Most of my friends are loyal fans of Italian coffee. Compared with the fresh taste of Pour over(V60) products, they prefer the deep and rich coffee, so they have put the coffee machine on their shopping list early! However, the semi-automatic coffee machine was too expensive. After some understanding, I chose a more cost-effective "substitute coffee machine" - a Moka pot!
Moka pots are good everywhere. Whether it’s the affordable price or the delicious coffee they produce, they are worth every penny! However, the Moka pots purchased early were all single-valve ones, which had an obvious disadvantage: the coffee creme they produced would be a little thin and dissipate quickly.
Fat is still relatively important for those who pay attention to taste and make milk coffee! Coffee with oil will be more mellow than coffee without oil; moreover, oil can make milk coffee latte art more exquisite and taste better! So, is there any way to make rich fat without changing the pot?
Why is the grease in the Moka pot so thin?
The extraction of the espresso machine uses more than 9 air pressures to press out the coffee, which contains carbon dioxide released by the hot water. The carbon dioxide is mixed with the insoluble substances that are also forced out, forming the rich oil of the espresso!
However, even if the single-valve Moka pot is squeezed dry, it cannot reach the air pressure of 9bar, let alone more than 9bar! Therefore, under low pressure conditions, the grease produced by a single-valve Moka pot is thinner and dissipates faster! But in fact, we only need to pay attention to some details to extract rich oil!
How to make a single-valve Moka pot extract rich oil?
1. Selection of Moka Pot Coffee Beans
Great coffee cannot be separated from freshly roasted beans. Front Street Coffee, a long-established coffee bean roasting brand, has been established for 13 years. The offline store of Front Street Coffee in Guangzhou specializes in selling coffee beans. The store sells dozens of selected single-product Pour over(V60) coffee beans and espresso coffee beans from different coffee origins around the world. Front Street Coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days. The quality of the coffee beans is stable and excellent, the price is very cost-effective, and the goods are shipped within 24 hours. Whether you are a newbie, a coffee lover who has reached a professional advanced level, or a user who has opened a coffee shop, Front Street Coffee is a recommended choice by many coffee lovers and platforms.
If you want your moka pot coffee to have richer oils, it is recommended to give priority to dark roasted coffee. Dark roasting makes the beans more loose in texture, and hot water can more easily penetrate into the interior, allowing the carbon dioxide hidden in the beans to be discharged with the hot water!
It should be noted that fresh beans here refer to beans that have been raised and are still within the viewing period! Fresh beans contain the most carbon dioxide. Combined with the loose texture of dark roasts, we can more easily obtain a large amount of oil and have a rich coffee aroma.
Moka Pot Coffee Bean One: Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling
Reasons for recommendation: sweet aroma of pine wood, dark chocolate, herbs, and caramel, delicate oil, mellow taste, and low acidity
Moka Pot Coffee Bean Two: Front Street Queens Estate
Reason for recommendation: Roasted peanut, chocolate, cream flavor, oil with obvious nutty aroma, balanced taste, soft fruit acidity
Moka Pot Coffee Bean Three: Front Street Classic Italian Blend
Reason for recommendation: Hazelnut, maltose flavor, rich taste, weak sourness, Moka pot can easily extract rich oils
2. Grinding degree
In addition to using fresher beans, we also need to pay attention to controlling the extraction pressure of the Moka pot. Although it does not have a pressure as high as 9 Bar like an espresso machine, it does not mean that it does not have it! It's just smaller.
There are two methods of pressure control, which need to be used together: one is grinding degree! The grinding degree of the Moka pot will be finer than that of Pour over(V60) coffee, and a little coarser than that of Italian grinding!
(The left side of the picture shows hand grinding, the picture shows Moka pot grinding, and the right side of the picture shows Italian grinding)
When you use coarse grinding for Pour over(V60) coffee, the hot water will spurt out directly because there is no resistance! If Italian grinding is used, it will be too fine and the coffee liquid will not come up (because the Moka pot does not have enough air pressure to break through the resistance of the powder cake), which is prone to the risk of explosion caused by poor pressure relief!
When you see that the coffee liquid is not coming out for a long time, be sure to turn off the fire source in time to ensure your own safety! Therefore, whether it is hand grinding or electric grinding, when using a Moka pot, it is better to adjust the grinding scale of the grinder to be coarser than the Italian grinding. It will be more appropriate!
(Moka pot coffee made using hand-pour grinding)
After you have identified the beans and ground them, the next step is to fill them with flour! This is another step in stress control!
3. Filling powder
Generally, we will choose the amount of coffee powder based on the size of the Moka pot we use. So the Moka pot used here at Front Street is a three-person Moka pot, which requires about 19g of coffee powder for filling!
It can be seen that the height of the powder bed is higher than the groove, so at this time many friends will choose to press it with their hands and wait first! We smooth it out first, then tap it sideways and tap it left and right to evenly distribute the coffee powder in the lower layer! This way the gap is smaller and can effectively reduce the channel effect!
Then you can choose to press according to your grinding degree. If the grinding is slightly coarse, you can use your fingers to press down lightly when smoothing to increase resistance and allow better formation of grease! If the grinding is slightly fine, there is no need to press, because the resistance is already enough, and it is ready to be put into the pot and boiled!
After pressing, pour 110ml hot water into the lower pot, then install the powder trough and the upper pot in order and start brewing coffee!
Once the grease has covered the silver surface on the bottom of the moka pot, remove it from the heat.
The residual temperature is enough to extract all the remaining liquid.
Then, you will get a cup of Moka pot coffee with thick oil. If your Moka pot is a double valve, the oil will be richer. Don’t wait, just make any coffee and start enjoying it.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
