After drinking a certain flavor of coffee too often, we always want to switch things up and try something new. For example, some friends who use moka pots, even though they usually buy deeply roasted coffee beans with a rich, caramelized aroma to make moka pot coffee, occasionally want to switch to light roast beans to experience the floral and fruity notes of light roast coffee.
However, because there are often posts online about failing when brewing moka pot coffee with light roast beans, many friendslack confidence in making moka pot coffee with light roast beans. As a result, Front Street Coffee often receives questions like: "Are light roast beans not suitable for making moka pot coffee?"Obviously not! Light roast beans are also suitable for making moka pot coffee, it's just that compared to dark roast beans, brewing a delicious cup of moka pot coffee with light roast beans is a bit harder, and this is related to various factors.
So today, Front Street Coffee will list and analyze the common failures when brewing moka pot coffee with light roast beans and their causes, and then share how we should use light roast beans to make a delicious cup of moka pot coffee!1. Flavor Issues
One of the most common failures when making moka pot coffee with light roast beans is the flavor! Normally, coffee made with light roast beans should be sweet and sour, with fresh and prominent flavors. But many friends find that moka pot coffee made with light roast beans can only be described as "sharply sour and pungent," with almost no flavor, and overall very hard to swallow. This situation is mainly caused by two reasons, the first being: under-extraction.Because of under-extraction, the sweet and bitter substances in the coffee are not dissolved. Without the balance of sweetness and bitterness, the sourness of the coffee dominates alone, becoming sharp and pungent. And the flavors, due to insufficient extraction, cannot be fully expressed. Moreover, usually when this flavor appears,the moka pot coffee extraction process will also be accompanied by splattering, twin tails, and other phenomena.But this situation is easy to solve; we just need toadjust the coffee grounds to a finer grind,increase the amount of coffee grounds used, orlower the heat during extraction to extend the extraction time, to improve extraction efficiency and increase the dissolved substances. Then the coffee's flavor will be balanced, with prominent flavor expression!
Many friends are unable to brew a delicious moka pot coffee with light roast beans mainly because they apply the extraction parameters for dark roast beans to light roast beans, such as the same amount of grounds and the same grind size.But in fact, the extraction parameters for dark roast and light roast beans are not interchangeable, and the reason is simple: dark roast beanshave a larger expansion coefficient and lower density, so their flavor substances can be dissolved more easily.
Light roast beansare the exact opposite, because the roast is not as dark, the expansion coefficient is not as large, so their density is relatively higher(or the beans themselves are inherently high in density). Then high density means the flavor substances require a higher extraction yield to dissolve. If we do not adjust the extraction parameters, the puck will not have enough resistance, which during extraction will cause the flow rate to increase and the extraction time to shorten, resulting in under-extraction of the coffee.So, when using light roast beans to make moka pot coffee, we can appropriately adjust the grind to be finer and increase the amount of grounds. For example, when Front Street Coffee uses dark roast coffee beans for extraction, the parameters are 20g of grounds, Galileo Q18 at 1.0 setting, flour-like grind. When we use light roast beans, we can use 21g of grounds, or a finer grind, to make the coffee.
Besides extraction issues, coffee that tastes too sour is also related to the roast level(very sour but not to the point of being sharply sour). The lighter the roast of the beans, the more completely the sour substances in the beans are retained, thus the higher the acidity. If you don't want the coffee to be too acidic, you can choose some medium roast coffee beans. For example, medium-light roast, SOE roast beans. In Front Street Coffee's bean list, Front Street Ethiopia·Huakui(SOE roast), Front Street Geisha Blend·Strawberry Candy, and other beans belong to these types of coffee beans. The roast level is not too light, and the extracted coffee is sweet and sour, with rich floral and fruity aromas.2. Crema Issues
Next is the crema issue! Many friends often report that light roast beans cannot extract a thick crema, always just a thin layer or even none at all.Regarding this point, it's actually not a failure but a normal phenomenon! Because the amount of crema in coffee mainly depends on the roast level and freshness of the beans. Underproper extraction, the fresher the beans and the darker the roast, the thicker the crema extracted, and vice versa.
If we want to extract a thick crema, then as Front Street Coffee recommended earlier, we can choose coffee beans with a slightly darker roast. But we need to know that crema is just foam filled with carbon dioxide, and its thickness actually has little to do with the quality or taste of the coffee.
Moreover, the crema extracted from a moka pot is not the same as the crema of espresso that we are familiar with. Because the pressure is not as high as a coffee machine, this layer of foam, even if thick when extracted, will soon break down and dissipate. And we almost never use moka pot coffee for latte art, so this layer of "crema" has little value. Therefore, Front Street Coffee suggests focusing more on the taste of the coffee.3. Milk Coffee Made Has No Flavor
Finally, the issue with milk coffee! Many friends buy moka pots because they can serve as a substitute for a coffee machine to extract a more concentrated coffee, and then add milk to make a rich and delicious milk coffee. But when the coffee beans are switched from dark roast to light roast, the milk coffee made with the same ratio is not as fragrant or as rich. It tastes more like milk, and the coffee's flavor and taste are not well expressed.This situation also arises due to the roast level. Since the coffee beans are not roasted as dark, they do not undergo as much caramelization or Maillard reaction during roasting, and do not carry as many rich flavors like caramel or chocolate that can compete with milk. Instead, they can reveal more floral and fruity notes.
If we want to make a balanced, rich milk coffee using moka pot coffee extracted from light roast beans, the best method is to reduce the amount of milk and increase the ratio of coffee to milk.In"Three! Tips for Making Delicious Moka Pot 'Latte'"this post, Front Street Coffee shared how to extract a rich moka pot base that can be used to make milk coffee. In the article, Front Street Coffee used a 1:3.5 ratio to make milk coffee, that is, 50ml of moka pot coffee liquid with about 180ml of milk.
In the article, Front Street Coffee used dark roast coffee beans to make the moka pot coffee. If we use light roast beans, then the ratio of coffee to milk needs to be increased to about 1:3. Taking Front Street Geisha Blend·Strawberry Candy from Front Street Coffee's bean list as an example, the moka pot coffee extracted from it, paired with the coffee liquid amount(50ml)three times the milk(150)makes an excellent milk coffee, not only with prominent flavors like strawberry and berries, but also its taste matches well with the milk, with no dissonance, and the mouthfeel is silky and rich, very nice~
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
