Here's the thing with the Moccamaster.... You put water in, it heats the water to boiling, steam pressure pushes the water up and out of the boiler and the water cools down to brewing temperature on the way out the brew arm. There's pretty much no way for the thing to not be working and the water to still come out.

The thing I find interesting is your description of the smell of the grounds (I do presume you're talking about the smell post-brew). You didn't say how you obtained your Moccamaster. Potentially there is some contamination inside that is fouling the water. Was it new or used? Have you descaled?

I had a mocca master, briefly. The temp was questionable, and the grounds saturation was poor. I struggled to get a decent cup, even after fiddling around with the cheap plastic "flow control" device. They're sold as all that. I concluded they are not all that.

Chemex or your pour-over of choice is not that much work.

Anyone in Oslo of Norway or Østfold area up for a challenge ? Brew a good cup of coffee on moccamaster (not overextracted / underextracted with some taste, as in not flat) and i will buy you 3 bags of coffee from either wendelboe/supreme roastworks/solberg&hansen (170kr pr bag price limit)

You can use my Baratza Forte BG or use your own grinder.. i live on an island near Moss.. We can meet at my place / i can come to you if the drive isnt too long..

I hope to learn something out of it, i hope im wrong, but i must admit i dont belive it can brew proper coffee..

edit: Just to specify, i mean using it as a dripper not making a pourover out of it..

The one suggestion I have for you (cheap one, so worth a risk) is to try Mellita filters. This change helped me with Clever Dripper, so maybe you also would be lucky.
And what is your current recipe? How much coffee, water and time?

I sold my Mocca master about a year ago due to low brew water temp. As I recall, I was seeing max temps around 185 F where water met grounds - well short of target and it was reflected in the taste as well. Did a thorough cleaning/descaling but didn't help the temp. Switched to pour overs and a kettle with a analog probe...never been happier!

pj.walczak wrote:The one suggestion I have for you (cheap one, so worth a risk) is to try Mellita filters. This change helped me with Clever Dripper, so maybe you also would be lucky.
And what is your current recipe? How much coffee, water and time?

I will try that. Thank you. I have tried different filters available locally. The closest thing to good coffee has been with hario kalita wave filters but i still get sour notes, but more important the coffee will not reveal its potential. it lacks the complexity, it lacks acidity, it tastes like dull stale coffee, at best, but still with sour notes in the background.

I can take the same beans, go aeropress, and im just sitting there smiling. same with french-press and moka-pot

my method is basically clean equipment, fresh soft water, 60 grams to 1000 grams water and go by taste (i have tried updosing all the way to 70 grams) . i can over-extract so badly by grinding finer but still the same problem.. if i go the other way by increasing grind size it gets so under-extracted it kinda funny how bad it taste. i try to not go below 4 minutes brew time. i hàve gone all the way up to six minutes before giving up..

it is really sad to destroy all this excellent coffee.. Talking with mocca master is just comedy.. i tell them i try brewing 1 liter of water on empty filter to pre heat but they insist i must heat up the glass-jug even more. i must put the heater-element underneat the glass jug on max to solve this. I am not going down that road further.

edit: i only drink s.o light roasted beans like Tim Wendelboe, Supreme Roastworks, Solberg & Hansen, Kaffa.

Spald wrote:I sold my Mocca master about a year ago due to low brew water temp. As I recall, I was seeing max temps around 185 F where water met grounds - well short of target and it was reflected in the taste as well. Did a thorough cleaning/descaling but didn't help the temp. Switched to pour overs and a kettle with a analog probe...never been happier!

i guess there are no simple solutions in life. i better just buy a temp probe and get over it.. give it away as a christmas present to someone who will enjoy it.

Kaiai wrote:Anyone in Oslo of Norway or Østfold area up for a challenge ? Brew a good cup of coffee on moccamaster (not overextracted / underextracted with some taste, as in not flat) and i will buy you 3 bags of coffee from either wendelboe/supreme roastworks/solberg&hansen (170kr pr bag price limit)

You can use my Baratza Forte BG or use your own grinder.. i live on an island near Moss.. We can meet at my place / i can come to you if the drive isnt too long..

I hope to learn something out of it, i hope im wrong, but i must admit i dont belive it can brew proper coffee..

edit: Just to specify, i mean using it as a dripper not making a pourover out of it..

Did you try my method and how did it fare? I would love to help, but I'm in Copenhagen Try to provide more information, how much coffee to water you are using, what's your total contact time (from when water hits the grounds to totally drained bed) and so on. Provide pics of coffee bed after all water is drained.

I bought my Moccamaster 2nd hand for equivalent of 10 euros and it was in terrible shape, scale and coffee stains everywhere, cleaned / descaled all parts and works like new now. It's probably at least 10 years old.

Do not give up yet
I love Oslo water for pour over, I love Nordic roast from Tim. But those coffees are demanding, so you really need high temperature, maybe this is why MoccaMaster is lacking. One more tip, again, just to check, is to use bit harder water: a lot of people including me had great results with Acqua Panna or Third Wave water (whatever is easier for you to purchase). Again worth trying.

And one additional thing, that helps is to start the brewing with closed filter basket so you do a bit of preinfusion. So you start the brewing, with switch in closed position, you do the stir at 30 seconds and then open the brew switch so the coffee can drop to the server. With this your brew teme should be somewhere around 4:30-5 minutes.

If none of those will work, then you can probably sell it to someone less demanding (or using bit darker coffees easier to extract). There is a reason probably why Scott Rao claims there is no good domestic batch brew machine.

I think the SCA certified domestic machines can do a quite decent job. Difference with commercial machines seems to be longevity and volume, rather than the quality of output. In the end it's not rocket science to boil some water and disperse it over a filter basket. The basket design itself is from 1908 (Melitta) and has hardly changed since. I've been to a few coffee shops use Moccamaster and Behmor Brazen for batch and the results have been very good, and they were paired with an EK43. The grinder and water I would say have a lot more to do with the cup quality, as long as you 're able to extract evenly with the drip machine. Oslo though is supposed to have excellent tap water, so I'm not sure if this is an issue here.

This video is also worth a watch, similar to technique I'm using: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkFS25Ca8Tg