After the family guzzling all my coffee over Xmas, my stash ran down and whilst awaiting delivery & a little rest time, I picked up some Illy Yirgacheffe, pre-ground for Moka. I dunno, maybe I was having an attack of nostalgia :-)
I’ve got 3 pots, all alumium:
Top Moka Mini 8g dose.
Bialetti Moka Express 2 cup 18g dose.
Guzzini Zaza 2 cup 18g dose.
I have an old fashioned electric hob. I have been using Aeropress filters on top of the grinds basket. So far, all brewed from a cold start, with cold brew water. For the 2 cup brewers I dunk in cold water, in a 1l Pyrex jug to end the brew.
Cups are generally better than I was expecting, went a bit too cool on the Top Moka Mini to start with, but now on par after turning up the hob.
One thing I have noticed is that using the brew water weight to establish brew ratio doesn’t really work, because for the same sized basket & output (expressed as an ‘espresso brew ratio’), the amount of brew water can vary greatly from pot to pot.
E.g. the Bialetti takes about 134g of brew water (1:7.4) and you get 70-80g out by killing the brew as the liquid level reaches the base of the spout .
The Guzzini also produces 70-80g as the liquid reaches base of the spout, but this takes 190g of water in the reservoir, a brew ratio of 1:10.6.
Top Moka Mini takes 55-60g brew water for a ratio of 1:7.2. As this one uses a tube to drip the coffee into your own vessel, I kill the brew at 30g as marked in mL, on my Rhino glass shot pot.
The least amount of variation I see is in the espresso brew ratio of 1:4.1 average (stdev 0.64, or 16% of average). Whereas, the brew water used as the motor (that not ending up the drink, nor retained in the puck), expressed as a ratio of the brew water, has a stdev 25% of the average.
Still tinkering, but finding it quite enjoyable. Other than having to be around to catch the end of brew, there’s not much to it, compared to most other methods (excepting my pedantic measuring).
