Posted Wed Jun 6, 2012, 7:58am Subject: Moka Pot and Turkish Coffee: Brew Parameters?
Anyone have Moka Pot and/or Turkish brewed coffee with known brew parameters?
Looking for:
grams of coffee grams of brew water grams produced coffee grind level
strength measurement (refractometer, or even if you've done dehydration estimation).
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Wed Jun 6, 2012, 8:15am Subject: Re: Moka Pot and Turkish Coffee: Brew Parameters?
Lots of moka pot experience, very little turkish (though I have tried).
Moka pot:
grams of coffee-- don't think grams, think about filling the entire basket. The brewer works best at full capacity; a half-filled basket might leave a soggy mess and not brew properly as the water has to pass through the non-filled part of the basket.
grams of water-- best if always used to full pot, though you could reduced this without brewing difficulty. You might not like the result (strength and extraction changes), but I never tried so I can't tell you the results myself. Interesting experiment idea...
grams of produced coffee-- water in == water out, minus small amounts for grounds absorption, steam escape, and small remainder in the bottom of the reservoir.
grind level-- slightly finer than drip. You can go lower than this, you should experiment here. For a finer grind I recommend a shorter brew time (== higher flame), but too fine will either cause an astringent extraction or even plug up the brewer. A plugged brewer might wind up setting off the release valve, or make it more likely to leak along the gasket seal. Also be aware that a more dusty grind will plug up the brewer more easily, even at a coarser setting. So grinder matters even here.
I won't share my turkish results, I'm still experimenting and I almost need someone to show me first.
Posted Wed Jun 6, 2012, 11:24am Subject: Re: Moka Pot and Turkish Coffee: Brew Parameters?
svyerkgeniiy Said:
Lots of moka pot experience, very little turkish (though I have tried).
Moka pot: grams of coffee-- don't think grams, think about filling the entire basket. The brewer works best at full capacity; a half-filled basket might leave a soggy mess and not brew properly as the water has to pass through the non-filled part of the basket. grams of water-- best if always used to full pot, though you could reduced this without brewing difficulty. You might not like the result (strength and extraction changes), but I never tried so I can't tell you the results myself. Interesting experiment idea... grams of produced coffee-- water in == water out, minus small amounts for grounds absorption, steam escape, and small remainder in the bottom of the reservoir. grind level-- slightly finer than drip. You can go lower than this, you should experiment here. For a finer grind I recommend a shorter brew time (== higher flame), but too fine will either cause an astringent extraction or even plug up the brewer. A plugged brewer might wind up setting off the release valve, or make it more likely to leak along the gasket seal. Also be aware that a more dusty grind will plug up the brewer more easily, even at a coarser setting. So grinder matters even here.
I won't share my turkish results, I'm still experimenting and I almost need someone to show me first.
Understood about filling the entire basket. Since you're not tamping, the mass will be pretty constant.
So for a standard Moka pot brew: any idea what the unit weighs empty, then with coffee, then with coffee+water? I can get the brew ratio from there.
Coffee produced would be poured off nearly immediately and measured, and evap and other losses (un-cycled water, for example, since the standpipe doesn't reach all the way to the bottom of the container - at least on the one unit I've played with).
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
jpender Senior Member Joined: 11 Jul 2011 Posts: 402 Location: California Expertise: I like coffee
Grinder: Kyocera CM-50 Vac Pot: S/S Moka Pot Drip: Aeropress
Posted Wed Jun 6, 2012, 12:44pm Subject: Re: Moka Pot and Turkish Coffee: Brew Parameters?
Netphilosopher Said:
Understood about filling the entire basket. Since you're not tamping, the mass will be pretty constant.
So for a standard Moka pot brew: any idea what the unit weighs empty, then with coffee, then with coffee+water? I can get the brew ratio from there.
Coffee produced would be poured off nearly immediately and measured, and evap and other losses (un-cycled water, for example, since the standpipe doesn't reach all the way to the bottom of the container - at least on the one unit I've played with).
I'm not sure there is a consensus on a standard moka pot. They come in a variety of sizes and are made from different materials. If one has to choose perhaps the 3 cup Bialetti Moka Express might qualify.
I have a 3 cup stainless steel pot. It weighs about a 400 grams empty.
