Spend the last month getting into coffee. Sifting through pages of third wave hipster bullshit I found that pic related is the best possible setup to have if you like espresso but don't feel like burning money.
No matter what all the hipster pages tell you the only thing you need to make outstanding coffee with that stove top moka pot is:
- Bialetti Moka pot (size 3 if you drink along, 6 if you have a SO) - Hand grinder (Prolex tall for quality or JavaPresse for cheap) - Air tight bean container (smallest size for your bean needs) - Small drug dealer digital pocket scale (costs about $7)
Obviously you should buy quality beans. Go to a local roaster and buy an espresso blend. Make sure it is fresh (roast date) and don't buy in bulk, store as little as needed to get you through a week. Spend a little above average for your beans and don't fall for the cat shit coffee or third wave hipster brand bullshit. Just buy decent beans, no need for bells and whistles.
Play with the grind settings of your grinder until you get it right. All beans are little different so you will need to play a little to get the right grind and amount needed. If you get a size 3 Bialetti you will need about 17.5 grams of beans. Don't focus too much on this exact amount, just make sure the Bialetti hopper is filled and level with the rim without tampering it (I use the back of a kitchen knife to distribute the ground coffee). As for grind size: I use the porlex and found that 6 clicks from completely tight is best.
Fill the bottom part of the Bialetti with water, put it on the stove and heat it up. When you hear the "I almost boiling water"-sound turn off the heat. Take a towel to grab the bottom part, put in the previously filled and leveled hopper. Screw in the top tightly and turn the heat back on. The extraction will start very quickly (preheated water in the bottom chamber). You won't get all the water from the bottom into the top chamber, most common mistake is to keep brewing when there is only steam and air coming out of the top. For the size 3 Bialetti the extraction should take somewhere between 45-60 seconds.
When the extraction goes bright brown and is coming to an end, take the pot off the heat and run the bottom under cold water. Other guides will tell you to wait for the gurgling sound but I say stop the extraction before that. By the time the gurgling starts there is only steam pushing through your ground extracting nothing but burnt flavors and bitterness. Stop the extraction when the foam turns bright brown.
After you've stopped the extraction by cooling the bottom, pour the coffee into a mug immediately. It is up to you if you want to prewarm your mug, I usually don't because I drink it quickly.
Cool down the entire stove top cooker, take it apart. Collect the coffee puck remains in a small dish, you can mix it into the soil of your basil plants (if you have any, which you should). Best fertilizer ever. Clean out the stove top cooker with hot water and dry it off. You don't have to take out the seal and sieve every time, once a week or so is good enough. Don't let other people tell you that you need to "season" your stove top pot with build up crap of previous brews. The "seasoning" is basically old coffee oils that build up and go rancid over time. It won't "protect" your stove pot, it will only make your coffee taste worse.
Oliver Morales
tea is easier to make, has better taste, and is healthier than coffee
Gavin Parker
sauce on healthier? other two are pretty subjective
Nathaniel Walker
Total cost ~ $100 for all equipment will enable you to make coffee for decades to come. You will never have to buy filter papers, the only thing you need is decent beans and you are set for amazing coffee that is almost like espresso
inb4 hurr durr muh 9 bars of pressure turn coffee beans into magic liquid that will taste infinitely superior to your stupid moka pot!!11
Final words:
- don't fall for the electric grinder meme, it takes about 90 seconds to grind for a size 3 Bialetti... you are not that important that you can't spare those seconds - only buy the size Bialetti you need, you can't make a size 3 amount coffee in the size 6 Bialetti
Don't fall for hipster memes
Jackson Reyes
also, i'm in the middle of nowhere and this is the only local roaster i've found where i won't have to drive for multiple hours. redroostercoffee.com does this place look good or is it just hipster bullshit?
Connor Murphy
I am not very familiar with the US prices for coffee. If you are new to the Bialetti I would advice buying a single bag of cheap beans from the store and just brew until you get the brewing on the Bialetti right. Once you are comfortable with using the equipment you can start discovering beans. Otherwise you might buy nice beans and burn the living shit out of the with your stove top.
Took me a couple of day and several tries to get it just right.
In case of the redrooster, look at reviews online and check if their price is reasonable compared to other roasters. If all that checks out just take the risk and get a bag and try it out.
