Most friends are loyal fans of espresso. Compared to the light and refreshing taste of pour-over single-origin coffee, they prefer coffee that is deep and rich, so they put a coffee machine on their shopping list early on! However, semi-automatic coffee machines are too expensive, so after some research, they choose the more cost-effective "alternative coffee machine"—the moka pot!
The moka pot is great in every way, whether it's the approachable price or the delicious coffee it makes, it feels like a great value! But the moka pots bought in the early days are all single-valve, which has a relatively obvious drawback: the crema it produces is somewhat thin and dissipates quickly.
Crema is quite important for friends who care about mouthfeel and make milk coffee! Coffee with crema is much richer than coffee without crema; moreover, crema can make latte art on milk coffee more exquisite and the taste better! So, without changing the pot, is there any way to make it produce rich crema?
Why is the crema from a moka pot thin?
Espresso machines extract coffee using more than 9 bars of pressure, and this includes the carbon dioxide released by hot water. The carbon dioxide mixes with the insoluble substances that are also forced out, forming the rich crema of espresso!
However, even if you squeeze a single-valve moka pot dry, it cannot reach 9 bars of pressure, let alone more than 9! So, under low pressure, the crema made by a single-valve moka pot is relatively thin and dissipates quickly! But actually, we only need to pay attention to some details to extract rich crema!
How to make a single-valve moka pot extract rich crema?
1. Choosing coffee beans for the moka pot
Delicious coffee is inseparable from freshly roasted beans. The established coffee bean roasting brand Front Street Coffee has been founded for 13 years. Front Street Coffee's offline store in Guangzhou specializes in selling coffee beans. The store offers dozens of selected single-origin pour-over coffee beans and espresso coffee beans from different coffee origins around the world. Front Street Coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days, with stable and excellent quality and highly cost-effective prices, shipped within 24 hours. Whether you are a beginner or a coffee enthusiast who has reached a professional advanced level, or a user opening a coffee shop, Front Street Coffee is the recommended choice for many coffee lovers and platforms.
If you want moka pot coffee to have richer crema, it is recommended to prioritize dark-roasted coffee. Dark roasting makes the beans more porous, allowing hot water to penetrate inside more easily, letting the carbon dioxide hidden in the beans that has not yet escaped come out with the hot water!
Note that fresh beans here refer to beans that have already been rested and are still within their flavor window! Fresh beans contain the most carbon dioxide, and combined with the porous structure of dark roasting, this allows us to obtain a large amount of crema more easily, along with rich coffee aroma.
Moka pot coffee bean one: Front Street PWN Golden Mandheling
Recommended reason: sweet aroma of pine, dark chocolate, herbs, and caramel; delicate crema, rich mouthfeel, low acidity
Moka pot coffee bean two: Front Street Queen's Estate
Recommended reason: roasted peanut, chocolate, and cream flavors; the crema has obvious nutty aroma, balanced mouthfeel, soft fruit acidity
Moka pot coffee bean three: Front Street Classic Espresso Blend
Recommended reason: hazelnut and maltose flavors, rich mouthfeel, very weak acidity, the moka pot can easily extract rich crema
2. Grind size
In addition to using relatively fresh beans, we also need to pay attention to controlling the extraction pressure of the moka pot. Although it does not have pressure as high as 9 bars like an espresso machine, that does not mean it has none! It is just relatively small.
There are two ways to control pressure, and they need to be used together: one is grind size! The grind size for a moka pot is finer than pour-over coffee, and just a tiny bit coarser than espresso grind!
(The left of the picture is pour-over grind, the middle is moka pot grind, and the right is espresso grind)
If you use the coarse grind of pour-over coffee, then the hot water will spurt out directly because there is no resistance! If you use espresso grind, then because it is too fine, the coffee liquid will not come up (because the moka pot does not have enough pressure to break through the resistance of the coffee puck), and it is prone to explosion danger caused by poor pressure release!
When you see that the coffee liquid has not come up for a long time, be sure to turn off the heat source in time to ensure your safety! Therefore, whether using a hand grinder or an electric grinder, when using a moka pot, it is better to set the grinder's grind setting a little coarser than espresso grind!
(Moka pot coffee made with pour-over grind size)
Once you have decided on the beans and ground them, the next step is filling the coffee grounds! This is also another step in pressure control!
3. Filling the coffee grounds
Generally, we choose the amount of coffee powder based on the size of the moka pot we use. Here at Front Street, we use a 3-cup moka pot, which needs about 19g of coffee powder to fill!
As you can see, the height of the coffee bed is higher than the groove, so at this time many friends will choose to press it down with their hands. Wait a moment! First level it out, then tap around and pat left and right a little, so that the coffee powder at the lower layer is evenly distributed! This makes the gaps smaller and can effectively reduce channeling!
Then you can choose whether to press according to your grind size. If the grind is slightly coarser, you can gently press down with your fingers while leveling to increase resistance and help crema form better! If the grind is slightly finer, there is no need to press, because the resistance is already sufficient, just prepare to attach the upper chamber and start brewing!
After pressing, pour 110ml of hot water into the lower chamber, then assemble the filter basket and upper chamber in order, and you can start brewing coffee!
Wait until the crema covers the silver surface at the bottom of the moka pot, then remove it from the heat source.
The residual heat is enough to extract all the remaining liquid.
Then, you will have a cup of moka pot coffee with rich crema~ If your moka pot is a double-valve one, then the crema will be even richer. Don't wait, just make any coffee you like and start enjoying it~
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
