrong with having one as a beginner, but you're stuck with using coarser grinds because of the always-there pressure, and it limits the number of variables you're able to play with to "dial in" beans.
I'm definitely a "beginner", but still can see that from moka pot to cheap espresso there is a world of difference, and from cheap expresso to "serious" espresso the difference is very subtle (to my tastebuds).
They are probably referring to the Delonghi Dedica. Out of the box it comes with a pressurized basket. If you are not familiar with coffee machines, this type of basket will not give you espresso like at an espresso bar. Coffee ground for espresso on this machine will choke it. Instead it is designed to be more forgiving of grind size. You can put store bought pre-ground coffee in it. The basket itself provides resistance and the value will open when it hits 9bar internally.
You can get a normal basket for it since the pump can hit the required pressures for espresso. But they use their own basket size, so just be careful what you get. The steam wand also uses a froth-aider so you won't be getting the silky microfoam that can pour art. I've used the Dedica before and it's ok.
For my money I'd get the Breville Bambino if you want this style of machine. I believe the latest model comes with a pressurized and normal basket. And the automated milk steamer is actually quite impressive. Milk foams up well enough to pour art and it does an admirable job at soy milk.
I got an espresso machine at the start of last year and I just can’t imagine using anything else now. They aren’t immediacy obvious how to use, but after a quick read of the manual, anyone could do it. And the thing uses such a trivial amount of energy I could just turn my house heating off for a day to save several years worth of coffee making.
The moka pot is super cool and I thought it made great coffee...until I discovered that I preferred almost every other possible brew method.
The moka pot is very hard to dial in and almost always burns the coffee. It requires care, focus, and attention. They're much more inconsistent than pour over and even the lever espresso machines I've used are less work.
I think moka pots are fun and worth experimenting with but I find it hard to believe people really love the results. But if you are always adding milk and sugar, then I can definitely see the appeal.
What is it that makes it hard to dial in? Is it the amount of heat? I had very little experience with moka pots until recently, even though I lived in Italy and the apartment I rented included at least five Bialetti pots varying in size from small to large - I didn't understand how they worked, so I never tried, and it was easier to just go outside to the nearest coffee bar.
But this summer I rented a motor home for the holidays (yeah yeah covid vacation -again), which came with a Bialetti. So I looked up how to use it, and every morning I would make a couple of cups for myself and the wife, on the gas stove.
Perfect coffee every time, very easy, no problems whatsoever. The gas stove I used was on max every time, no changes, so maybe that's why it was consistent.. but I don't really see how it matters, as the heat is just making steam after all. So how can you get burned coffee?
Done properly, steam shouldn’t be going through the coffee grounds in a moka pot. The expansion of the air (and evaporation of the water as well admittedly) in the lower chamber pushes the hot water up through them.
You can get burned coffee because the same container you use to heat the water to make the steam also holds the coffee and that still heats up. If you start with cold water that's more time for the coffee grinds to heat up and if you don't take it off the stove when it's done and cool it down right away that's time for the brewed coffee to start to burn as it's sitting in a heated hot pot.
Most other methods don't have you heat the coffee and the water together so you can only really burn it if you put it on a heating element after.
The main problem I have is that our range uses halogen elements. Which reach a specific temp then cycle on and off to stay there. You’re either too low temp. So the water boils then stops. Or too high, so it bubbles over and burns the coffee.
I've been making coffee on moka pots (both aluminum and stainless steel) daily for the past 30+ years and I have never experienced the problems you are talking about. On the contrary: I've tried a number of other coffee makers (french press, aeropress, percolator, …), but after a short time I wall always return to the moka pot.
Just now, because of this thread, I have ordered a Kamira Espresso maker. We'll see how it goes.
My dad always had a moka pot at home.
One day he bought a De Lonhgi Alicia moka pot - that you can plug to a wall socket!
He never went back to "traditional" ones.
I have another Alicia pot.
I like it much more than capsules.
went to Italy on vacation, bought a Bialetti to take home and have been using it ever since (15y). Tip: If you plan to use an induction stove, please check if the model you plan to buy can work with it.
Surprised to read about problems of Bialetti. I see their moka pots in the kitchen shops everywhere. I have two. I guess you never know what's going on behind the scenes.
These days I use an aeropress more often, it's similar in terms of convenience but is faster and more importantly I find it doesn't require heating the coffee as much, which makes it taste better.