It is true that you should fill the funnel without tamping but it is not true that the mass is constant. Grind and coffee type and roast affect how much will fit in the funnel. For example, a darker roasted drip grind maxes out my 50ml funnel at about 17g. A medium roasted coffee ground a little bit finer fills it at 18.7g, although a little more would fit okay. If I grind that same coffee a couple of steps finer I can easily get over 20g. An espresso grind will fit even more but will also probably clog the pot and open the relief valve.
I've used drip grind to espresso grind in my moka pot and achieved good results (and bad) with all of them, although the espresso grind causes the valve to emit steam. Illy sells cans of coffee ground specifically for moka. You can buy it on Amazon.com. I don't know what that size is but it's somewhere between drip and espresso.
For a given coffee and grind the brew ratio is adjustable by how much water you put in. For example, in my pot filling just below the valve is 175ml, middle of the valve is 200ml, and just above the valve is 225ml. These different amounts of water have an effect not only on mass of beverage produced but also on yield and strength: more water = greater yield and lower strength.
My pot leaves behind about 25g of water in the bottom. When dosed to 18.7g the spent grounds usually retain about 18g of water. So when filled with 200g of water I get about 150g in the cup, with 7-10g of water evaporating during brewing and between removing the grounds and water and weighing them.
I'm glad you're finally starting to look into moka!
I'd like two of them eventually - one that yields 350g and one that yields closer to 700g. (that's one that yields a Netphilosophical Cup or 2 NC ROFLOL)
So, for you a typical brew in the Moka would be
18.7g coffee 200g water (of which 25g remains in reservoir, and 10g is lost to evaporation)
After brewing Cp=150g G (Spent Wet Grounds) ~ 18.7+18 = 36.7 (implied A ~ 0.96) 25g left in the reservoir 10g lost to evaporation
Implied Wb (Brew Water used for extraction) would be G+Cp-C=roughly 168g,
Which implies a brew ratio of around 11.3%
Interesting.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Brew water is the starting water minus the residual water (175g). All evaporation occurs post-brew.
edit: I was forgetting that coffee is not just water. So the evaporation is really 2-5g. Here's a breakdown from an actual brew
18.71g coffee 199.9g water
148.2g water in beverage (beverage mass minus solids) 25.7g residual water 23.8g water removed from grounds in oven ------ 197.7g
2.2g lost to evaporation. This is mostly from the grounds and residual water, after I've opened up the still very hot pot but before I can collect and measure them.
I had to run it through google translate, but just to summarize..
1) Beans: 100% Arabica (i like their letter classification system):
S: blends that include at least 75% of Brazil Rio Minas coffee G: single origin Brazil Rio Minas. H: any other kind of single origins A: for any kind of "pre-flavored coffee" (cardamom, cinnamon, clove, etc) K: decaf
Their preference towards Rio Minas coffee is attributed to the overwhelming popularity of the most known brand/roaster in Turkey (Kuru Kahveci Mehmet Efendi), which uses it prominently in its blends since the early 1900's.
2) Roast: Any kind of roast basically
3)Grind Size: 70% to 75% of particles of 75 to 125 micron; or #120-#170 sieve size (probably just fancy for "talcum powder" size)
4)Brewing per turkish coffee cup:
· 30ml water · 7-8 g ground coffee (2 level teaspoons) · From no sugar to 3 sugar cubes (8-9 g) · Shouldn't brew less coffee than the intended size of cezve/ibrik · 3 min. total time, starting with water and ground coffee at room temperature. · Stir on heat unti the mixture is even (no clumps) · First "rise" should happen at 80ºC, second one at about 95ºC, a third rise is optional. · If brewing more than one cup, the coffee should be distributed evenly by pouring little by little into each cup, rather than filling one after another.
No exact measure on total .ml of "produced coffee", but i'd say it's about 20 ml. since the rest of the cup is undrinkable due to grounds settled at the bottom.
But these are just basic guidelines, an attempt to standardize turkish coffee is too frustrating and doesn't do the method justice, since one of it's characteristics are its versatility and variations among the countries that still drink it regularly (most of the former ottoman empire), and even among different families.. that's actually the beauty of it, not attempting a magic extraction or strength number.
