More on the Moka

Thanks to Jones Coffee Roasters of Pasadena I've been enjoying some pretty top-notch espresso made in the moka, and I've learned a lot from making a couple of hundred cups in this method so far. My rubber gasket was looking pretty worn, so I replaced it two days ago and discovered something interesting:

The newer the gasket, the lower the temperature of the flame and the less packed the grinds there needs to be.

Also:

Once you've brewed your preferred serving size in the moka pot, pour immediately. The best part of the brew occurs in the first seconds. This may mean that more may sputter out after you pour and that you make larger servings than you drink. Forget about the leftover coffee and throw it down the drain.

In fact, I now believe that the fit with the gasket makes quite a lot of difference to the finished result. Here's why: after I fitted my new gasket in, I made myself an espresso the way I always do, and suddenly the pot behaved very differently. It was back to sputtering and spitting quite early on in the brew, just as it had at the very beginning when I was learning how to use it. Sputtering in this way usually leaves you with boiled coffee - not terribly yummy. I prefer to have the brew escape in a slow, steady fashion. It's safer too! When it did this at first, I blamed the water temperature and the grind, but now I think it was a matter of temperature and amount of grinds.

For your reference, an earlier fact-finding mission on the web discovered this helpful link. And my recent read of acclaimed coffee guru Kevin Knox's (of The Coffee Review) book Coffee Basics has panned the moka pot as a general killer of coffee in comparison to the virtues of the French press, Aeropress (his and our favorite for best coffee taste), and paper cone filter methods. From Knox I also learned the true shelf-life of coffee and the true shelf-life of ground coffee (hours if not in an airtight container, about a week max if in an airtight container away from light and heat). Since I preferred buying moka grind (thinking that it was the key to the perfect moka brew), Knox helped me see that I was drinking stale coffee within a few days of opening the canister. So a new tip:

If you buy ground coffee, store it in a airtight canister in a cool, dark place and drink it within a week, or sooner. Or just don't buy it ground.

Experience proved him right: I had a week-old Jones Cara Mia espresso in the canister and compared it to fresh ground from that day. There is no comparison. The freshly ground coffee was so dramatically superior I began to wonder why I drank the other instead of, say, Folgers or some other such horror. But I simply can't make it through 1/2 lb. of coffee in a week (especially not as a nursing mother). So I'm a bit stuck: either I waste coffee (and take a trip out to Jones every single week) or get inconsistently ground coffee that might affect the quality of the brew (the jury is still out on that one). My current halfway house idea is to buy the 1/2 lb. at Jones (the smallest increment they sell), and then have them grind HALF of that, and take the rest home whole bean. Next time, Jones, next time...

When all is said and done, though, using a moka is a finicky way of brewing yourself coffee and tends to burn the coffee at least a little (and sometimes a lot, if you don't watch out or don't know what you're doing). Which is just as I'd like it to be. Who wants an easy way to brew? That takes half the fun out of making yourself some coffee. I want to fiddle and faff and have a good half-dozen mini-steps or tips to make it come out juuuuust right.

Coffee is no mere beverage or energy drink; coffee is leisurely activity.

Mitigated Triumph, that is

Ah, the espresso battles are not yet over. Some sort of hidden variable was at play, and I cannot yet with consistency make myself an espresso of which I can be proud.

*sigh*

That said, I think I'm on to something. Our tap water is very cold, and I think that may be influencing the time that it takes for the water to come up to the right temperature for the espresso ooze to do its magic, Bialetti-style. Yesterday afternoon met with more success, as I pre-warmed the water chamber a bit before adding the water. Well, actually, I filled it with near boiling water and then nearly burnt my hand. Yes...aluminum definitely conducts heat very well. I then decided merely "warming" and not raising the pot to scalding temperatures, was sufficient.

Anyways here are the results. I was feeling very continental yesterday, and so added the rolled chocolate wafer and book to my espresso experience. This, my friends, is an espresso macchiato, an espresso "stained" or "marked" with foamed milk. Unlike the latte macchiato, there is little hot milk, so the charm of the drink lies in the concentrated blast of rich, dark espresso. And in the cute white and blue tablecloth...

Triumph over Espresso

I have now, thanks to Wikipedia and YouTube, made a latte macchiato. It is a beauty to behold, so I thought you should behold it.


And...it stays in layers while you drink it, at least at first. I just realized that I'm enjoying experimenting with espresso-making more than the drinking of the espresso made. I think that's partly because I really can't drink more than three shots a day. Which I'm hoping is a virtue. Of some sort.

Yum!

On the Italian moka method of stovetop espresso-making, it turns out that the main factor affecting the outcome was not the fineness of the grind of the beans, but the amount and density of grinds put in the filter basket. I saw some people just absolutely stuff if with grinds on YouTube video demos, but that didn't work at all for me. As the grinds expanded with heat and steam, there simply wasn't enough pressure to push the espresso up the percolator and I would end up with over-cooked coffee exploding and sputtering from the top of the percolator after 10 minutes (instead of the 4-5 that is expected). Fewer grinds left more room for the steam to do its magic, and I would have espresso softly flowing, almost oozing out of the conical top, followed by that characeristic gurgle that signals the end of the brewing. Just watching that alone is a delight. Sweet Maria's had a helpful guide to brewing that set the record straight on a few of my questions and is, in general, a super-awesome coffee maven site.

Pancho, however, is worried about my caffeine intake, so the experimentation is going to have to slow to a more reasonable pace.