Coffee brewing technique: the best tip for making mocha pot coffee is to simply make coffee at home

The mocha pot was invented in 1933. Its structure has never changed, but its appearance, shape and materials are constantly changing. The earliest mocha pots were made of aluminum, but aluminum was easy to interact with the acid in coffee, producing a bad taste, and then gradually changed to stainless steel or even partly made of heat-resistant glass.

The mocha pot is divided into two parts, which can be combined together by rotation. The lower part of the pot is a chamber filled with water, there is a safety hole on the upper wall of the chamber, and above the chamber is a filter full of small holes filled with coffee powder. The top half of the pot is a covered container with a handle for brewing coffee, the bottom of which is a filter mesh surrounded by a rubber pad, and the hollow metal tube in the center is used for coffee to seep out.

When cooking coffee in a mocha pot, first fill the lower chamber with water, but do not exceed the safety air hole. Then fill the filter with coffee powder. The filters are carefully designed by experts, so there is no need to bother to measure the amount of coffee powder, just fill the filter. Tighten the upper and lower chambers and cook them on a gas stove or electric stove. However, it should be noted that the flame should not exceed or exceed the bottom area of the pot, lest the high temperature burn out the rubber pad. When the water boils in the lower chamber, it will produce water vapor, which condenses more and more steam to cause pressure, which makes the hot water penetrate the coffee powder, dissolve the useful substance, and then spray it into the upper container.

The mocha pot boils coffee at about 2 to 3 atmospheres, which can emulsify a small amount of insoluble oils and aromatic substances, adding texture to the coffee. Coffee brewed in a mocha pot is also known as mocha coffee. Although it is not really espresso, it can be said to be a doubly strong coffee.

The advantage of mocha pot in making coffee is that it is cheap and convenient, and the quality of coffee is also good. The disadvantage is that water is to be boiled, boiling water is easy to extract unnecessary bitter substances from coffee, which seems inevitable. The only way to fix it is to turn off the fire as soon as the first drop of coffee comes out. Coffee is made in a mocha pot, because the contact between water and coffee powder is not long, except to dissolve as much material as possible, so the grinding of coffee powder is as fine as Italian espresso. Every time you finish cooking, you must rinse immediately, otherwise the residue in the pot will be fermented and moldy, which will make the pot have a strange smell and affect the taste of coffee for a long time.

When it comes to buying mocha pots, it's important to note that you'd better buy stainless steel instead of aluminum, because aluminum reacts with the sour substances in coffee to produce a peculiar smell, which itself is prone to blackening and deformation.

Before using the mocha pot, you can disassemble all the parts and check that all the accessories are complete, such as whether there is an iron plate with a small hole, which is what we call a pressure reducing plate, and whether the white rubber gasket is intact.

Cooking method:

To prepare the soft water that has been filtered, it is best to use the clear water filtered by the general household water filter to measure the amount of water required by calculating 30 milliliters per cup. To avoid the emergence of coffee grounds, we can prepare a piece of filter paper or filter cloth. If it is a filter cloth, it is best to rinse it with water to avoid the bad smell of cloth pulp in the coffee.

When you pour the water into the kettle, you should pay attention to the water not exceeding the horizontal height of the water hole, otherwise the hot water will be ejected with steam after heating, causing danger.

Put the coffee powder into the coffee container, the coffee powder in the filter is not too fine, generally speaking, the fineness is fine, if it is too fine, the steam is difficult to pass through the coffee powder, or the temperature rises too high, resulting in excessive extraction.

Flatten the surface of the coffee powder with your hand, and then gently press it horizontally with the decompression plate.

Remove coffee powder from the edge of the coffee container, otherwise it will affect the service life of the white rubber gasket. The white gasket does not need to be separated from the upper pot in order to avoid accidental loss during cleaning.

Put the filter cloth on the pressed coffee container. Put the coffee container containing the coffee powder into the lower pot, then lock the upper pot, pay attention to the thread between the upper and lower pot, and lock it carefully. Put it on the heater and start heating.

In the process of heating, you will hear a rapid hiss, which is the sound of steam rushing to the upper pot with coffee, but as soon as the sound changes to the sound, it may indicate that all the moisture in the pot has become coffee. You can listen based on experience, or you can just turn off the fire and open the lid (it doesn't matter, it won't affect the quality of the coffee. In fact, it sometimes makes your coffee stronger). If you see that the steam hole has stopped steaming, it means that the extraction process is complete, and you can pour the coffee out of the upper container-don't let the coffee stay in the pot for too long. Especially if you're using heavily roasted beans. Then you can get ready to enjoy this cup of handmade Italian coffee.

Little secret knowledge base

The addition of coffee powder. If you like it a little thicker, you can use a decompression plate to reduce pressure, fill the space to flatten it, and then gently press it again.

The size of the filter cloth should not be larger than that of the coffee powder surface, otherwise it will cause too much pressure and the steam will overflow.

The main function of the pressure reducing board is to put a small amount of coffee on the filter cloth when making a small amount of coffee in a larger mocha pot, which can easily control the number of cups and the quantity of coffee powder. It is used as a press bar function here, because the steam pressure generated by the mocha pot is relatively small, and generally speaking, unlike the Italian coffee maker, it does not require a special pressure bar.

When heating a mocha pot, it is best to use a gas stove or induction cooker, or a black crystal stove for eating hot pot. The heating rate must be fast enough to produce enough steam to brew the coffee and extract the Italian coffee. If the mouth of the gas stove is too big for the mocha pot, then there is a kind of gas stove, which can be put on the gas stove to make the mocha pot suitable for the kitchen at home.

You can also adjust the taste of coffee by how long it stays in the pot. For example, when using lighter roasted coffee beans (the color is closer to light brown and there is no bright oil on the surface), you can let the coffee stay in the mocha pot for an extra 1-1.5 minutes after the extraction is finished. On the contrary, if you use deep-roasted beans (dark brown, sometimes with shiny grease on the surface, most of the Italian mixed coffee beans we buy on the market fall into this category), you don't need to stay in the pot. You can just pour it into a cup that's already warm.

Source:

Summer Sue's blog