Moka pot valve malfunction
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- Posts: 1
- Joined: 8 years ago
I have a kind of old moka pot and the steam comes out of the top. I looked at the steam valve. It looks like a silver bit is in it. Is that normal? How is suppose to vent? Help!
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- Posts: 279
- Joined: 8 years ago
I'm not going to be much help, but I thought I'd try to gently let you know that most specialty coffee people don't think very highly of Mokapots. They are very hard to get properly extracted coffee from because the water has to be too hot to move up through the coffee, unless maybe you live at a super high elevation!
The people I know that use Mokapots wait until the thing starts whistling, which I think means that the bottom is empty, and the coffee is packed so hard that the pressure valve is released.
Looking at my Mokapots I see a little silver ball bearing inside the valve, my guess is there is a spring keeping the valve/bearing shut.
If you put too finely ground coffee into the pot then you should be able to get the valve to release.
The people I know that use Mokapots wait until the thing starts whistling, which I think means that the bottom is empty, and the coffee is packed so hard that the pressure valve is released.
Looking at my Mokapots I see a little silver ball bearing inside the valve, my guess is there is a spring keeping the valve/bearing shut.
If you put too finely ground coffee into the pot then you should be able to get the valve to release.
- CoffeeBar
- Posts: 644
- Joined: 10 years ago
I owned a Moka pot make by Bialetti, if you are able to provide us a video. I will try my best to help here.
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- Posts: 661
- Joined: 16 years ago
Moka pot safety valves are a tube with a ball bearing held in by a crimp. If the pressure gets too high the ball bearing is pushed out, so they're a "one shot and replace" thing. Steam and water are SUPPOSED to come out of the top, but if you're leaking steam around the join what you need is a new gasket.
Alan
Alan