jpender wrote:Coffee bulk density varies by as much as a factor of 50%. The darkest roasts are often around 0.3g/cm3 and the lightest nearly 0.5g/cm3. So the amount that fits in the basket without any sort tamping will similarly vary. For example, a 3 cup Bialetti has a basket volume of about 50cm3. So you might only fit 15g of a dark roast but find that 23g of a some very light roasts fit just as easily. That's without tapping or tamping.

That doesn't mean you can't stick with a certain dose by weight. But the usual rule is to spoon in the grounds and then level them off.

Thank you for that. I kinda had a feeling that this is the case (currently using a light roast that gave me the impression) but I was not sure. It definitely makes sense.

uhmm
In my family I was the youngest so I was the one that was put on "coffee duty", used mokas since I was a kid without any problem and no need for fiddling, room temperature water to below valve or fill mark, fill basket level (no mountains, no strategic "holes", no tamping... just having the coffee distributed is enough).
In Italy is so common you just have a sense of what is the right way the moka should work and adjust accordingly without too much thought. If a particular blend doesnt come out of your taste you leave it, if a moka doesnt work you leave it (different brands, different results).

For the amount of heat the general rule on a gas stove is having the flame as wide as the bottom of the moka without making it spill around the sides (it would also burn the handle if you were doing that).
Grind isnt too critical, a moka is very forgiving about that, but it should be consistent in the basket, no boulders etc... To compare you could buy a Lavazza pre-ground brick, which is easy to find everywhere, that one is pretty much the average on how fine you want for a moka.
If you have a camping stove or any other gas burner I would use it, just to rule out the induction stove thing (I do find a slight difference between gas stove and electric, so maybe the induction plays its part too).
The whole exercise should help you see what is the standard brewing time, quantity of coffee and its consistency. Once you have that as starting point you can tweak things for your taste and it would be a lot easier than trying to stumble onto some lucky combination of variables

Hi All. Long time reader, first time poster here, and I hope I'm posting this in the correct place

I've learned a great deal from a number of you on this forum - thank you! I'm relatively new to moka pot coffee, having just bought a Bialetti 6-cup Venus. One question I am looking to answer: the bottom chamber accepts 260 ml of water, which brings the water level to just below the release valve. The coffee yield is ~195 ml. There is ~65 ml of water left in the bottom chamber Is my pot functioning properly?

Thanking you in advance . . .

Its normal... not all the water can, nor its supposed to, go all the way up the funnel.
Just dont let it evaporate all up leaving the moka on the turned off but warm burner or leave the water sitting in there til the next time you use it (yuck)

Dried ground coffee is also very hydrophilic and absorbs a fair amount of water.

Recently set up the water level on a commercial Bunn coffee machine at work that uses 2.5oz of grounds per basket. I initially set the water level without coffee using the thermal carafe as my guideline. Upon brewing a batch the fluid level in the carafe was much lower than anticipated even 15 minutes post brew allowing all the coffee to drain from the basket.

In my experience drip coffee grounds hold around twice as much water as a moka pot puck. With my moka pot I measured an average of about 1.2g of retained water per gram of ground coffee. And the pucks from my Brikka are even drier. But certainly some of the water ends up in the grounds, some stays in the base, and some evaporates.