Thread: Moka Pot vs Espresso Machine (with guest appearance by Andy Freeman) ;)

See the article in todays TheAge http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/06/15/1244917983824.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap4

Barefoot barista challenge

On a mission to create the perfect stove-top brew, Gordon Farrer is drawn into the passionately crazy world of the coffee obsessive.

For years Ive made a light-hearted boast to anyone wholl listen: I can make a better cappuccino with a $15 stove-top moka pot and manual milk frother – and a little know-how - than you can with a domestic benchtop coffee machine that costs thousands.

OK, maybe not better than you, with your $3000 ex-cafe model and barista diploma, but definitely better than my uncle and his new $2000 machine.

We were visiting him at his Blue Mountains retreat a few years ago. After a magnificent lunch he offered coffee. Many minutes and the sound of grinding, pumping and steaming later he brought our drinks. The only difference between my cappuccino and my wifes flat white was a dusting of cinnamon cocoa; otherwise they were pale and watery, covered with wisps of milk froth already dissipating like late-morning mist. He was so proud of what hed made. I thanked him, heaped in some sugar (I dont take sugar) and drank.

On the reciprocal visit I offered coffee. "What can you make?" my uncle asked. "Whatever you like".

After two sips of his cappuccino he came into the kitchen, eager to check out the machine Id used. I pointed to a three-cup moka pot sitting on the stove and a plunger-style milk frother. He was speechless.

That story is unfair to my uncle - he hadnt learnt yet how to get the best from his machine. But from that day came the joking boast about my stove-top being as good as an espresso machine.

Jokes aside, I do believe you dont need a fancy machine to make great coffee at home.

Im very particular about my coffee. It has to be rich and strong - not too bitter - with good body. I cant stand the thin coffees: plunger (French press), percolator and drip-filter coffees leave me gagging. With my simple moka pot I can make a smooth shot with full, rounded flavour and enough grunt to be the foundation of a good milk-based coffee. Every morning, without fail, I make two cappuccinos with a stovetop device, blessing it not only for the cost-effective quality of its brew but for the convenience and space it takes up in a small kitchen.

I was taught the art of espresso by two grumpy Italians in a legendary cafe in Sydney called Reggios, a late-night haunt popular with theatre-goers, students and inner-city artists. But that was 25 years ago, and the teaching was all practical, no theory. Making dozens of coffees a day I learnt how the coffee should look as it streamed into the cup, to miss the first few drops of a doppio ristretto, how to feel by hand that the milk had reached the right temperature and how to texture it to get a rich, silky head on a cappuccino – nothing about beans, grinding, tamping, water temperature, water pressure, the length of the pour or any of the countless other factors baristas learn about today. (Its becoming overcast outside? Better adjust your grind.)

Still, they turned me into a half-decent amateur barista. More than once I was told by a customer that they hadnt tasted coffee like mine since their last trip to Rome.

A year ago I started buying coffee at a stall at Victoria Market (McIvers Pure Brazil) instead of the supermarket stuff Id used for years. There I noticed a stove-top device called a Mukka Express, made by Bialetti, the father of moka stove-tops. Intrigued by the idea of a machine that makes two cappuccinos automatically - the Mukka froths its own milk and combines it with the coffee – I started researching stove-top devices and planning an upgrade from my basic moka pot. That was the start of a journey of coffee discovery that has not yet ended.

During my research I compared half a dozen coffee makers; watched countless YouTube videos of coffee devices (search for "coffee" and "siphon", "Brikka", "Kamira", "Presso" or "Atomic" and enjoy); spoke to coffee experts; and got a glimpse into the delightfully, passionately mad world of the coffee obsessive. I learnt about grinding, tamping, duration of pull, mouth-feel, milk quality and the importance of water temperature.

To understand the differences between coffee-making methods, I went to see Jill Adams, who runs the Coffee Academy at the William Angliss Institute. Adams set out four coffees: boiling water simply poured on to fresh grounds (dirty, muddy, watery, not to my taste); French press (surprisingly good body, the best plunger coffee Id had); a moka pot coffee (much fuller, richer and sweeter than the first two); and an espresso from an industrial machine (like the moka only thicker, more viscous, even richer).

