Bialetti - Moka Express: Iconic Stovetop Espresso Maker, Makes Real Italian Coffee, Moka Pot 9 Cups (14 Oz - 420 Ml), Aluminium, Silver

Kristen L.United States

Great price, great little unit, would definitely buy again!

I really love Cuban coffee, but since I live in a small town, in a cold weather climate state, if I want Cafe con Leche at home, I have to make it myself. After a ton of research, including reading reviews and watching YouTube videos, I decided to get the 3 cup Bialetti. You can't go wrong with the price, and it seems to be a very sturdy little coffee pot. It's very easy to use, and after some experimenting, which has been fun and delicious, here are my suggestions/instructions on what I have personally found to work the best. These are just my personal suggestions, use them if you wish, or feel free to do something completely different!!!! - First things first, for the sake of technicality, please be aware that this coffee pot doesn't technically make espresso. True espresso is made by forcing very hot water, through the ground coffee, by use of very high pressure. This little unit doesn't build up enough pressure to technically create true espresso. What this unit is going to produce is approximately 2 times the strength of drip brewed coffee, with a very high level of oils from the grounds. And unlike espresso machines, which create a layer of golden crema on top of the espresso, this machine isn't really going to do that either. There will be a little bit of golden brown foam on the top, but not really. So for any espresso purists out there, while I commend you for your appreciation of fine espresso, this unit is not for you. - Always use good water. If you have bad water (ie: hard water, chlorinated, rusty), use bottled water. You are trying to pack a lot of flavor into a small amount of liquid, and bad water will make bad coffee. - Fill the water chamber to just below the valve. Please don't overfill it. - I currently am using Cafe Bustelo in the can, but will be experimenting with other brands like Pilon. - For the 3 cup version, I spoon in coffee by the teaspoon, leveling the coffee with each spoonful. When the basket is full, add a little extra coffee on top to create a mound. Total amount I put in ends up being about 4 heaping teaspoons. Make sure the threads are clear of any grounds, and screw the top on. This will compact the coffee down on its own. - Before you place the pot on the stove, make sure that the top portion is firmly screwed on to the bottom. If it is not, the pot will not brew properly, and you will lose moisture and steam pressure from between the threads. - Never use high heat for this coffee pot. I have an electric range that is about 12 years old or so, and I use one of the small burners, and never turn it past 5. It takes a little bit longer to do it this way, but makes a huge difference. High heat will cause the coffee to have a burnt, bitter taste. - I cannot emphasize enough the importance of keeping the heat low. You have to be a little patient during the heating process, but the difference in the flavor is worth the extra time! - Until you become really familiar with exactly how the pot will work on your stove, I would recommend not walking away. It takes a bit of time for the water to heat enough and build up the pressure, but once the coffee starts coming out into the top chamber, its going to go fast. - Resist the urge to keep lifting the lid of the pot. It's hard to do because its pretty cool to see the coffee filling up the top chamber :) I left my lid open the whole time I made my first batch, and lost some coffee in the process. The coffee will kind of spurt and splatter around during the brewing process, so you can imagine what my stove looked like afterwards. - The first few spurts of coffee that come up will probably have an almost syrupy appearance. This is GOOD! You want this! If the coffee doesn't look like this, and/or its pretty pale, you don't have enough coffee in your filter basket. If the coffee is pale, its still ok to drink, but treat it like you would a regular drip coffee. It will not taste like espresso at all. - Each pot sounds a little different, but learn to tell when the bottom chamber has no more water in it. The sputtering noises in the top of the chamber will increase in volume a little as the water chamber empties. - As soon as the bottom chamber is empty, immediately remove the pot from the heat source. If you let it sit on the heat, it will burn the coffee. This is bad! Burnt coffee is nasty!!!! - If you are dividing the coffee between multiple cups, make sure you either gently swirl the pot a few times, or stir the coffee gently before you pour. You want to make sure that the inital thick liquid from the first few moments is evenly distributed throughout the liquid. If you don't, the last cup you fill will contain a much larger portion of the oils from the coffee, and will be stronger than the other servings. I recommend NOT sharing the espresso, and drinking it all for yourself! It's too good to share!!! :) At this point, you can drink it straight if you wish. If that's what you would like, stop reading now............ If you want to do a little more with it and make it even better, keep reading. Like I said before, I love Cuban coffee. I love how strong and rich tasting it is, BUT it is a little sweet for me. I mean, it's got a LOT of sugar in it. So I do mine with a little less sugar than traditional, though I do like a genuine version once in a while. -While the coffee is starting the brewing process on the stove, I pour about 1 cup of whole milk into a glass measuring cup and add about 2 1/2- 3 teaspoons of sugar. - Microwave the milk and sugar until very warm, but not scalded or boiling. - Remove it from the microwave, and use a milk frother to mix the milk and sugar and to make some foam. This is not necessary of course, but I like a little bit of foam. - Pour it into a large mug or coffee cup (I use a 2.5 cup travel mug) and when the espresso is done brewing, pour it into the milk and stir gently. That's it! Easy and delicious, and a great way to cheer yourself up on a snowy, gray day!!!! Enjoy!

