(grooving jazz music)

- Today, we're gonna round out the series on the Moka pot

with a look at the Moka pot variations.

How have they improved on it, adapted it, improvised on it?

Have they made a better Moka pot?

As we've gone through this series,

lots of you have left comments saying,

"Oh, you have to look at this pot or that pot."

And so I grabbed a few of them

and we're gonna take a look.

Gonna be a little bit of fun

and I hope kind of interesting too.

Let me talk you through, briefly,

what we have on the menu for today.

First up, probably the most highly requested

is the Bialetti Brikka.

A little pressure valve inside that one,

which is interesting.

Next up, will be the Mukka, it makes milk drinks.

We're gonna make a cappuccino all in one pot.

I don't know what I expect.

I've got the Cuor di Moka,

super interesting little pot.

They don't make this anymore,

and so you can only really get them second-hand,

difficult to track down, but lots of you asked about this.

So, we're gonna brew some coffee with that.

And then at the end,

you're not gonna want to miss this one,

is the Kamira, an interesting little adaptation

of the Moka pot idea.

Let's brew some coffee.

So first up is the Brikka,

probably the most requested thing to sort of talk about.

And what makes it different from a normal Moka pot

is actually in the top part here.

If you get the gasket out,

and then your filter, it just drops out.

You can sort of see in here something's going on.

So actually it turns out if you take the top apart,

the interesting part is inside.

There's a little rubber valve and this is it.

This little mouth is the only thing

in the way of the coffee.

So, it'll prevent the liquid flowing through

until it reaches a certain pressure,

and then it will be forced open.

You should get a foamier cup

by creating some additional pressure with this thing.

Let's see if that's true, let's get it onto the heat.

This does have a little cutout,

so you can sort of see what's going on with your brew.

Now, the interesting thing to me,

actually, let me get the cut away Moka pot to explain this.

So the interesting thing about this is

if you restrict the coffee flow here,

water's gonna boil down here,

it's gonna push the water up through the coffee,

it'll go through the filter up to here and then get stuck.

And so some water will have passed through the coffee.

Some water will be sort of in the coffee

and you'll reach a point of, sort of static flow.

It won't move anymore.

It'll just sort of stall there while it builds pressure

as the water gets hotter and hotter and hotter in the base.

Now, you might get some boiling liquid,

which will create foam,

a less stable foam than CO2 coming out of solution

as is traditional with crema.

But I don't really know

if this is gonna make a better tasting brew

or just a foamier brew.

We'll find out.

(pot hisses) All right, buddy.

Definitely getting foam.

Just got a really, really hot pot there.

You're just coming off the heat.

You are coming off the heat.

We are angry.

I'm taking you to the sink to run under a cold tap.

This has just come straight back.

This is 100% Arabica, specialty coffee.

Not super dark roasted,

so it's not gonna be that thick and foamy.

I do wonder if it would be happier with something designed

to have a thicker layer of crema, a darker roast,

or maybe something with robusta in there.

I don't know, but we have retained no foam.

But how is the drink?

Ooh, that's a lot.

That's like a lot, a lot of attack.

I feel like this roast is probably too light

for this kind of a pot.

It's quite a lot of acidity, a lot of concentration.

(pot squeals softly) Are you still-

Do you wanna be quiet?

I'll see if a cold tap helps shut you up.

Anyway, I would say this brew is super intense.

It's too acidic, it's not actually super bitter,

tastes pretty extracted, but just like a lot.

The question I have is, what's actually happening in here?

Now, I think, hopefully,

that the base from the Franken Moka,

that has all the pressure information on it,

I think it will fit the threading of the top part of this

with the valve in it.

So, if we run the Franken Moka base,

we should be able to see at what pressure

the valve opens in the Brikka.

Now we're not gonna measure temperature,

just pressure today, hopefully.

So this is tracking the pressure

inside the unit,

and this transducer connected to this thing here.

So we can see right now we're at .03 bars of pressure.

0.2 now.

In a lot of testing we did,

coffee began to flow through a normal Moka

at about 0.3 bars.

Changed the coffee out for something more traditional.

I'm not gonna say what.

Oh, that was it, a bar, a bar!

But interestingly, we're still climbing

in terms of pressure, rapidly.

Cut the heat, we're at 1.5 bars.