Jacob Scott
There's also way more variety to tea. Coffee just has different cultivars/terroirs and blends you can make, but with tea, you have all that and the different processing methods. When you get in to Pu-Erh, aging becomes a factor.
Justin Bailey
I always hated the Tea vs. Coffee debate. Why would anyone have to choose one or the other?
The equipment I posted for making coffee costs about $100. Add a $20 tea pot with stainless steel sieve to that and enjoy both those amazing brews!
Kick off the day with the caffeine rush of a moka pot coffee. Drink some nice tea over the course of the day. Get home and have another coffee before a workout and have some tea to relax when you are back home at night.
Caleb Nelson
>bitter/burnt? coarser grind or overpacking/trying to tamp the basket. cannot be stressed enough that THIS IS NOT ESPRESSO, DO NOT TAMP IT, DO NOT PACK IT, IF YOU HAVE A SNEEZE OF GROUND COFFEE LEFT OVER ONCE THE BASKET IS FULL THROW IT OUT.
>(size 3 if you drink along, 6 if you have a SO ehhhh, depends on how much coffee you like, the 6er produces about 9-10 oz of reasonably full-bodied coffee, what I consider about one serving. ymmv.
>the flouride shills strike again (I do like matcha, though.).
if you're interested in these things, you may want to consider roasting your own. green beans will keep for ages, you can use a cast iron skillet or a $20 popcorn popper, and of course freshness/customizability/etc.
Levi Lewis
>he measures coffee with a cocaine scale down to the gram tell me how you aren't a drug addict again?
Camden Garcia
preferring precision makes you a drug addict
Samuel Nguyen
0.1 grams makes all the difference right?
Tyler Richardson
Planning on getting a moka pot, but I am more than likely not going to deal with grinding my own beans for a while. But what I want to know is this... Just how big is the gap between pre-ground and self-ground coffee?
Samuel Johnson
Depends on how recently your pre-ground coffee was ground. And on how fine you grind. If you're curious, it might be worth getting a small batch freshly ground at wherever's convenient (local coffee shop, grocery store, whatever), taking it straight home, and making a cup.
I personally feel like I notice enough of a difference to make it worthwhile, especially after 2-3 days (i.e., keeping whole roasted beans in the freezer and grinding them fresh vs. preground), but the mind is a powerful organ and I could be memeing myself.
Thomas Campbell
yes, never tamp. the pressure produced by the Bialetti has no chance of getting through a tamp.
I actually enjoy the occasional LSD trip, you don't have to measure that stuff though. I bought the scale a couple of years ago when I was still wasting money and time on weed. Thank god I got rid of that habit.
maybe not 0.1 grams but hear me out. Kitchen scales are pretty much shit, especially in the low ranges. A scale works well within a given frame of weight and kitchen scales usually operate well between 50 and 5000 grams (depending on scale). They also often just round to the next full gram. I placed my "dealer" scale on my kitchen scale, hit clear on both. When I was right at 17.5 grams on the small scale the kitchen scale showed 16 grams. 1.5 grams of coffee are almost a difference of 10% total mass. Not only is there more coffee to extract the water flow is also reduced because it takes more pressure to get through the coffee.
grind is of absolute importance when it comes to the moka pot. It took me several tries to dial in just the right grind for my beans. Buying it pre ground will leave you no room to adjust the grind. Taste is a whole other story. Even a cheap hand grinder (the mentioned JavaPresse for $23) will drastically improve your quality of coffee. Buying whole beans and grinding them fresh will allow you to get the most out of the coffee you've bought and allow you to adjust your grind to your liking. I have to agree with the countless sources online that grind is the single most important factor when it comes to coffee. In descending order of importance for amazing taste I would rank it
No matter how skilled you are, how good your beans are or how much you spend on equipment - you will never be able to compensate a shit grind
Eli Miller
Regarding the electric grinder meme:
The dead area in most machines is about half the coffee you need to fill a size 3 Bialetti hopper. Unless you are running a coffee shop at home making several brews an hour or need to brew for 3+ people at a time, an electric grinder is the most pointless piece of equipment you can buy. Obviously you can get around the dead area problem by throwing out the first 5-10 grams of ground coffee but that is just a horrible waste of coffee. Imagine using 17 grams of coffee for a size 3 Bialetti or 30 grams for a size 6 Bialetti and throwing out almost 30% of your coffee. You could have bought 30% more expensive beans for that money if you weren't throwing it in the trash. Using those 5-10 grams is equally stupid because then 30% of your coffee would be preground and sitting openly in the grinder for hours just waiting to be used in the next brew, therefore making the entire process of freshly grinding coffee redundant.
