Coffee with a "moka" machine
#cooking
Foreword
Can I call this a "guest article"? All that's written here has been compiled by my friend Alex. Thanks, Alex!
Introduction
Coming from an Italian family it's hard to not appreciate the coffee that a Moka machine can produce. You know, that strong and bitter coffee that sometimes tastes like wood and ash? Yeah, these don't seem to be nice words to describe something that you like, but face it, the coffee produced by a Moka pot doesn't taste that nice.
How would you react if I told you that coffee can be mildly acidic and sweet with floral notes of exotic fruits? That's what you can get at home with the right set-up or, if you are lazy like me, you go into a Third Wave coffee bar that has a selection of good single-origin coffee beans. But we are not here for that, we are trying to get a better coffee out of our Moka pot.
First of all, repeat with me: I need to clean the pot and remove all the oily black residues. How many times did you hear the mantra "don't clean it. The coffee taste worse otherwise"? Alas, nonsense. All those residues are a mixture of coffee oil and bitter flavours. We don't want them.
Procedure
- Unscrew the moka and prepare the funnel with an amount of coffee that fills the chamber. Don't press it, just distribute it with your finger.
- Prepare hot water in a kettle and fill the Moka pot just below the valve.
- Place the funnel in the lower half of the moka and screw the top part nice and tight
- Put the Moka on a stove (medium temperature)
- Wait and look at your coffee brewing and flowing inside the chamber. Listen carefully.
- When a gurgling sound starts, remove the Moka pot from the stove and cool it with running water onto the heating vessel.
- Serve and enjoy!
This procedure ensures two things. First, the coffee won't cook. Second, by cutting off the last bit of the brew, we will block the extraction of most of the bitterness.
So, what's next? If you tried this and you crave form more advice, it's time to raise your game.
My first advice is to stop buying pre-ground coffee in supermarkets. The label doesn't tell you when the coffee was roasted, where it comes from and which single-origin beans they used to create the blend you are buying. For almost the same price, you can purchase preground coffee from a coffee roastery near you. Most of the roasteries will sell you freshly-roasted coffee and will help you navigate the coffee world. By doing this, you will enter a new world.
If you are still here, I shall introduce you to James Hoffman, a former champion in the barista competitions and manager of a famous coffee roaster in London. With his British charm, he will show you how the coffee world is big and still undiscovered. His YouTube channel is easily accessible with tons of content that range from analysing brewing recipes to review coffee machines and grinders.
Notes and Links
- Single-origin coffee is grown within a single known geographic region. Usually, when you get an espresso, you will drink a blend of different single-origin beans. Blending single-origin coffee will enhance and balance the shots. Single-origin coffee is preferred when brewing differently from espresso (pour over, french press, Aeropress, etc.)
- Roasting date: look at this in the same way you would look at the expiration date for fresh food. During the roasting process, the green coffee beans are "cooked" and a flavour profile will arise. All these flavours will fade after some time, that's why you want to consume your coffee asap. Pre-ground coffee is also detrimental in this regard, but unless you are willing to buy a "decent" grinder don't worry about it.
- Video Recipe
- James Hoffman's channel