Getting the most out of a coffee moka pot.

[Fluffycloudland77]

The espresso pump broke down so I bought a moka but there’s a lot of conflicting advice re grind size and water temperature.

I like a shot of coffee topped up with milk to make a latte.

What do you do to make coffee in yours?

I use a relatively fine grind which is finer than filter but not as fine as espresso. Don't tamp it down, fill with coffee and scrape the excess off.

Then this is where I think the real difference comes in. Fill the pot with boiling water before putting it on to heat, then as soon as the very first gurgle of water running out starts take the pot and run the base under cold water.

The logic of this is that you want the hot water to go through the coffee, but ideally we want as little excess heat to get into the coffee before the water hits it (to prevent bitterness). So by pre-heating the water we don't have the phase where the metal is heating the coffee without water.

The cold water is to stop the brewing process.

Thank you. I did all of that except the cooling today, mines a stainless steel induction one and as soon as you remove heat it stops working.

Possibly because there’s no radiant heat?. If the base buckles it won’t get enough heat off the hob to work at all.

My morning coffee tasted much better than yesterday’s effort.

I can't do that base cooling thing either with my pot. Also my taste buds clearly aren't that amazing as I like the flavour of basic moka pot from-cold coffee just fine

Medium grind ever-so-slightly on the finer side works best for me.