Sure there are grinders without dead area... enjoy wasting $600+ on an electric grinder. Meanwhile the cheapest hand grinder has a dead area of 0 grams - everything you throw in comes out at the bottom.
Jayden Baker
moka pots are garbage
William Young
>stop liking what I don't like
Anthony Perez
>espresso blend
That's a hipster term as well isn't it? Coffee is coffee, there are no specific blends or origin that should only ever be used for espresso. You want to have a blend as a pourover or a single origin as espresso? Nothing wrong with that.
Also, try getting into roasting your own coffee beans.
Thomas Perry
I unironically want to get into coffee. Where/how should i start.
Logan Allen
>Also, try getting into roasting your own coffee beans. if I do this in a cast iron skillet, will everything I cook in the skillet taste like coffee afterwards?
Luis Taylor
An espresso blend just means a blend of flavors the blend-maker believes is suited to the intense brewing method that is espresso.
Ryder Anderson
lmaoing at your whole sad life OP
Angel Davis
I know, but there's nothing stopping you from using a roast marked "filter" as espresso and vice versa, as long as it hasn't been preground.
Not sure, I hear that the skillet you use for coffee should only be for roasting coffee, but I dunno how valid that is
Parker Martinez
>third wave hipster this >third wave hipster that how many buzzwords do you have to make up to feel validated
Nolan Wilson
>legitimate term used before your dumb ass even found out about coffee >somehow made up because it offends you
Levi Cruz
>somehow made up i don't think user said it was made up... but thanks for that projection, it was pretty funny.
Logan Clark
i used to fuck around with all that, i have a hand burr grinder, a moka pot, used to have a low end espresso machine, a mr coffee strong coffee faux espresso machine, all kinds of shit and now i just use my goddamn drip coffee maker because it's fine and the difference is minimal if even detectable. the hassle is just not worth jack shit.
William Powell
The beans are all the same. The roasting is a little different though. Pour over is usually a lighter roast than espresso. Most shops (including the store bought beans) will label darker roasts with less acidity as "espresso blend". It may be a hipster term but it will get you the beans best suited for the moka pot. Obviously you can roast your own beans. I've never seen a vendor who was selling green beans to the public though. If I ever do I will buy a pack just to play around with it.
Literally OPs post. If you don't like espresso and prefer more of a "lighter coffee" look into either pour over (V60 filter holder) or a french press. Even the cheapest grinder will improve your experience. You could literally pick any brewing method. Really read into HOW the method works and what settings you can control. Don't waste money on expensive equipment, instead learn to perfect your grind and brewing method. Always remember that it just coffee and don't fall the mindless consumption trap trying to convince you that you need to spend more and more to "experience coffee".
you may have noticed how the entire coffee scene is filled with pretentious fucks? Those are the third wave coffee hipsters.
Jeremiah Evans
What's so good about the bialetti that you can't get from any other moka pot? A bialetti 3 cup is around $40-45AUD and something like this I'd expect would be $10-15AUD max
Julian Gray
>trying to tamp the basket I'd never tamp it but I tend to even it out and compress it a little bit with the back of the spoon, should I stop doing that and just leave it as a loose mound once I put the grounds in?
Blake Garcia
Yes, stop. The moka pot only pushes the water through at about half the pressure of a proper espresso machine. It struggles to get through compacted coffee.
Eli Fisher
Those grinders have objectively bad grind distribution.
Aergrind is the cheapest halfway ok grinder.
Jason Ramirez
Prolex and Hario ceramic burr grinders are solid.
Gavin Myers
Nope. Poor burr design, dull burrs, and lack of proper stabilization lead to an inconsistent design. Something like the Aergrind is relatively good.