ChadUnited States

Wasn't sure at first, but now love it!!!!

First off, I have to state that I've never used one of these before. After reading all of the reviews I was on a quest to some what duplicate our favorite coffe drinks from Scooters and Starbucks. I ordered 'used' listed as 'like new' condition. This showed up in perfect condition. So I was happy as I only spent $16 on it. But would not be disappointed at all if I spent full price for new. If this broke I would buy another one. Although looking at the design, I'm not sure what could possibly break on this thing :D First and foremost, run some coffe through it a few times to help break it in. It seems to get better each time you use it. I only rinse it out now after each use with plain water. Now on to what I've learned so far: 1. Reading the reviews about full rich flavor of espresso, I was excited. But my first few batches tasted horrible. I tried various tips listed in reviews and also online about making espresso. All I can say is, have patience and experiment. I went from course grinds, to finer, then finer. Tried not packing them down to packing them down a bit. Each yield a different result. For now I've settled with grinding fine and tamping down a bit. 2. The heat makes a difference!!!! First few batches, I had it up towards high. This is on a flat stove which does work just fine. Coffe tasted like it was burned. Finally learned to just give it a few more minutes on medium. Now I put it on medium which is the half way point between the lowest setting and the highest. This seems to work fine. Although I'm still experimenting with the heat to make sure the water goes through the grinds not too slow, not too fast. 3. Take it off the heat when you hear the gurgling. It's finished. And it will even work if you take it off when the top portion is mostly full. Then you avoid any burning. 4. Try different beans! I bought Starbucks espresso dark roast. These mimic the taste of the drink my wife likes. I also like the taste. For the fun of it, I tried some of our drip coffe pre-ground beans. That worked also, but was pretty bitter. All in all, the way you grind, the type of beans, and the heat, and other factors play a part in the taste. Fine what you like and go with it. 5. If you like Starbucks, go there and order just a single shot or two of Espresso and taste it. Then go home and taste it against what you are making with this. I did this with Scooters and was really happy that the shot they gave me tasted like the stuff I was making at home. The point being, whether or not Starbucks or whatever chain is considered real coffe, the fact is, if you or a loved one is addicted to what they serve for $5 a pop, then it's worth it to compare. That way you know. Because 99% of the time, the drinks people are ordering from these places have a shot or two of espresso. I was able to mimic my favoriate Scooters drink. But I wasn't sure at first if my espresso was tasting right just plain. After comparing, I know what I make at home is right. Now here is the other thing I am finding. I enjoy drinking the espresso straight. It just has a certain flavor to it and the smell is great. Heck, I could see just making a cup and leaving it sit out in our home. You walk in and it smells like a coffe shop. I am very happy with this purchase and have been using it everyday once or more times a day. I have nothing against the coffe chains as they make some great drinks. But it's nice being able to make them at home and not spend the $$$ to get a good drink. You can find ways to mimic various drinks. With the milk for example, take a mason jar (without the lid), then microwave it for a minute or two. Then take it out, put the lid on, and shake it for a bit. Now you have the likes of steamed milk and froth. You can pour with a spoon blocking the froth. Then scoop out the froth to put on top of the drink. Pretty cool. Hope this was useful!

