Haven’t finished cleaning the outside yet (hence the sticker residue) but the inside has been deep cleaned. It took about 19 minutes to do 200ml of coffee, and the end result was horribly burnt and bitter so I’d definitely not recommend it, but it’s a cool novelty! It will never be used again I doubt, unless I’m trying to commit taste bud murder, as this was genuinely the worst tasting liquid I’ve ever tried, but I might put it on a shelf as a decorative piece or something. The design is truly really cool, it’s a real shame it doesn’t make decent coffee. Maybe I need a better technique, but I love regular moka pot and used this one in a way I thought might make good coffee, so it might just be a bad brewer. If anyone has experience with it though I’d love some advice, maybe I just can’t make good coffee out of it and it’s a skill issue. I hope that’s the case, I’d love for it to make good coffee, but I don’t think I can assault my taste buds with that monstrosity again so I’m worried about playing with it.
I’m so jelly!
lots of good advice in this thread already.
also check the rubber seal. i always keep one spare laying around for my bialetti. old cracked ones make the coffee spill everywhere (or at least steam), which increases boiling time. worse: burning the ring tastes absolutely horrendous. especially when i let the kids do the coffee, a burnt ring will happen sooner or later.
Did you find your camera at the thrift shop as well? Picture looks vintage.
He said he wasnt done with the sticker residue on the outside …
I would experiment with it before giving up.
You need to brew very gently. Moka pots are finicky and they don’t forgive your mistakes.
If you’re ok with any random coffee, it’s really easy, and that’s why they are so popular. If you want to make good coffee, you really need to know what you’re doing.
I’ve watched that whole series before, plus a fair bit of stuff from Matteo D’Ottavio and Lance Hedrick’s new video on them as well, because I use the 3- and 6-cup mokas pretty regularly. It could be the size is just not what I’m used to as this one is quite large. But due to the large size I’m wary to experiment because if I make another bad pot of coffee, that’s a lot of beans wasted.
When experimenting, you shouldn’t use your finest beans. When I’m getting to know a new method, I usually start with the cheapest light roast I can find in a supermarket. It’s nowhere near a specialty coffee, but it’s still a lot nicer than any medium roast I’ve ever found. As it costs about 18 €/kg, making mistakes doesn’t get too expensive. This method is ok if you’re testing a new method and you’re brewing coffee for a large crowd at the same time. Alternatively, you could brew for yourself, but you would need to drink more than a few cups.
Another option would be to use decaf, which comes with different compromises. It’s about twice the price, but you can drink a lot of it. When I was getting to know my cheap espresso machine, I went with decaf. I ended up making six double shots in a day, and that amount of regular espresso would have been way too much for me. With decaf though, I was fine. If I had used regular coffee, I would have needed to spread these experiments over several days, but with decaf I was able to do all of it during a single day.
Would you post the inside? Does the hot water get pushed sideways through the puck?
A courser ground should make the coffee less bitter as the water will have less time and pressure causing overextraction.
I’ll try to get pictures later if I remember.
The water goes up through the puck and then gets funneled to the side after, so from the puck’s POV it’s pretty similar to a regular moka in that regard.
I’ll try a coarser grind at some point probably, but this thing is quite large so if the coffee turns out bad it’s a pretty big waste. It’s a fair bit bigger than my 6-cup moka, so I’m guessing it’s probably the size of a 9-cup or maybe even a 12-cup.
Did u use boiling water already or did you let it heat up.
Yeah I did it with boiling water.
Also interested!
Looks like a similar to the mini express they still make.
Given how high the spout gets, I wouldn’t be surprised if you treated it too gently, and it wants a higher temp.
Maybe, since it’s so large, buy a sacrificial Maxwell house or similar low quality coffee. Make one with your moka pot, so you know what “good” will be with that coffee, and then play with that until you find another “good”.
Not a bad idea. If I brave the pot again I’ll give it a go.
The trick to Mokas, is to fill the chamber with hot water, and carefully assemble, then put it on the burner.
Yeah that’s what I did, it’s what I’m used to from the regular mokas I make. I have a feeling if I did cold water I’d fall asleep before it finished brewing!
I do the same. If it took 19 minutes from cold, I suspect this version will probably over-extract in any case, but starting with hot water will definitely help.
It was actually 19 mins from water just off the boil.
Oh, wow! I guess you’ve already checked if the pipe is obstructed?
Yeah I couldn’t see anything, but at the same time the coffee was sort of spitting out the whole time, almost as if it were obstructed. It’s like if you leave a regular moka on for too long and it spits everywhere at the end, but for the entire brew. I did try my best to clean the pipe but it’s not the easiest thing to get at, so it’s possible I missed something.
This is a myth / outdated advice. You get better results with room temperature water.
coffee goes sideways then just spills out of the spout into the cup? i wonder what made it take so long to come out.
