Moka pot valve malfunction

Coffee preparation techniques besides espresso like pourover.
Clyryn
Posts: 1
Joined: 8 years ago

#1: Post by Clyryn »

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!

Unrooted
Posts: 279
Joined: 8 years ago

#2: Post by Unrooted »

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.

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CoffeeBar
Posts: 644
Joined: 10 years ago

#3: Post by CoffeeBar »

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. :D

Alan Frew
Posts: 659
Joined: 16 years ago

#4: Post by Alan Frew »

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