My Moka Pot routine

My Moka Pot routine

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My Moka Pot routine

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My Moka Pot routine

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My Moka Pot routine

My Moka Pot routine

minimum dose size?

Jan 31, 2024 |

I use the Hario switch to brew my coffee and am trying to reduce my caffeine consumption. Hence I would like to brew smaller cups of coffee. I am currently using 10g of coffee with 160g of water. (1:16 Ratio) I am wondering if there is a minimum amount of coffee...

My Moka Pot routine

Just thought I'd share my Moka pot routine as it differs from some of the common advice about Moka pots but it always comes out great (using it about daily for over a year). It's also a bit easier at certain steps than the common recommendations.

  1. Fill the water chamber up to the valve with cold tap water.
  2. Fill the coffee grounds chamber with ground coffee, tamp it down with your hand and scrape off excess grounds to level.
  3. Screw together entire assembly (tightly to avoid bubbling out the sides) and place on the stovetop with lid open over medium heat. Set a stopwatch to take note of how long the next step takes for future reference – later set a timer so you don't have to watch as closely.
  4. Watch for the coffee to start emerging from the lower part of the assembly. As soon as it covers the bottom of the upper chamber so you can't see it, turn the heat down to the lowest setting and leave on the lowered heat. Take note of how long it takes to get to the heat-lowering point. There's a little variation but it's sufficiently little that you can usually do other things instead of watch in the future. For me this is usually about 8.5 min.
  5. As soon as you start hearing the beginnings of a gurgle (takes practice but isn't critical to get perfect), remove from the heat and turn off the heat. If you want you can run the Moka pot under cold water to stop extraction but the amount that comes out with this approach is pretty trivial as long as you were watching/listening. Stir 'til the color is uniform and use however you like.

Some of this advice is different from common advice due to empirical testing. The temperature of the water doesn't seem to matter much (in fact colder seems better because it takes longer to go through/less chance of early "sneezing"). Not pre-boiling means it's much easier to handle the Moka pot. Tamping down the grounds, as long as it's by hand, doesn't seem to matter at least for the grind sizes I've tried (in grocery store pre-ground coffee). I do it because it gets more coffee in contact with the water, but I'm not sure it makes a difference to the taste either way. Finally the sensitivity people have to the "sneezing" seems overblown: a little doesn't make a difference at least for lattes ime (I can't vouch for black). I think the main thing is to avoid heavy sneezing, which we control with the temperature and removing from the heat early.

Still to try: deliberately oversneeze to confirm that this ruins the taste (think it does). Try tamping + not leveling to confirm this is the actual problem with overtamping (think it is). Try bottled water to see if it's significantly better than tap (suspect it isn't). Try lid down instead of lid up. Try different grind sizes to see if there's a point where it's too fine to tamp successfully.

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My Moka Pot routine

Perfect Little Beans

Chinmey Hill Coffee uses specialty-grade beans with zero primary defects (such as black beans or sour beans) and less than five secondary defects (such as broken beans). This is important because primary defects will greatly affect the taste of the coffee. Having zero defects allows the coffee to be the most optimal flavor.

Window for Optimal Flavor

Chimney Hill Coffee ships our coffee the same day it was roasted, so you will receive it before it enters the window of optimal flavor.  This means you’ll never miss the opportunity to enjoy the coffee’s peak flavor.

Coffee Ratings

Coffee undergoes many scoring processes by professionals who achieved their Q Grader certification. Coffee is first graded when it’s green. If there are defects the coffee is determined to be “not-specialty grade”. For those coffees that pass green grading, they are sample roasted and cupped. (Cupping is the official term for critically tasting and scoring coffees. The official cupping form is standard worldwide, and where the 100-point scoring system comes from.) A coffee’s dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, body, acidity, balance, and overall impression are taken into consideration while uniformity issues and defects, will lower the overall score.

Specialty Coffee

Specialty coffee, coined by Erna Knutsen in 1974, refers to a coffee that receives a quality grading score of 80 percent or higher. While “premium” or “gourmet” seem like they’re synonymous with “specialty,” they simply are marketing terms with no defined standards. Specialty coffees are grown in specific and ideal micro-climates, and have distinctive and unique flavor profiles, with little to no defects.

Third-Wave Coffee

We’re currently in the third wave of coffee. The first wave of American coffee put pre-ground, vacuum-sealed cans in kitchens across America. The second wave started with the late ‘60s introduction of Peet’s coffee (by Alfred Peet) through the proliferation of Starbucks. The third wave of coffee focuses on origin transparency, nuanced flavors, and artisan roasting. The term “third wave” is synonymous with specialty coffee.

My Moka Pot routine

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