Every day, twice a day, I grind my coffee and put my trusty old aluminium Bialetti Moka pot on the hob. It's my ritual, and no crappy pods can ever take that away from me. As long as I remember to swap out its rubber gasket, I know for a fact that this pot will neither break nor stop functioning. It's one thing of beauty, the Moka pot. A great feat of ingenuity.
The only thing that saddens me a bit is that when (not if) I will switch to an induction stove I will have to buy a new steel pot, or switch to an electric one. Until then, she's my mainstay.
You're not worried about Alzheimer's disease? Even if there is no current moka pot-specific evidence (there haven't been a lot of studies), why take the chance?
You could argue that basically everything has the potential of being harmful in the long term. Red meat, gas hobs, living in a polluted city, plastic, ... People are exposed to so many substances that we actually know for a fact they are either carcinogenic or bad for our health, and yet most don't do that much about it. If you start cutting out of your life even things that are not demonstrated to be bad for you, you're left with basically nothing. One thing is to have actual evidence that something is harmful, one other is to follow any suspicion that is waved around.
We know aluminum is harmful and implicated in multiple serious health conditions.
The only unknown here is the degree of aluminum leeching from the pot to the coffee. For something you do twice a day, this is a different kind of preventable exposure to risk than eating red meat or living in a polluted city.
IMO one would be a fool to accept this risk, even if small.
First of all, thank you for sourcing it. I don't have access to the paper, but the synopsis is very interesting.
I do however find it very weird. For example, how far-spread is Alzheimer's in Italy, where the Al intake must be through the roof. If this was to be believed, then all italians would have AD. (I am fully aware that logically, this is not correct, and that they could perhaps have developed some sort of immunity).
The same could be said about soda/beverage cans. Their use is so widespread that virtually everyone in America should have AD.
The scientific argument may have some truth to it, but I still find it weird that it's not "evident" in populations where Al intake would be through the roof.
- Al does not, typically, rust, despite being far more thermodynamically favorable than Fe because a kinetic barrier, AlO2, forms stopping further oxidation
- AlO2 is an extremely durable coating. Extremely inert. It's crystal lattice constant is similar to Al's to it does not flake
- Al does rust in salty environments.
Conclusion:
The moka is fine. Just don't use vinegar or salt water to brew your coffee.
> Additional human inner aluminum exposure through the proper use of aluminum moka pots is negligible. Even under the worst-case scenario of washing the moka pots in a dishwasher, the uptake amounts to only 4% of TWI [total weekly intake]. The manufacturers expressly warn not to clean the aluminum moka pots in the dishwasher.
I came here to say this. I tried the adapter very briefly, and it's very convenient (especially if you already heat your water before putting the grounds in).
I have always heard people warning about adapters, because they have a tendency of causing discolouration on black induction hobs due to how unevenly they heat up. I guess that switching to a stainless steel pot isn't the end of the world, it's the only thing made out of aluminum I own.
Moka pots are definitely great if they're available, but IMO they're outcompeted if you're in the market as an enthusiast by Aeropresses in the mid-range ($30-$50) and generic steel coffee filters in the low range ($10).
As others have commented, the coffee itself is the most important thing to get right - a great bean brewed normally will beat a mediocre bean brewed perfectly :)
And once again this article ignores the fact that biggest threat to Bialetti's own sales are not other ways to brew, but clones. Simplicity of the design means copies are just as good. I once bought 2cup pot in Aldi for only 4 euros because Airbnb where I stayed only had huge 12 cup version and it was just me drinking coffee. I simply left it there when I moved out.
Which is actually another problem - they don't work very well when partially loaded. So you can't own only one if you ever have guests and don't want to do multiple runs.
I have a couple of moka pots which I like to use in the summer to make iced coffee. The small one is annoyingly too small for a decently sized drink. So I got a huge Bialetti, since it seemed rude to buy a cheap clone. It makes about a pint of strong coffee which is enough for a couple of very long cold lattès.
Recently moved from the US to Europe, and (re)discovered the moka pot, after many years of having one and never used (received as a gift, and stored in my kitchen more as a curiosity, then left behind me, when moving). Acquiring one, once in Europe, and starting using it (alongside my more commonly used French Press), I discovered new ways to bring up flavour in coffee. I doubt this is a dying breed ...
