How are your coffee beans lately? Mine are AWFUL!

[Glider]

WP, this was the best idea you've had in your life! I have previously reported how it freshened up the pot and got the foul flavour out of it.

It seems I may have to do this more than monthly, as this morning I though the flavour wasn't quite "there" so I boiled the pot up again in Bicarb. Sho'nuff it fixed it. So I got to thinking about the old pot.....

Jaysus, you should have seen the crud that came out of it! The 10 litres of water it was boiled in was the colour of weak tea, and with significant carbon sediment. Much of it was in the pipe the goes up through the top part, where the coffee liquor is pushed up. And this was after thoroughly washing, compressed air, high pressure water up the cloaca, more washing, left in a cupboard for months so it dried out and dropped its enormous carbon load (about 1½ teaspoons!), then more water pressure and washing.

Brett, mate...we've got to talk. Next time I come through... I have to be careful here because I'd have to take my socks off to count the number of cups of coffee I've bummed at your place and good coffees they were.

You shouldn't have any residue in your Mocha machine. I know I'm a Bialetti guy with a flat bottomed aluminium pot and you're a stainless steel round bottomed disciple, but we can put those differences aside and discuss different ways of approaching the best cuppa.

The residue stems from coffee being left to dry out and burn in the bottom of a very hot pot. Here's what I learned in Italy. Leave the lid up during the initial heating period and right through the time it's perking. It won't splash out, believe me. You will both see and hear when the water in the base is getting low. Take it off the burner and pour the brew. Once the pot cools, there should be liquid in the bottom. Rinse it and you should end up with a pretty clean pot.

Here a couple of pics of my little Bialetti to prove my point. It's never been cleaned other than cold water rinse since it was new about four years ago.

Bialetti Open base.jpg Bialetti.jpg

mick

[delbs]

Sounds like too much fine wood dust or maybe COVID19?

My coffee beans are fine (but am paying around 4X what you're paying) been purchasing from the same roaster since 1994?.

Hey BobL, What sort of coffee machine do you use? is it an espresso style machine?

[delbs]

Brett, mate...we've got to talk. Next time I come through... I have to be careful here because I'd have to take my socks off to count the number of cups of coffee I've bummed at your place and good coffees they were.

You shouldn't have any residue in your Mocha machine. I know I'm a Bialetti guy with a flat bottomed aluminium pot and you're a stainless steel round bottomed disciple, but we can put those differences aside and discuss different ways of approaching the best cuppa.

The residue stems from coffee being left to dry out and burn in the bottom of a very hot pot. Here's what I learned in Italy. Leave the lid up during the initial heating period and right through the time it's perking. It won't splash out, believe me. You will both see and hear when the water in the base is getting low. Take it off the burner and pour the brew. Once the pot cools, there should be liquid in the bottom. Rinse it and you should end up with a pretty clean pot.

Here a couple of pics of my little Bialetti to prove my point. It's never been cleaned other than cold water rinse since it was new about four years ago.

Bialetti Open base.jpg Bialetti.jpg

mick

Good to see these espresso pots/ mocha pots/ Bialetti setups on here. I have been using one that i picked up from Ikea a while ago with the intention of just trying it out as it was cheap and eventually picking up a Bialetti or even a dedicated coffee machine.

I thought initially that the pressure might not be sufficient enough to brew a strong espresso or long black as i dont have any sugar or milk or cold water but ive been surprised over the past 18months or so. ive tweaked a couple things such as beans from Aldi to Ona (Hitman beans) and my grinder, since moving from a hand grinder which produced larger granules i moved to this electric breville grinder i've been able to extract a much richer flavor than previously and makes me think i might not need to coffee machine after all.

[BobL]

Hey BobL, What sort of coffee machine do you use? is it an espresso style machine?

Yes I am a hard core double or triple espresso drinker although in summer I do have the odd iced coffee (double shot over a mug full of ice topped off with milk)
I have a Ca metabolism problem so can't drink too many. Some times I have a double shot macchiato but use pure cream (much less Ca) instead of Milk.

The machine I have is a Cimbali Junior that I bought 17 years ago that weighs ~35kg, back then it cost about $3.5k
It's a single group version of the older Cimballi multi group heads.

The machine has been modified it substantially.
The first things i did was removed the water tank , added pressure reducing valve and plumbed it into a mains water, purified (reverse osmosis) water system.
The waste tray was also plumbed into the under sink sewage pipes.
The parts for the water purification system are nominally valued at about $600 but I got them from a mate in the water purification business for about half that.
Using purified water means I have only needed to descale the boiler 3 times in 17 years and the last time I did it it probably didn't really need it.

The machine is left on many hours of the day so there has been some plumbing wear and tear over the years.
I have replaced the brass steam valve, one of the solenoids, and the boiler draw back valve. The hot water valve weeps occasionally so it also needs replacing.
Last year the on/off touch pad switches on the front of the machine died - replacement was going to cost ~$100 so I bypassed that by adding small momentary switch next to the old switches.

A couple of years ago I replace the noisy vibe pump with a commercial rotary pump drive by a 1/8HP 3P motor and a small VFD.
The pump/motor/VFD and pressure sensors are in a cupboard under the machine.
I also added a microprocessor and LCD display to read and display a bunch of things
Some details of that conversion here
Coffee machine experiments.
This was before the modification - the grinder on the left is an Iberital, the one on the right is the Mazzer Mini.
shrinex.jpg

For camping we use SS Moka pots. Being of Italian descent we had these at home and I still like this kind of brew.

During the naughties I got seriously into coffee and even trained as barista competition judge but it was too expensive to maintain accreditation so I stopped doing it after 2 years.
I judged a few local comps but my taste buds aren't sensitive enough to be a higher end judge - I eat too much spice and strongly flavoured foods.
During the accreditation examination I only JUST passed the sensory sections of the exam.

[woodPixel]

The machine I have is a Cimbali Junior....

Bob, there is not much of that machine LEFT to be called a Cimbali

Its the ship of Theseus!

[BobL]

Bob, there is not much of that machine LEFT to be called a Cimbali

Its the ship of Theseus!

Yeah sometimes I think that way too.

About 95% of the machine is still original, and apart from the pump and pump switch switch I have generally used brand name parts so I think it can still be called a Cimbali. These days I do use non- Cimbali original consumables like silicone group head gaskets, and I replace some raging fibre washers with home made phosphor bronze ones.

One right royal PITA was I dropped the plastic (ABS?) drip tray about 10 years years back and it created a small crack the inside teh tray so that dirty water would leak over the electrical controls. I cleaned the crack out and applied some rubberised epoxy (slightly flexible) but that only lasted about 6 months. On asking what a replacement cost it was about $120

Teh crack grew so that it spanned across the whole bottom of teh tray and I re-glued it multiple times. Eventually I mixed up about 50 ml of epoxy clear and poured that into the tray and tilted the tray back and for the so the epoxy ran up the sides of the tray forming a sort epoxy layer all over the inside of the tray. This has been there for abut 3 years and although its yellowed it's still good and solid.