Brayden Phillips
Oh, also lack of proper alignment
Justin Adams
The coarse settings (french press) will always suck on ~$50 grinders. Unless you are wiling to spend over $100 on a grinder you won't get an even coarse grind, not even with the Aergrind. If you are going for a moka pot grind, most manual grinders will do just fine. Due to the conical burrs of the grinder the coarse settings will always introduce wobble while the finer grinds will be quite accurate. Remember that this is a bang for the buck thread. If you only stick to the finer grinds, I'd question whether or not most people would notice the difference in a moka pot brewing method (remember that the grind won't be used in an espresso machine).
Isaiah Phillips
This, I have a cup of tea waiting for my coffee to brew...
Anthony Cox
Aergrind does a pretty ok French press grind. It's no 80-98mm flat, but as good as you're going to get below $600 for only around $100.
Porlex or Hario is completely unacceptable even for Moka pot. Bang for buck is definitely in the ~$100 range. Below that is just straight garbage.
John Walker
>Porlex or Hario is completely unacceptable even for Moka pot. Bang for buck is definitely in the ~$100 range. Below that is just straight garbage.
Could you please back this up with anything solid? I found this particle size distribution chart comparing the feldgrind (uses the same burr as the aerogrind), the comandante c40 (literally the best of the best manual grinders) and the porlex. You can see a small bump for all grinders right around the 200µm range with the Porlex having the most pronounced one of the lot. The question is whether that difference is worth twice the price...
Brandon Lee
Just as a reference, these are the results of some of the best grinders available. See how even grinders that are considered to be the peak of performance have that bump right around 200µm? What all manual grinders have in common is the bad distribution towards coarse grinds (see previous chart) but in that regard the Porlex performs just like all the other manual grinders.
My guess is that just like the audiophile buying 2 inch thick gold cables you will now claim that you can "taste the difference" or that the coffee flavors are "more pronounced and clear".
Christian Russell
1) Socratic performs hand grinder tests with a drill, which minimizes the poor stabilization in the grinder as the bracing is less necessary when the force applied is only rotary directly over the axis.
2) That dust (not fines, fines are specifically microscopic particles with 0 cell walls intact) peak is MUCH higher. This is far more than just "most pronounced", it's more than 10x more than anything else there at the 200 range. This cascades into serious consequences on extraction. Look at some of Socratic's other test which involve particle soluability, and you can see how dramatically it responds to seemingly minor changes in grind.
3) Sieve based particle distribution fails to account for elongated particles which can pass through a sieve in one direction, but could not in another. It also fails to account for uniformity in shape.
Coffee extraction differences, unlike audio cable differences, are easily and objectively measurable with a refractometer. You will never get a Porlex to extract 24+% like an EK or even 22% like a C40. Rather you'll struggle to even break 18%. Get a refractometer and check for yourself. I already have.
Jace Williams
>the beans are all the same Wrong. just blatantly wrong.
Michael Myers
I have never seen such autism in a post before
Adrian Myers
sounds like a lot of research, work, and money for a cup of fucking coffee in the morning
Nathan Thomas
You are in a coffee thread where the OP layed out specific instructions for brewing. What the fuck did you expect from this thread other than pure unadulterated autism?
Juan Johnson
My favorite is the moca pot, but I usually use a french press because my moca pot is very small and I make for me and my girlfriend most of the time.
Justin Cook
Tea is for women and faggots
Adam Davis
Yes, yes goyim! You need spend more otherwise your coffee will taste unclean and your friends will laugh at you!
Keep buying, keep buying!
>if you like espresso but don't feel like burning money The thread started out so promising with the premise of just getting good coffee for little money. Obviously there is going to be a 15 year old dropping by trying to convince people they need AT LEAST a $100 grinder, everything else is obviously garbage!
Henry Powell
Ah yes, the Jewish run industry of one guy making hand grinders in Britan for half the price of any similar quality grinder.
Brayden Adams
>ctrl+f aeropress >no results
on the one hand, it'll turn your frogs gay, "bpa-free" is a meme
on the other hand, it does make a damn fine cup of coffee, and there's a lot of scope for customization, and it's cheap and easy to travel with, and lots of serious coffee nerds seem to like it. and you're not gonna burn your coffee like you can with a moka pot, though it is possible to overextract.
