Light Roast coffee in Moka Pot 3 Cup - How to make
Usually, light roast coffee in a 3 cup moka pot immediately sounds “sour”. But I finally discovered the way to make it perfect. And most importantly - keep it simple.
There are just 3 main keys to success:
- lower dose
- paper filters
- a very slow flow.
Moka pot 3 cup recipe for light roast
We’re going to need:
- 130 g of water (cold or boiling, which one you prefer).
- 12 g of coffee (light roast)
- Two paper filters (51 mm or 53 mm. Better to use 53 mm)
Preparation
Fill the water chamber. In my Bialetti Express the 130 g is right near the line. But it’s better to use scales for this.
Place the filter into a basket (use dry filter here), add ground coffee. Shake it to distribute or make a few taps from the sides. Insert the basket.
Dip a second paper filter into the water and apply it over the sieve (upper part of the brewer). Assemble the moka pot and place it on heat.
Heating
If you use cold water - it’s better to use high heat for 1 minute. To preheat the water faster. Then reduce it to low heat and wait till the coffee flow appears.
For boiling water - use the low heat right away. It may take around 2 minutes before you see the flow of coffee.
Make sure the flow is super thin (just a few millimeters). So that it takes around 60 seconds to brew from the start of the flow till the end (white bubbly foam).
That’s the key here. Adjust your heat source so that it takes around 60 seconds to make.
When to take off the heat
It’s better to turn it off right away when you see the burst of white bubbly foam and serve the coffee.
What if coffee is too acidic?
Make sure that the flow of coffee isn’t too fast. You will need to adjust the heat since the flow is started (reduce it). To maintain the flow, so that it stays very slow and takes around 60 seconds.
How to adjust the grind size?
Try to use some grind size and adjust it by flavor. If coffee is “watery” and “thin” and doesn’t have a long pleasant aftertaste - make the grind size smaller.
If it’s too concentrated - make the grind size bigger.
For washed processed coffee - use a smaller grind size than for natural processed.
Grind size reference
I’m using a Kinu m47 and for washed processed my setting is 1.7 (1 rotation, 7 numbers) and 2.0 for natural processed. Also, for medium roast I also use 2.0 (for 16 g dose).
For Comandante c40 it will be 13 clicks as a starting point. Or around 360-390 microns.
Why 12 g and filters?
While it’s possible to fit 16 and in some cases even 18 g of coffee - the coffee will be too concentrated. Here I tried to figure out which ratio works better and it turned out to be around 1:8 (we are getting ~95 g of coffee out while using 12 g dose).
And just a few grams more (14 g) produced the cup which is hard to drink.
As for the filters - they’re doing the most important thing - creating a coffee puck. Because we use less coffee, it simply will be agitated by water. Which makes the brewing uncontrollable.
And with the paper - it lifts the coffee and creates a coffee puck through which the water will flow more or less evenly. Upper filter will prevent small particles from going into the beverage.
P.s. Because of the low dose, sometimes coffee puck could be skewed and produce a less balanced cup of coffee. You will observe it (if the puck is in a great shape) after disassembling the brewer before cleaning.
Possible solution to a better coffee puck this could be a metal screen over the paper filter at the bottom. I know, sounds weird. But another one - just tamp the coffee slightly with espresso tamper so that it pre-shapes the coffee.