As an American, I never used a moka pot until I moved to the Dominican Republic. Almost everyone there uses moka pots, which they call a greca cafetera. When I learned how to use one, I fell in love, and because of that people started telling me I was "aplatanao" (assimilated). Now I live in Hungary. Here a moka pot is called a kotyogos kávézógép, and when I make coffee with it, people say "you're so Hungarian". Everyone technically knows it was originally invented in Italy, but because of it's simplicity and ubiquity, in many places it's considered "the people's" way of making coffee.
I absolutely love it. It's the simplest way to make a good coffee, and the only form of coffee I enjoy more is a proper espresso made with a fancy machine.
> the only form of coffee I enjoy more is a proper espresso
I'm with you, but my mum (Italian) nowadays just refuses to drink espresso. She worked in hospitals, and they would make coffee with mokas all day long, so that's what she wants. At home, I have to keep a Bialetti and a single pack of Lavazza just for her, for when she comes over once a year.
I've seen the moka on the Croatian side as well, where they call it a "kafeterija." Here's one neat trick some of the moka users there have: put about 1 teaspoon of sugar in your cup, then as soon as the water starts to percolate (about 1cm of coffee in the top compartment) take it off the heat and pour about 1cm over the sugar. Put back on heat to finish percolating. Meanwhile use the back of a teaspoon to grind the sugar into the coffee, really press into it like a mortar and pestle. You need the consistency to be about the viscosity of honey. Then fill your cup and stir. You end up with a delicious, rich, sweet white foam at the top.
Amusing that you say this, since it’s mentioned in the article:
> the Cuban concoction cafecito is made by quickly whipping the first few drops of moka pot coffee with sugar, creating a paste that both flavors the coffee and simulates a classic espresso foam.
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[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 283 ms ] threadOr... buy an Aeropress instead?
I've never had an aeropress so it's hard for me to compare quality etc., but when I've had coffee with friends who use them, the aeropress does seem bit more cumbersome and messy than the mokka pot.
But one thing where aeropress shines is cleaning. I'd use my moka pot more often, purely for consistency without effort, if it was as easy to clean as aeropress.
You're probably buying lighter roasts, which are in vogue but are more difficult to brew.
There's no reason to claim that the better stuff is not better, that's just pointless anti-elitism. As a kid, I certainly enjoyed a McDonalds burger over a rare tenderloin. The tenderloin obviously was better though.
You need to adjust it for each new roast, even when the bean is from the same origin as the previous batch you used. Fluctuations will be smaller though.
Also be aware that some people do not enjoy some roast levels.
I for one used to think I loved dark French roasts in my early twenties. Now I am more for the lighter floral notes in my filters and the earthier nutty notes in my espresso. But nothing ever as dark as French roast.
Rules of thumb;
* buy fresh whole bean
* that are all from the same source
* not a robusta
* that has its roast date on the packaging
* store in airtight container away from sunlight
* do not freeze the beans
* and use it within 3-4 weeks of that date (earlier for espresso)
* enjoy the coffee you like and do not let anyone else tell you otherwise. But perhaps, experiment with your tastes.
I have the luxury to have a stepless grinder, and I can observe the difference when I have to adjust the grain size between beans that are freshly roasted, stored in fridge and stored at room temperature.
At fridge temperatures, beans stay wet and oily much longer.
But surprisingly many believe that freezing the beans make for a good cup for longer.
Which is not going to be the case when the bean has not thawed and is so brittle it gives an uneven grind (and thus uneven extraction).
Better, if possible, is to buy smaller amounts more frequently and use them all up before getting more.
It isn't like you get high quality whole bean in bulk anyway.
And, ftr, I am tired of Starbucks coffees too. It's hard to find an in between.
I've had some really high end coffees that I thought tasted like garbage. Then again I wasn't prepared for what they were going to taste like. For instance, when I tried light roasts for the first time, I thought they were absolute trash. I only drank dark roasts though and based my expectations on that. I've since warmed up to them and now prefer a medium roast for my daily drink.
Some people have different tastes. Some folks really like the burnt flavors of Starbucks and associate it with coffee, so everything else tastes terrible. That's especially true if you don't drink coffee black and require a certain flavor after adding heaps of cream and sugar. Other people are more sensitive to bitterness or acidity and need something to cater to their tastes.
Personally I just stick with Peet's beans because I find them to be cheap and convenient and not all that bad. I still occasionally get a bag of terrible coffee from them, but it's terrible in the sense that I just can't get a cup of coffee that I like after adjusting all the parameters(temp, time, dilution(yeah, I use an aeropress), etc).