I use those parameters as a basis, but i like to experiment every once in a while. The brew time/temperature and the "rises" are where it gets the most complicated, i found i like it more when i heat the water on medium up to about 70ºC set aside half of the water, add the ground coffee and stir, let it rise just once (happens pretty quickly), add the water previously set aside, allow about 1min. to rest, and then pour.
I had to run it through google translate, but just to summarize..
1) Beans: 100% Arabica (i like their letter classification system):
S: blends that include at least 75% of Brazil Rio Minas coffee G: single origin Brazil Rio Minas. H: any other kind of single origins A: for any kind of "pre-flavored coffee" (cardamom, cinnamon, clove, etc) K: decaf
Their preference towards Rio Minas coffee is attributed to the overwhelming popularity of the most known brand/roaster in Turkey (Kuru Kahveci Mehmet Efendi), which uses it prominently in its blends since the early 1900's.
2) Roast: Any kind of roast basically
3)Grind Size: 70% to 75% of particles of 75 to 125 micron; or #120-#170 sieve size (probably just fancy for "talcum powder" size)
4)Brewing per turkish coffee cup:
· 30ml water · 7-8 g ground coffee (2 level teaspoons) · From no sugar to 3 sugar cubes (8-9 g) · Shouldn't brew less coffee than the intended size of cezve/ibrik · 3 min. total time, starting with water and ground coffee at room temperature. · Stir on heat unti the mixture is even (no clumps) · First "rise" should happen at 80ºC, second one at about 95ºC, a third rise is optional. · If brewing more than one cup, the coffee should be distributed evenly by pouring little by little into each cup, rather than filling one after another.
No exact measure on total .ml of "produced coffee", but i'd say it's about 20 ml. since the rest of the cup is undrinkable due to grounds settled at the bottom.
But these are just basic guidelines, an attempt to standardize turkish coffee is too frustrating and doesn't do the method justice, since one of it's characteristics are its versatility and variations among the countries that still drink it regularly (most of the former ottoman empire), and even among different families.. that's actually the beauty of it, not attempting a magic extraction or strength number.
I use those parameters as a basis, but i like to experiment every once in a while. The brew time/temperature and the "rises" are where it gets the most complicated, i found i like it more when i heat the water on medium up to about 70ºC set aside half of the water, add the ground coffee and stir, let it rise just once (happens pretty quickly), add the water previously set aside, allow about 1min. to rest, and then pour.
Thanks! I had someone send me a recipe of 2 VERY heaping tablespoons for a 4oz ibrik (about 15g:115g water).
8g:30g(ml) is pretty much a very heavy espresso brew ratio. (this would be 8g of coffee in espresso but only yielding 21.2g of espresso theroetically at 7.15-7.25% strength)
So, in my normal "America's Test Kitchen" don't-take-everything-at-face-value tendency, I've been told over and over that Turkish brewed coffee is hopelessly overextracted. "that's why they put sugar and spices in it - it's undrinkable otherwise", etc.
Then, I realized that maybe nobody has ever looked at it in detail, and in the context of the gestalt of coffee brewing, before.
I've simmered minimum-grind (basically talc - the smallest you can possibly grind and still turn the grinder on a Hario Mini Mill Slim) coffee on the stove and been very surprised by the results. I have yet to see anyone use a refractometer to measure the strength of any Turkish coffee recipe with any methodology (and no sugar or spice, of course).
The method looks like art, but there's some really cool brew science happening. Some recipes say you should NEVER stir in the coffee once you add it to the ibrik - this "dry coffee" on top is important for the "seal" (recipe words, not mine), or there's "never more than 4 rises", "only do the third rise if... the moon is in a particular phase..." (OK, I made that last one up).
But, if you look at the floating "seal" - there's analogy to cupping and other things that this may actually do. The floating grounds allow a gradual precipitation of the grounds into solution, and a bit of insulation to reduce the time for the mixture temperature to rise (which would limit the time the mix is at high temperature and maybe reduce the time for CGA compound decomposition).
3-minutes from room temperature to pouring coffee is a pretty small contact time. The rises are natural markers for nearing the boiling point of the solution - so it isn't "BOILING" coffee.
The method is an immersion brew (which has protection against overextraction).
It's interesting to me. I'm not wild about the cloudy coffee and the dregs are a bit of a pain, but I bet this isn't the brush-off brew method that many people treat it like.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
= No New Posts since last visit 