Jason Ward
Just give us a proper comparison of a prolex and feldgrind/aergrind. Every video and blog post you'l find will give you close up shots of a nickel sitting in the grinds. I want a sieve analysis and/or particle distribution, not a buyers remorse ridden microinfluencer trying to convince himself that he really can taste the difference.
Robert Fisher
I used to drink coffee to wake me up in the morning but it started to lose all effect. Replaced it with matcha and haven't looked back
Noah Ross
Sieving isn't nearly as good a measure as comparing extraction yield, which I've already done with all of my grinders. I'd do it again with pictures if I didn't already give the piece of junk Porlex away.
Joshua Carter
>sieving isn't a good measurement for comparing grinders
wat?
Try to keep in mind that this thread is aimed at people that just want decent coffee for little money. You are trying to paddle espresso machine grade manual grinders for $100 to make coffee in a moka pot.
Juan Martin
I came in this thread hoping to get a decent brewing setup for around $100, maybe order some beans online. Will the Porlex and Moka give me noticably better tasting coffee than a drip pot?
If not, what will do this for me for $100? Please don't give me more coffee autism.
Aiden Rodriguez
What’s a good cold brew set up
Samuel Perez
>flipmode
Henry Miller
The Aergrind is nowhere near espresso grade. It's the lowest reasonable quality entry level grinder for brewed coffee, including Moka pot.
Sieving isn't a good measure for reasons I've already gone into. It only evaluates one type of uniformity: ability to pass through holes of X size. It doesn't evaluate uniformity of size, particles that are very large in one direction but small in another (think ovals) will easily pass through holes they shouldn't. It doesn't evaluate uniformity of particle shape. And it certainly doesn't evaluate soluability or uniformity of soluability, which is what makes grinders like the EK able to make 23-24%exty brews in 2 minutes where grinders like the Encore can only reach 18-20% in over 3 minutes. It's a struggle to even hit 18% with a Porlex tier grinder.
Now, maybe laser analysis has some merit since size can actually be determined, but sieving is overall only mildly usefull for coffee. It can tell you something is beyond a doubt bad (which, frankly it does with the HUGE peak in the dust [not fines, dust] range of the Porlex even with a drill instead of less uniform hand cranking), but it can't tell you something is good without other tests.
Noah Torres
Two milk jugs. Put in the coffee of your choice in one overnight with water (I forget the exact amount) then pour it into the other jug. You can use a filter when you poor but most of the grounds will stay at the bottom anyways, so I don't bother
Landon Moore
>a drink pitcher ($3) >a cold brew/nut milk filter bag ($10) >Optional: second pitcher >Optional: coffee grinder literally all you need for cold brew coffee
fuck off frogposter
Connor Kelly
Get a Clever dripper (Moka is absolutely fine too, but Clever is perhaps the most idiot proof) and get your coffee ground from the roaster until you can buy an Aergrind, Anonymous, or Encore.
Mason Fisher
Has anyone tried the coffee beans from Bulletproof? If so, how are they?
Ryder Powell
>how many buzzwords do you have to make up to feel validated >Have to make up >Make up Kill yourself
Hunter Scott
...
Jayden Ortiz
I've been drinking coffee every 2 hours today and the laxative effect has stopped working completely
Joseph Wilson
Nothing left to get rid off?
William Butler
is there such a thing as a jetboil-compatible french press that won't be soaking plastic in hot water?
Easton Perez
Get a metal mug for your coffee. Boil the water in the mug, transfer hot water to aeropross, let the mug cool down (still going to be prewarmed). Press into warm still mug.
Joseph Brown
the seasoning is a true meme but only works for bar machines, if you drink coffe in the morning it will have a metalish taste compared to the same coffee in evening
anyway you made a clusterfuck out of the preparation the bialetti moka is for the simplest coffe making
fill the bottom with water (up to the steam valve) put a generous amount of coffe on the tray screw tight and up the fire as soon as the coffee is coming out cut the gas and wait to the coffee to exit (do not open the lid) when it is ready pour into ceramic mugs and drink
as simple as an Italian electoral law
Eli Sanders
kek
yeah, this works too, though my experience (with 6-cup pots) has been that heating the water first makes a noticeable difference with stainless, which otherwise needs a very long time over a low flame (but not too long, lest you cook the coffee)
