1- Preboil water (prevents burning coffee grounds as its hot for shortest time possible 2- Grind as below 3- Fill grinds to top of cup but don't tamp, just loose fill and shake to flatten, wipe any excess off the narrow top lip of cup 4- Turn on heat (I go either 4 or 5 out of 6), mid to mid high best but def not too hot 5- Fill water to level of blowoff valve and put base on heat(more seems to cause issues with incomplete brews) 6- Drop coffee holder into base and screw on top (if plate is hot and water boiled, it will start boiling again soon, so need to be quite quick) 7- Leave top open and watch it! It will start percolating through quite soon so don't wander off (especially if its open, if you forget then you will turn around to a nice coffee fontein!) 8- Once coffee starts coming out the spout, consider turning down the heat. 9- I aim for around 30-45sec for full brew (4 cup bialetti) Moderate heat by lifting pot off plate to slow down. 10- Once 3/4 full, take off heat, sometimes necessary to dunk base in water to stop boil, otherwise placing on a cold plate is enough to stop boil. Key points - -Flow should be consistent and smooth, spitting and hissing anywhere through the percolation means something has gone out of whack, likely too much heat. -If it tastes burnt then likely you let it hiss/spit, that means superheated steam was pushed through the coffee grinds, burning them and ruining the taste (unless maybe it is crazy dark roasted coffee) -If the colour is thin and not dark then likely too coarse grind, and will flow through very quick = under extractiom -You'll need to fine tune grind. Too coarse will mean flow too quick and likely to spit, too fine and the flow will be too slow and it'll burn -Dont wash it! You really taste the aluminium when its clean (if aluminium pot), rather just rinse it. If you do wash it do a few burner brews of shitty coffee. -What is key is to be consistent in fine tuning it, I did quite a bit of fiddling to get the above working for me (above is also my take on internet knowledge) and certainly the most useful bit of advice is to only change one thing at a time, otherwise you can't really fine tune your changes. -Essentially the key variables are heat and grind, get those right and then fine tune duration of extraction. Keep everything else consistent (water level, amount of coffee, process etc) -It can all happen quite quick, especially if you are trying to also do the milk! -Don't leave the base screwed on tight after use, it causes the seal to perish, at the least just unscrew the base half a turn to take the pressure off. Agree, not quite as fine as espresso (which should be almost powdery), with moka pot aim for something a bit coarser. Shops often get it wrong and give you espresso grind. Get back behind the counter and see what it looks like. Or get them to split the bag with 2 different grind coarseness for some fine tuning at home!