Oh, that's foaming up. (pot rumbles)

All right, all right, sh sh sh.

(pot rumbling)

Come with me, come with me, sh sh sh sh.

(James shouting) It's very angry!

(pot hissing)

It's coming out the top!

Aah!

It would have been smart to remember

that I used a larger base than the top section.

And so, unsurprisingly, I ran out of room in the top part

and that was terrifying, to be honest.

So, that happened.

Where did we peak?

1.79 bars.

Oh yes, that is more traditional.

Oh, that is a strong cup of coffee.

That feels intense.

Not my favorite. Darker roasted, for sure.

Much more intensity.

The top chamber gets very foamy in this situation,

but you don't get any foam in the cup,

it just sort of sits back from the edge when you pour,

so no foam for you.

So the Brikka was surprising to me.

I thought you'd see a more obvious release of pressure

when the valve opened at about a bar,

but you didn't really see that.

And it seemed to be just above one bar of pressure,

which seems notable, but not shocking.

Like I said, in most brews it would be about 0.3,

to start getting liquid was all you needed.

So holding it back to one,

it just seemed really angry, hotter,

certainly that a normal pot.

Yeah, you get a lot of foam.

I'm not sure that's to the massive benefit of the cup.

I think with more traditional roasts, it might be okay,

but I would definitely want to stop this

as soon as it got to sputtering,

because it was getting really angry,

and cooling it down there

will definitely reduce the bitterness but,

interesting as an innovation,

but I don't think transformative in the cup.

So next step is the Bialetti Mukka.

The one that's supposed to do a cappuccino or caffè latte,

all in one, all in one.

Now, if you look at the front of the box,

this promise looks quite appetizing.

Nice layer of foam, bit of a kind of latte macchiato vibes.

But if you open the box up,

the instructions offer something else.

I don't know, it's kind of weird.

This has the click clack, as they call it,

which is like a bayonet style, portafilter style

locking thing, so no threading.

Now, look at this, look at this,

why is this not normal?

'Cause if there's one thing about the Moka pot,

that's just awful, it's getting this out,

especially after you use it.

So like the little thing, oh, it's all wonky.

Ooh, it's squishy.

Why is it squishy?

You're supposed to fill it to that level.

And then when you put it in, it'd be compressed.

So it comes with a nice guide

that tells you how much water to put in,

depending if you're using gas or an electric plate,

which I think is super interesting.

So I'm gonna use the gas water fill level.

I'm gonna go cold water.

That is not much.

I guess we're trying to make a lot of steam.

So, coffee, let's go traditional again.

So there it is.

I guess we put it in, we lock it together.

Click clack.

And it says, press for cappuccino.

'Cause it's got like two positions up and a down.

Gonna go down and then we'll put it on the flame directly.

It does say you want the flame to be no wider than the base,

but it's a pretty wide base.

So, let's see what happens.

Oh, milk, milk.

So, we're gonna put milk or a milk alternative in

until the fill level inside here.

And it's gonna do the steamy foamy thing, I think.

Now, I can't see what's happening.

I've never used this before.

I've got my heat source, right?

It says, seven, step seven, your drink is ready.

When you hear the characteristic puff of the Mukka express,

(pot rumbling softly)

wait for the coffee to come up,

wait a few seconds and then switch the heat off

and remove the product.

Enjoy your cappuccino.

I mean, that's gonna be making a lot of air pressure.

Like there's a lot of air in that chamber to expand,

that would push liquid up at a relatively low temperature.

But I guess you've got such a wide base

and a thin layer of water.

That's gonna get hot quickly too.

Really interesting.

(pot rumbling)

That was the characteristic puff, I suppose.

Ooh, I guess we'll have a little swirl.

I'm presuming there's coffee in here too.

Oh, yeah.

Do I need to lift the lid to get foam?

Give me that foam.

I think I removed the product too soon

because that's like 30 degrees Celsius.

I think it needs more time to be angry.

This is probably really stupid,

but they sounded like there was a bit of an explosion

inside the Mukka, but the lid is not dirty,

which says to me that we could totally film it lid open.

So let's film it lid open.

Please don't complain that I haven't ironed my lab coat.

Okay.

Safety first, kids.

So looks like a little coffee flavour is coming up.

I'm just getting nervous now.