Tastes are a subjective thing. I've had $400 Michelin dinners that tasted like shit, and $8 burritos that were some of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. People like to get all judgmental about it but really you just have to know yourself and go with it.
I think there's less temperature control with a Moka pot, and I'd say cleanup is more effort than a simple aeropress puck.
I like the moka as well. But it's harder to master. It will play different on different stoves. The original is in aluminum, so won't work on induction. But when you get the nack it will make you steaming darkness.
In my personal order of importance for good coffee:
1. Beans
2. Water Temp
3. Method
4. Grind
A distant 5 is process and by process I mean exact steps, timing etc. If you follow the world champion steps[0], even loosely, it will significantly up your coffee game. While you don't need a fancy grinder at all, I def covet the EK43.
Also much love for a V60 for travel as well.
[0] https://aeropress.com/pages/wac-recipes
I used to use aeropress but the rubber plunger degrades and builds up grime, I also find pourover more fun to use.
Having a source of hot water ready to go makes it even easier.
However a moka pot generally doesn't make espresso as much as strong coffee. If you want something that makes espresso, check out the 9bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZMGx15QBU
Of course you'll want a good hand grinder for either, but especially espresso. You can't get anything close to espresso with pre-ground or a cheap grinder.
- Presses, like Picopresso, where you need to use your own muscles to create the espresso. If you got any pains in your hands or wrists there are a no go.
- Stovepots like Moka pots, but who create enough pressure, like 9Barista, expensive, needs to cool down between making shots
- Aeropress alikes, like Cafflano Kompresso, who are cheaper and lighter than the rest, but it depends on your control how the resulting espresso tastes.
Aeropress is for coffee. If coffee is good enough I recommend Espro P1 or P0, they filter is its money worth and they allow for making a mug of coffee on the go and keep it warm. I was able to make multiple on the go with just a small box of ground coffee and an insulation can with hot water. Personally I got a P1, and the lid can be hard to open, without also screwing open the middle part, but one gets used to it.
Espresso is nothing more than hot water pushed through coffee grounds at 7-9+ PSI or pressure. There are several travel brewers, such as the Flair NEO, that aren't particularly expensive and will brew perfectly fine espresso.
The issue, though, is that the main determinant for espresso isn't how you make it, but the quality and grind of the coffee bean. Are you willing to purchase a burr grinder and take it with you on vacation? If yes, and if you want actual espresso, then this is the best route to go.
From experience, a Moka pot will give you something slightly (but only slightly) closer to espresso than a french press. However, I've consistently gotten much better results with a french press. As far as going with an Aeropress over a french press, the former should give a cleaner result, but my best guess not ever having used one is that the final result will take about the same, without some of the finer coffee grounds getting into the cup (which can mostly be prevented on a french press if you do it right).
I think there's a small typo there, 9 bar would be more regular for espresso.
I agree otherwise. I treat moka or aeropress coffee as its own thing; it's not espresso and that's OK.
I see a lot of people talk about "grind" as important.
Really it's just a way of varying pressure and to keep it roughly in that 9 bar zone.
The only magic in a good bur grinder is its consistency. You can look at what you're getting out and bump the pressure up or down slightly compared to your last shot.
So as the beans dry out with age, you can increase the extraction so you don't get a flat, sour shot with no crema. If you put in a new bag of beans you can make the grind courser so that pressure is reduced and you` don't over extract.
I love a morning espresso but I'm less keen on all the connoisseurship around it.
Yep, my mistake : )
It's not just consistency. It's grind size distribution. The cost of a high end burr grinder is crazy and I don't understand what's going on but you can do simple comparative tests.
I have a 2 different burr sets for my grinder with different cutter geometries and the mechanical properties of the grinds and the puck are different. Never mind the taste. The way the water pours through the puck and what's happening inside the basket as you pull the shot is different. You can easily tell by the amount of channeling I get and the integrity of the puck after the shot.
The espresso also tastes different BTW.
I've also done blind taste testing with my grinder pitted against 3 other grinders. Having only tasted the coffee from 1 of these, I matched the coffee to the grinders only based on the theoretical properties of the burr sets.
I'm a simple soul, if I can't measure it really easily I don't worry about it.
It's not like any two beans are the same and I'm tamping them by hand anyway.
