Should You Use Light or Dark Roast Beans for Moka Pot Coffee? Moka Pot Brewing Methods! How to Fix Moka Pot Splattering Issues?

After drinking too much coffee of a particular flavor, we often want to switch to something different for a change. For example, some friends who use Moka pots, although they typically purchase dark-roasted coffee beans with rich caramel aromas to make Moka pot coffee, occasionally want to switch to light-roasted beans to experience the floral and fruity notes of light-roasted coffee.

However, due to frequent online posts about failed attempts at brewing Moka pot coffee with light-roasted beans, many friends lack confidence in using light-roasted beans for Moka pot coffee. As a result, FrontStreet Coffee frequently receives inquiries like: "Are light-roasted beans unsuitable for making Moka pot coffee?"

Obviously not! Light-roasted beans are also suitable for making Moka pot coffee. However, compared to dark-roasted beans, brewing a delicious cup of Moka pot coffee with light-roasted beans is more challenging, which is related to various factors. Today, FrontStreet Coffee will list and analyze the common failures when brewing Moka pot coffee with light-roasted beans and their causes, then share how we should use light-roasted beans to make a delicious cup of Moka pot coffee!

1. Taste Issues

One of the most common failures when using light-roasted beans for Moka pot coffee is the taste! Normally, coffee we make with light-roasted beans should be sweet and sour, with fresh and prominent flavors. However, many friends find that the Moka pot coffee they make with light-roasted beans can only be described as "sharp and acidic," with almost no discernible flavors, making it difficult to drink overall. This situation is mainly caused by two reasons, the first being: under-extraction.

Due to under-extraction, the sweet and bitter substances in the coffee have not dissolved. Without the balance of sweetness and bitterness, the acidity of the coffee dominates, becoming sharp and harsh. Additionally, flavors cannot be fully expressed due to insufficient extraction. Furthermore, when this taste occurs, the coffee extraction process in the Moka pot is often accompanied by splattering and dual streams.

But this situation is easily solved. We only need to adjust the coffee grind to be finer, increase the amount of coffee powder used, or reduce the heat during extraction to extend the extraction time, which can improve extraction efficiency and increase dissolved substances. Then the coffee taste will become balanced and exhibit prominent flavor performance! Many friends fail to brew delicious Moka pot coffee with light-roasted beans mainly because they apply the extraction parameters of dark-roasted beans to light-roasted beans, such as using the same amount of powder and the same grind size.

However, in reality, the extraction parameters for dark and light-roasted beans are not universal. The reason is simple: dark-roasted beans have a higher expansion coefficient and lower density, allowing their flavor compounds to dissolve more easily. Light-roasted beans are exactly the opposite—because they aren't roasted as deeply, their expansion coefficient isn't as large, so their density is relatively higher (though some beans naturally have high density). Higher density requires a higher extraction rate for flavor compounds to dissolve. If we don't adjust extraction parameters, the coffee puck won't provide enough resistance, causing faster flow rates and shorter extraction times, resulting in under-extracted coffee.

Therefore, when using light-roasted beans to make Moka pot coffee, we can appropriately adjust the grind to be finer and use slightly more coffee powder. For example, when FrontStreet Coffee extracts with dark-roasted beans, we use parameters of 20g of powder, Galileo Q18 setting 1.0, and a flour-like grind. When using light-roasted beans, we can use 21g of powder or an even finer grind for coffee making.

In addition to extraction issues, overly sour coffee taste is also related to the degree of roast (when it's very sour but not to the point of being sharp). The lighter the roast degree, the more complete the acidic compounds in the beans are preserved, resulting in higher acidity. If you don't want your coffee to be too acidic, you can choose some medium-roasted coffee beans. For example, medium-light roasted or SOE roasted beans. FrontStreet Coffee's Ethiopia Guji·Fragrant Lady (SOE roasted) and Geisha Blend·Strawberry Candy in our bean selection are examples of these types of coffee beans. Their roast degree isn't too light, and the extracted coffee is sweet and sour with rich floral and fruit aromas.

2. Crema Issues

Next are the crema issues! Many friends often report that coffee brewed with light-roasted beans doesn't produce rich crema—only a thin layer or none at all.

Regarding this, it's actually not a failure but a normal phenomenon! The amount of coffee crema mainly depends on the degree of roast and freshness of the beans. With proper extraction, fresher beans and darker roasts produce richer crema, and vice versa. If we want to extract rich crema, then as FrontStreet Coffee recommended earlier, we can choose slightly darker roasted coffee beans. However, we need to know that crema is just foam filled with carbon dioxide, and whether it's rich or not doesn't have much correlation with the quality or taste of the coffee. Moreover, the crema extracted by a Moka pot isn't the same as the crema from espresso we're familiar with, because the pressure isn't as high as an espresso machine. Therefore, even if this foam appears rich when extracted, it will break and dissipate shortly after. Additionally, we almost never use Moka pot coffee for latte art, so this layer of "crema" doesn't have much value. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee recommends focusing more on the taste of the coffee.

3. Milk Coffee Lacks Flavor

Finally, there are the milk coffee issues! Many friends purchase Moka pots because they can serve as an alternative to espresso machines to extract concentrated coffee, which can then be added to milk to make a fragrant and delicious milk coffee. However, when coffee beans are switched from dark roast to light roast, milk coffee made with the same ratio becomes less fragrant and less rich. It tastes more like milk, and the coffee flavors and tastes are not well expressed.

This situation also occurs due to the degree of roast. Because the coffee beans aren't roasted as deeply, they don't undergo much caramelization and Maillard reactions during roasting, lacking intense flavors like caramel and chocolate that can compete with milk. Instead, they can express more floral and fruity notes. If we want to make milk coffee with balanced flavor and rich texture using Moka pot coffee extracted from light-roasted beans, the best method is to reduce the amount of milk and increase the ratio of coffee to milk.

In the article "Three! Tips for Making Delicious Moka Pot 'Latte'," FrontStreet Coffee shared how to extract a concentrated Moka pot base that can be used to make milk coffee. In that article, FrontStreet Coffee used a 1:3.5 ratio to make milk coffee—that is, 50ml of Moka pot coffee with approximately 180ml of milk. The article used Moka pot coffee made from dark-roasted beans. If we use light-roasted beans, the coffee-to-milk ratio needs to be increased to about 1:3.

For example, using FrontStreet Coffee's Geisha Blend·Strawberry Candy from our bean selection, the milk coffee made by pairing the extracted Moka pot coffee (50ml) with three times the amount of milk (150ml) is excellent. Not only does it have obvious flavor expressions of strawberries and berries, but its taste also blends perfectly with the milk, without any discord, and the texture is silky and rich—very good!

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