From Adams exercise I learned that the moka and espresso machine brewing methods get more out of the sugars and acids of the bean to produce a tighter flavour. Water pressure and fineness of the grind are essential to the process so that the water goes through the grounds, not around them.

But is the coffee from a machine "better" than from a moka pot?

"Its all about personal preference," said Adams. "If you prefer moka pot coffee - or plunger or percolator - to a machine, thats up to you. Comparisons arent relevant if you enjoy the coffee you make."

Next I spoke to Jack Grieve, importer of La Sorrentina, a modern make of the classic Italian Atomic stove-top coffee maker. Grieve warned me that I was on a collision course with the purists.

"Youll find that all the coffee enthusiasts, or baristas, or snobs, or elite, or whatever, will shower you with scorn if you try to say that any sort of stove-top device can compete with a machine," he said. "If you use the term ‘espresso (for stove-top-made coffee) they get all riled up." And what about my moka pot V machine theory?

"Theyre very popular, the moka pots, and with good reason," he said. "Home machines - electric machines - are good when they work, but they can have lots of problems and can be expensive to run. Many stores stock huge numbers of moka pots, so there must be a huge number of people across Australia who use them."

Grieve said that if you do use a stove-top device there are several ways you can improve your brew: "Use good water, good coffee, always grind fresh, tamp correctly and experiment with your grind - play around with those factors."

Grieve also explained coffees Rule of Three: "Green beans last for three years. Roasted beans last for three weeks. Ground beans last for three minutes." One website suggested you discard your coffee if its more than 30 seconds since you ground it. I filed that in the Im-not-that-insane-yet basket.

Lastly, Grieve again stressed the importance of grinding your own beans: "As soon as you get a grinder, even a simple one - a hand grinder, even - and you make a coffee with freshly ground beans you straightaway notice the difference."

The advice to use and grind fresh beans was echoed by Andy Freeman, an online coffee retailer and operator of the Coffeesnobs website (buy the best grinder you can afford, he suggested). Freeman pointed out that coffee is a fresh food product. "Weve forgotten about that in the past 50 years with the invention of instant coffee," he said. "You go to the supermarket and buy something with a three-year use-by date. But coffee really is a fresh food. So if you can get it recently roasted youre well on your way to getting great coffee. Theres no comparison."

And my moka pot?

"I respect all manner of mechanisms for making coffee. But there are a couple of science rules about making coffee that prevents your moka pot coffee being as good as a machine. The most important rule is that the correct temperature to extract the wonderfulness from the bean is about 93 degrees.

"Most stove-tops transfer the water through the coffee at boiling temperature, so youre burning off a whole lot of aromas and flavours. You end up with burnt coffee."

Is there any way to get around that with a moka pot?

"I dont believe so. Quite often Ill use a stove-top when Im going away, travelling by motorbike. It fits in the backpack, you take a gas cylinder, its a great way to do takeaway coffee. But I can tell that the coffee isnt as good."

So there it is: the boiling water in a stove-top kills some of the coffees aroma and flavour. My claim is sunk. Then I remember what Jill Adams said: if you like what you make, thats all that matters. I like my stove-top coffee maker because it makes the kind of coffee I like. End of story.

That said, today my coffee making is more sophisticated, more informed and much better than when I made my original boast. I grind fresh, local-roasted beans every time, a different grade of fineness for different devices. I have a thermometer for the milk (around 65 degrees is best) and a proper tamper for tamping. Occasionally, I even use purified water. The milk texture is better, my extraction is better and the coffee I get from my Presso and my Bialetti, Bellmann and La Sorrentina stove-tops is superior in ways I hadnt known it could be.

To gauge how far Id come, I decided to make coffee the old way: vacuum-packed pre-ground beans from the supermarket, basic moka pot, hand-frothed milk. I went to the store and stood in the coffee section. For 10 minutes I examined the brands and blends I had bought for years and had been so happy with. But I couldnt bring myself to spend $9 on 200 grams of coffee I knew I would never use again.

Theres no going back.