Worrying about the shape of the blades in the grinder is like worrying about the type of power cable on your hifi amp. It's too much connoisseurship for me personally but more power to you if that's your bag.
Spread a small amount of ground coffee out on a piece of paper. Observe the varying sizes and shapes within the grounds. Better grinders produce more even grinds which produce more even extraction during brewing.
It’s an exceedingly simple concept. As an extreme example try and brew an espresso using a simple blade style ‘grinder’. It will be impossible. The refinement of a good grinder is simply optimizing along this axis.
You like what you like.
I'm just saying that your dismissal of the effects of your grinder are very wrong. And the differences are easy see and measure.
Some Taiwanese folks crowdsourced a bunch of manual grinders in this forum thread to measure and compare grind size distribution [1].
It's usually my go-to thread whenever someone asks me for grinder recommendations, and care mostly about the end result.
[1] (link in Chinese) https://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=640&t=5747652
It was early and I hadn't had my morning espresso(s) yet : )
having said that the design is remarkably ugly. almost like some medical device - or maybe even like a bathmate? :D
Unfortunately, because the volume is small, I would have to use it multiple times, which was such a pain, I eventually stopped using it in favor of a V60 pourover.
I'd also add, you can get a ceramic bur grinder called the "Porlex mini hand grider" [0] which fits inside the Aeropress' cylinder.
It's a super compact way to travel with a press and a grinder!
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Porlex-Mini-Stainless-Coffee-Grinder/...
Otherwise spend a bit more money and get the 1Zpresso Q2. I think this is the cheapest grinder with 34mm stainless steel burrs you can get that fits inside the Aeropress plunger.
You'll thank yourself later for getting the stainless steel burrs.
Not that I want to pick a fight, but I'm sharing this more for other readers' reference.
I've had my Porlex for a little over 5 years now, use it around twice daily, and have had zero issues.
A quick Google search of ceramic vs steel burs also seems to indicate the ceramic offers better longevity.
Why else do you say Porlex is terrible, aside from being ceramic?
Its build quality is excellent. Well worth the price.
I have a theory that people who start with a Hario Skerton or its clones (all of which have ceramic burrs) tend to be turned off manual grinding because of how bad the grinding experience is.
Steel burrs supposedly cut better and faster.
Admittedly, I've tried my friend's Porlex Tall, and it wasn't unpleasant to use.
Stainless steel 34mm burrs also cut significantly faster and more consistently in a similarly sized grinder. This is the main reason you want stainless steel.
I wouldn't worry about longevity since we're talking about a decade or more for whatever type you chose. But yes, ceramic will last longer.
In fact if you don't want the grinder to fit in the plunger of an aeropress, you can get Taiwanese grinders with stainless steel burrs, well stabilised shafts, ball bearings, a milled Al body for less than the Porlex mini and only slightly more than a Rhinowares.
We use only those, in all sizes. And being really portable you can take them everywhere. Camping, vacation,... you name it. They only thing you struggle to get, even with the dedicated ones marketed as such, is the crema a barista machine will produce.
A moka pot will never be able to give coffee anywhere close to propper espresso.
That's not me being subjective. The moka can not create the pressure needed to extract the oils in the same way as a propper espresso machine. Not to mention that the water to oil ratio is way off compared to an espresso. And a fine enough grind level would simply fall through into the water tank.
A moka pot is one device on the coffee spectrum. It doesnt need to compete or be like any other equipment. It is it's own thing.
https://www.wacaco.com/pages/nanopresso
Produces a consistent cup of espresso with crema and all. You can also buy the "barista kit" to pull double shots.
Part 1 & 2 https://www.instagram.com/tv/CTE25jEFg8U https://www.instagram.com/tv/CTE6VpKjvzu
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rpyBYuu-wJI
I still think a proper espresso machine produces better... espressos, but in my tiny apartment the moka pot is a great alternative. There's certainly a fair bit of technique involved, so you probably won't produce your best coffee on the first go.
Even in a thread about coffee, it must mention ThinkPads
But I also have the same moka. It’s good
It's turtles all the way down!
[0] https://www.finnishdesignshop.com/design-stories/classic/ale...
[1] https://www.artemide.com/en/subfamily/18869/tizio
[2] https://money.cnn.com/gallery/technology/2015/01/08/thinkpad...