RNCrawfordUnited States

Awesome Moka maker

People confuse espresso and moka as being the same thing, which because of some differences in how water is heated and passed through the grinds does cause some differences in taste and character. That out of the way, this makes a good enough moka that I didn't miss my espresso maker anymore, particularly when I compared the effort to make the two different styles of coffee. The product is made of very durable aluminium and manufactured in Italy to very high specifications of quality, a welcome change from the flood of low quality Chinese products we US citizens have to wade through. The bottom chamber holds the water and screws into the top chamber against the metal filter and rubber gasket providing a solid seal. A tip is to tighten the bottom till its snug, and then give it one more quarter turn, this gives a very tight fit upon heating as the metal and rubber will expand with the heat to finalize the fit. The top is easily figured out by the picture and handling except it has another quality that most ignore. When you first get the moka maker its very shiny on the inside, after a few uses it starts to dull with a light brown tone having banished the aluminium shine. DO NOT SCRUB THIS AWAY!!! That brownish tint to the aluminium is proof that your moka maker has been properly seasoned to get the best taste possible. All you need to do in the cleaning of this is to rinse it with tap water, though at the rubber seal on the bottom, take a little extra time and use a toothbrush there to make sure no grit or grime is present when you set it to dry since that will greatly extend the life of your seal and insure a reliable fit for your next brew. Typically it takes me less than a minute to clean mine after use. There is a little cup that fits into the bottom chamber that acts like the coffee basket, just load it up with grinds and drop it into the bottom chamber, clear any grinds along the edge to prevent it from coming into contact with the rubber seal and you're good. The use of grinds then comes into consideration, you can use a espresso grind or a somewhat finer than drip coffee grind for your base, some experimentation suited to your taste will be necessary. I grind my own beans (which if you haven't done yet I highly recommend) and use a couple notches above espresso for the fineness of the grind, as this lets a great deal of flavor from the coffee come through without unduly impeding the flow of the steam rising up through it, and I would definitely not recommend turkish grind settings. A quick word of caution based upon a friend's experience and that is do not add spices to the coffee grinds in order to make some sort of flavored moka, in particular cinnamon. Typically spices in powder form do not react the same way to hot steam the way the coffee grinds do, and frequently will clog the fine mesh filter the steam travels through, my friend ruined her moka maker this way by trying to make cinnamon flavored moka. If you must flavor your moka, use either flavored beans or after brew flavorings. Finally the taste the Moka Maker produces is different than a espresso, its got a softer tone to it and a richer flavor where my palate is concerned, and while a good espresso is still a joy of mine, the moka maker's coffee is actually preferable to me when I want something different than my usual fare from my press maker.

ARTIPIESUnited States

neat tricks to make coffee fast

We bought the Hamilton Beach 80374 Custom Grind Hands-Free Coffee Grinder, hoping to make the perfect grind for our Moka Express. Unfortunately the one we got came without instructions so we have been experimenting to find the best way to get a fast excellent cup of coffee. We have several different coffee machines, so if grinding for the Moka Express, we use the largest espresso grind setting. The Hamilton beach coffee grinder has a minimum cup amount, which is 4 cups. Bear in mind that most coffee pots are using a 6 ounce cup as their standard. Since our Moka Express only makes 2 cups espresso style coffee, we found that adding coffee beans until the blade in the grinder is just covered with beans worked great. It's important to be sure that the inside grinding cup is in place and then turned clock wise to lock in place before putting outside clear plastic cover on and turning clock wise to lock in place. They both need to be locked in place separately! This could be why some people claim that the grinder fails to work after a short time. If the inside cup is not locked in place the grinder will not work and if you try to force the outside clear plastic container you can damage the locking tabs. We discovered that using 2 measuring spoons of the ground beans (that come with the grinder) are perfect for the drinks we craft in our Moka Express. In order to shorten the brewing time we decided to start with boiling water in the lower chamber. We were very happy to save the 5+ minutes of brewing time. If you are using the boiling water, then obviously you will need to use a pot holder to protect your hands while connecting the top and bottom of the pot. We set our electric stovetop to 8 on heat indicator set the oven timer to 5 min. and proceed to heat and froth milk while coffee is brewing. Pour 1/2 coffee cup of froth and pour coffee over the milk froth. Hooray! coffee is wonderful. We use a medium roast coffee. The actual brew time is only about 2 min. using this method. The brewed coffee is very robust with medium roast more so then a drip method. Our over all goal was not to waste coffee. We have a family that get's up at different times and makes a full pot, which then would get thrown down the sink as who wants a cup of coffee that's a hour old. This way we get the benefit of saving money and having a relatively quick cup of coffee, kind of like the K cup machines, but without the cost. The flavor of an espresso machine without the cost and the counter space. It's been a win win for us. We have a battery run frother, that makes great frothy drinks. We bought rechargeable batteries so we would always have fresh power. Sending thanks to other people who suggest not to wash the Moka Express with soap. We are thrilled with all the great advice that has literally saved us hundreds of dollars on experimenting on other pricy coffee making products. Thanks Amazon that we have access to to simple, great, affordable products.