I have fairly large Italian Caffettiera used for making coffee. I think it makes about 8 cups. The thing is it sits on my lit gas stove for at least 15 minutes and nothing comes out.
Any ideas?
PS. Yes, I put water in it 😉
Coffee – Caffettiera (Moka Pot) is not making coffee properly
coffeeequipment
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If you have access to a well ventilated area and don't mind using charcoal, shichirin are my absolute favorite style of small grills. They also come in various shapes and sizes. You really should use them outside, though, since they release carbon monoxide and their temperatures of 1200°C+ can create a lot of smoke if you are grilling something fatty.
In my experience, small electric grills don't really get hot enough to do anything useful culinarily that a regular range/cooktop couldn't do.
If you must use gas, you could try getting a propane or natural gas camping stove, some of which come with grills.
It won't be as powerful, but there are also some small grills on the market (also see this one) that work off of convenient butane canisters.
Finally, if you already have a gas stove, there is a type of handheld grill that is popular in Japan. It has a metal grill grate on top of a ceramic diffuser. It looks like this:
The ceramic diffuser is the white part below. You hold it over your gas stove and the ceramic evenly distributes the heat across the grill grate. Unfortunately I don't remember what these things are named. Does anyone know?
You didn't mention the size of your grind. You definitely want a course to medium grind. A fine/espresso grind will leave a lot of sediment and produce a bitter cup of coffee from over extraction.
Two things you can do to minimize sediment:
After letting it brew, before plunging, use a couple of spoons to scoop out as much of the coffee grounds as you can. This video shows a demonstration of this.
Decant the coffee. Pour the coffee from the press into another jug and let it settle a moment before pouring into your cups.
Another tip: Place a saucer over the top of the press for the four minutes to minimise heat loss.
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Best Answer
You may have a broken or loose gasket. Separate the two main parts of the caffettiera and check underneath the top part. There should be a large rubber gasket. Over time this gasket gets harder and develops cracks: these cracks let steam and cofee out and prevent the necessary working pressure to build up. If this is your problem, you will notice that the caffettiera hisses and sputters but no coffee comes up.
You should describe what kind of noises your caffettiera is making. On an other tack, are you sure the fire is big/hot enough? If the caffettiera is really large (like, a 16 cups one) and the burner is too small it may be that the pot never gets hot enough to boil.
Lastly, it may be that the caffettiera is so clogged up that water/coffee cannot go through. This would be unusual, and I assume that you have already checked that.