From my point of view, if what you are looking for is a very finicky way of making coffee, you have two options: a cheap moka pot or an expensive coffee machine. Then again, I do have a Silvia. Finicky has a certain appeal.
Wrong. Any kind of ferromagnetic sheet of metal (ie even your random iron pie pan) will pick up induction. I regularly use a standard moka pot on my induction stove.
I am super happy with mine, close to a thousand coffees made with 0 maintenance, for 5% of the price of a good coffee machine. And the only waste is coffee grind itself.
Long story short, we bought a stainless steel version, and I love it so much. Probably made 3,000 coffees with it, and it's almost as good as the day we bought it. No a single part replaced or damaged.
Really happy to hear they are coming back from the brink.
https://us.alessi.com/products/moka-espresso-coffee-maker-in...
I'm sure the locking mechanism and aesthetics are much better, and they're a pleasure to use. But something about a $10 thrift store moka pot works well. And no qualms about taking it on a camping trip, to use over a fire.
idk here even on amazon it's like 60eur new.
anyway, I'd bring a Giannina over a campfire than any aluminium thrift moka. sure bottom will blacken a little externally, but ours lasted so long they all eventually blackened outside anyway.
The 60€ price I mentioned was from the Italian Amazon.
- For some reason it succeeds at temperatures lower than other mokas I've had, which is good for the taste as well as for energy savings and the life expectancy of the rubber piece.
- It doesn't drip! All mokas I've had dripped at some point.
- It doesn't have a plastic handle that will melt if you forget to turn off the stove (yup I've done this).
I'm comparing it to an IKEA moka and several Bialetti mokas. Not fair in terms of price.
Drinking coffee like an Italian grandma makes me happy.
As an aside, in 2008, I saw a production of Tosca, by Opera North (Yorkshire, England). https://web.archive.org/web/20081025105247/http://www.leedsg... In it was a priest, who glumly watched the action unfold around him, powerless to stop it. His only consolation was the ritual of making coffee in his Moka. Sometimes I think about that opera while brewing my coffee...
I own a handful of Bialetti mokas of different sizes. A couple of those are from my teenager years, I don't even remember buying them, they might have been from my parents. I still use them multiple times daily.
Mokas are for life. As long as you replace the plastic gasket once in a while (a couple bucks) and you don't accidentally melt the handle (which you can replace anyway) they'll outlive all of us.
Replaceable parts are a few euros.
The Dualit toaster is another piece of "built to last" kitchen equipment.
https://www.dualit.com/products/classic-toasters
Pressed steel panels and all parts available since 1946. They're made for caterers so you probably won't ever need to repair it if you're using it domestically.
We've had ours since 2004ish and it still looks and works exactly like new.
The coffee is delicious and I don't have to use plastic pods. And I now spend a pittance on coffee
Hats off to the marketing team on Nespresso
The author talks about the La Pavoni Ideale, but I don't get how they missed La Pavoni's current bread and butter, the Europiccola and Professional, both of which are more than small enough to fit in a kitchen, make great espresso, and have been sold since the 1960s.
Coffee brewing is like a thermodynamic engine diagram, lots of different routes along the temperature, pressure, mass, flow rate, ground size and packed density dimensions.
Sadly though, the truth is I can barely work my existing semi-automatic espresso maker until I've had my first shot of the day!
If I had a fully manual machine that first shot would end in some kind of Clouseauesque[1] destruction of my kitchen...
1. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Clouseauesque
[0] https://i.imgur.com/MGUj9cV.png
– Tried to once fix an electric kettle with duct tape.
[0] A slightly heretical alternative here is to use cable ties, daisy-chained if necessary for larger jobs.
QED: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=eD8QVQXQevA
I love that products and companies like these still exist, sad indeed that they have such a hard time to survive.
Brew time is pretty much precisely 6 minutes.
Set pot on stove, set timer. When bell rings, coffee is ready.
(A timer built into your cooker / microwave can also work, I find their alarms are not loud enough.)
The surface area of the pot bottom is the limiting factor more than anything else.
Sure, low heat and widely-divergent hobs exist. Standards and conventions help ensure reasonable convergence.
It wasn't clear to me whether the pot was no longer functional, or just whether the previously elegant aluminium surface was now rather ugly.
Practically unkillable if taken a bit of care. At home I use it exclusively for making coffee.
