Moka Pot Coffee
Water pushed up through the grounds by steam pressure in a stovetop pot.
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A cup of dark coffee beside a stovetop moka pot, on a striped cloth
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Extraction
This brew works out at 120.0 g of coffee per litre of water, against the 49.5 to 60.5 g/L the standard allows, so it is stronger than it. The comparison is made in grams per litre and not on the ratio, because a ratio is the reciprocal of a strength and a symmetric band on one is an asymmetric band on the other. The water temperature also sits outside the standard. Source: Golden Cup Standard, Specialty Coffee Association.
No extraction yield is shown. It needs a measured dissolved-solids figure from the finished cup, nothing on a bag of coffee supplies one, and estimating it from the method would be inventing the single number the calculation exists to establish.
Ingredients
12 g coffee
100 ml water
- 12 g coffee
- 100 ml water
Glass
Vessel
65 ml of liquid, served without ice, inside the 80 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 5mGrind the 12 g coffee to a medium-fine texture, finer than a drip grind but coarser than an espresso grind.
Fill the base with the 100 ml water below the pressure valve, seat the funnel and pack the grounds level without tamping, then screw the top chamber on.
Set the pot over moderate heat with the lid open and listen for the flow. Brew for 4m, until the stream turns pale and starts to sputter.
The heat stays moderate rather than high, because it is the steam building in the sealed base that pushes the water up, not a hard boil; too much heat forces it through fast and pulls the same harsh compounds a scorched shot would.
Take the pot off the heat as soon as it sputters and pour at once.
Common pitfallLeaving the pot on the burner once the chamber empties and starts hissing scorches whatever coffee is left clinging to the funnel, and that burnt note carries straight into the next cup poured from it.
Keeping and make-ahead
Brewed to order over direct heat; the pot cannot be held on the stove without cooking the coffee it has already made.
About
Coffee pushed through the grounds by steam pressure in a sealed aluminium pot, invented in Piedmont in 1933 and still made in most Italian kitchens.
The pot was invented by Alfonso Bialetti at his metalworking shop in Crusinallo, in Piedmont, in 1933 1. Bialetti had spent years working in the French aluminium industry before returning home, and the Moka Express applied that material to a shape said to be inspired by watching his wife's laundry machine push soapy water up through a central tube and back down over the clothes 2. The pot does the same thing with water and steam: sealed in a lower chamber over heat, the water is forced up through a funnel of grounds and collects in the upper chamber, no pump or plunger involved.
It was not an immediate success. Only around seventy thousand pots sold in its first six years 2. Growth came after the Second World War, when Alfonso's son Renato took over the company and marketed it under the line "in casa un espresso come al bar" (an espresso at home, just like the one at the bar) 2, though the pot's one to two bar of pressure is well short of what a café machine reaches and the result is closer to a very strong filter coffee than to true espresso. By 1956 the factory was producing eighteen thousand pots a day 2, and the design (octagonal, aluminium, unchanged in its basic engineering) is now reported to sit in the large majority of Italian households 1.
The method rewards a particular kind of attention: moderate heat rather than high, because the pressure that drives the water is building on its own, and a readiness to take the pot off the stove the moment the flow turns pale and starts to sputter, before the empty chamber has a chance to scorch what little coffee is left in the funnel.
- 1Bialettien.wikipedia.org
- 2A Short History of the Bialetti Moka Expressessentialitaly.co.uk