Findings are that drinking coffee from a moka pot made by aluminum will result in a TWI (tolerable weekly intake) of 4%, and that washing the pot in the dishwasher sigificantly increases the aluminum concentration in subsequence brews.
Incidentally, I have a Gaggia classic machine, a grinder and bean, as well as a Nespresso pod machine. The Gaggia is more customisable, but also more work, not just how to pour a cup, but the work establishing consistency in the first place e.g. finding a good grinder, and the right setting, how much coffee in the basket and how much pressure to apply, when to clean and what mods to use etc etc etc
Compared to all that, pods are just as available as beans/espresso grind (maybe more so) and v easy. You don't even have to watch the machine while waiting for it to heat up and pour, and with the right pods the results aren't vastly inferior to the espresso, but much more consistent.
I get the environmental critique, and the Nespresso system is definitely more expensive, lock-in, etc etc, but DAMN it's so convenient and good enough for the everyday workload of a single or couple.
I used to feed my addiction via Nespresso capsules and am glad I stopped because it was really expensive but also:
> Recent research (PDF) conducted by a UK-based coffee brand found that, of the 39,000 capsules produced worldwide every minute, 29,000 of them end up in landfills -- https://bbia.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CAF26_52_Sust...
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/k-cup-creator-john-sylvan-r...
* https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35605927
Discussed in 2018:
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18718039
Some 13 years ago, for the office I got a "modern" Elettrika Bialetti which is a normal 2-cup ½ standard Bialetti with a resistor on the bottom to make it electric. It uses standard computer cables to get power. It powered 11yrs of PhD, postdoc, and academic work.
Last update for my Mokas (~6yrs ago) is to get seals made of silicone. They last a lifetime and now I don't even need to change the seal every four months anymore.
The sizes of "cups" when it comes to coffee seems to be a bit chaotic.
Tasse - 120ml (4oz-ish), this is historically the base UOM of "coffee cup" originally encountered on coffee things. Often carelessly translated to "cup" in countries new to coffee, regardless of overlap with existing alternate meanings of "cup" as a measurement.
Demitasse - 60ml (2oz-ish), a cup for espresso.
Mug - Wikipedia says 8-12oz.
The USA definition of "coffee cup" as an amount one would serve themselves ranges anywhere from 8oz through over 20oz, depending on who you ask. USA-made coffee machine markings also vary, but are always smaller than consumers expect. Currently Black and Decker's "cup" is 5oz and Bunn's is 7oz, which means Bunn's standard 10 cup machine makes substantially more coffee than B&D's standard 12 cup machine.
Unless of course it is a cup of coffee in a recipe, in which case consider the provenance of your recipe and which standardized (or not...) version of a "cup" measurement is indicated before proceeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_(unit)
But I somewhat dislike the aluminum ones as they tend to get somewhat yucky over time ... but Bialetti also sells a stainless steel one, the Bialetti Venus. Big fan.
I have a slightly different experience. I have 2 Moka pots, but both no longer seem useable after leaving it on the stove too long. Now anything I brew using them tastes burned. I've tried cleaning them, but I still haven't been able to get rid of blackish residue in the water reservoir base. Any tips on how to fix them?
The knockoffs don't function properly (burn and spit coffee) probably due to different dimensions - I invite anyone to explain what is so critical about the original design. Here's one that doesn't work: https://homla.com.pl/mia-mokka-zestaw-kawiarka-czarna-z-2-fi...
Maybe material/thickness which acts as thermal buffer and prevents too quick heating?
It's small. It's 0 maintenance. It's works during blackouts or on a camping stove. Maybe not as fast as an applicance, but still fast.
Compared to a bulky, single-purpose appliance which gives an aftertaste after a couple of months, yeah it's more convenient.
She's bosnian so she's made coffee with a turkish coffee pot directly on the stove most of my life. As a kid I would also grind beans for her in an old brass hand cranked grinder from Bosnia. When you grind the beans yourself by hand they do tend to be a bit coarser, fitting for the moka pot.
Every one of these four statements is so comically false that you cannot help to attribute a dose of bad faith in the author. You can buy a real espresso machine that fits in a 15cm x 30cm base (like two bottles of water side by side) for about 100EUR, which is definitely easier to use than a moka pot, and does not waste energy by heating the air in the kitchen.
EDIT: just look for "thin espresso machine" on a search engine, there's plenty of choice!
Most cheap espresso machines achieve crema and pressure via a pressurised portafilter [1].
Nothing wrong with having one as a beginner, but you're stuck with using coarser grinds because of the always-there pressure, and it limits the number of variables you're able to play with to "dial in" beans.
[1] https://coffee.stackexchange.com/questions/2641/how-big-of-a...
You can get a normal basket for it since the pump can hit the required pressures for espresso. But they use their own basket size, so just be careful what you get. The steam wand also uses a froth-aider so you won't be getting the silky microfoam that can pour art. I've used the Dedica before and it's ok.
For my money I'd get the Breville Bambino if you want this style of machine. I believe the latest model comes with a pressurized and normal basket. And the automated milk steamer is actually quite impressive. Milk foams up well enough to pour art and it does an admirable job at soy milk.
The moka pot is very hard to dial in and almost always burns the coffee. It requires care, focus, and attention. They're much more inconsistent than pour over and even the lever espresso machines I've used are less work.
I think moka pots are fun and worth experimenting with but I find it hard to believe people really love the results. But if you are always adding milk and sugar, then I can definitely see the appeal.
But this summer I rented a motor home for the holidays (yeah yeah covid vacation -again), which came with a Bialetti. So I looked up how to use it, and every morning I would make a couple of cups for myself and the wife, on the gas stove.
Perfect coffee every time, very easy, no problems whatsoever. The gas stove I used was on max every time, no changes, so maybe that's why it was consistent.. but I don't really see how it matters, as the heat is just making steam after all. So how can you get burned coffee?
https://www.valvesonline.com.au/references/steam-tables/
Most other methods don't have you heat the coffee and the water together so you can only really burn it if you put it on a heating element after.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpyBYuu-wJI
Just now, because of this thread, I have ordered a Kamira Espresso maker. We'll see how it goes.
These days I use an aeropress more often, it's similar in terms of convenience but is faster and more importantly I find it doesn't require heating the coffee as much, which makes it taste better.
1 cup is for me and my wife (we wait while the other finishes)
2 cup is for when we a guest
9 cup is for my 70 year old parents. I cringe just seeing them drink 4.5 cups each.
The only thing that saddens me a bit is that when (not if) I will switch to an induction stove I will have to buy a new steel pot, or switch to an electric one. Until then, she's my mainstay.
IMO one would be a fool to accept this risk, even if small.
I do however find it very weird. For example, how far-spread is Alzheimer's in Italy, where the Al intake must be through the roof. If this was to be believed, then all italians would have AD. (I am fully aware that logically, this is not correct, and that they could perhaps have developed some sort of immunity).
The same could be said about soda/beverage cans. Their use is so widespread that virtually everyone in America should have AD.
The scientific argument may have some truth to it, but I still find it weird that it's not "evident" in populations where Al intake would be through the roof.
They are coated inside.
- Al is a known neurotoxin
- Al does not, typically, rust, despite being far more thermodynamically favorable than Fe because a kinetic barrier, AlO2, forms stopping further oxidation
- AlO2 is an extremely durable coating. Extremely inert. It's crystal lattice constant is similar to Al's to it does not flake
- Al does rust in salty environments.
Conclusion:
The moka is fine. Just don't use vinegar or salt water to brew your coffee.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5388725/
> Additional human inner aluminum exposure through the proper use of aluminum moka pots is negligible. Even under the worst-case scenario of washing the moka pots in a dishwasher, the uptake amounts to only 4% of TWI [total weekly intake]. The manufacturers expressly warn not to clean the aluminum moka pots in the dishwasher.
Or buy an induction plate adapter. I have not used one, so I cannot tell how practical they are, just saying they exist.
As others have commented, the coffee itself is the most important thing to get right - a great bean brewed normally will beat a mediocre bean brewed perfectly :)
Which is actually another problem - they don't work very well when partially loaded. So you can't own only one if you ever have guests and don't want to do multiple runs.
I absolutely love it. It's the simplest way to make a good coffee, and the only form of coffee I enjoy more is a proper espresso made with a fancy machine.
I'm with you, but my mum (Italian) nowadays just refuses to drink espresso. She worked in hospitals, and they would make coffee with mokas all day long, so that's what she wants. At home, I have to keep a Bialetti and a single pack of Lavazza just for her, for when she comes over once a year.
> the Cuban concoction cafecito is made by quickly whipping the first few drops of moka pot coffee with sugar, creating a paste that both flavors the coffee and simulates a classic espresso foam.