BialettiMoka 2oz Stovetop Espresso Maker

I LOVE my Bialetti! My husband and I have a two sizes: 6-cup and a 9-cup. Be aware, these are not referring to standard American coffee sized cups. The 6-cup pot will fill my coffee cup once, but we usually split the 9-cup. It is a stronger brew than standard American coffee. The density is somewhere between standard coffee and an espresso. I prefer my homemade coffee to any coffee shop at this point. So much so that we have taken our Bialetti and favorite coffee on vacation with us (we’re light packers but this will sometimes make the cut)! I lean toward trying to keep my life less complicated and I love the simplicity of the machine. No glass or electrical parts to break. I replaced the rubber gasket after about 1.5 years of daily use. They are inexpensive, easy to swap out and can be found on amazon. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever go back to a drip coffee machine.

I really love Cuban coffee, but since I live in a small town, in a cold weather climate state, if I want Cafe con Leche at home, I have to make it myself. After a ton of research, including reading reviews and watching YouTube videos, I decided to get the 3 cup Bialetti. You can't go wrong with the price, and it seems to be a very sturdy little coffee pot. It's very easy to use, and after some experimenting, which has been fun and delicious, here are my suggestions/instructions on what I have personally found to work the best. These are just my personal suggestions, use them if you wish, or feel free to do something completely different!!!! - First things first, for the sake of technicality, please be aware that this coffee pot doesn't technically make espresso. True espresso is made by forcing very hot water, through the ground coffee, by use of very high pressure. This little unit doesn't build up enough pressure to technically create true espresso. What this unit is going to produce is approximately 2 times the strength of drip brewed coffee, with a very high level of oils from the grounds. And unlike espresso machines, which create a layer of golden crema on top of the espresso, this machine isn't really going to do that either. There will be a little bit of golden brown foam on the top, but not really. So for any espresso purists out there, while I commend you for your appreciation of fine espresso, this unit is not for you. - Always use good water. If you have bad water (ie: hard water, chlorinated, rusty), use bottled water. You are trying to pack a lot of flavor into a small amount of liquid, and bad water will make bad coffee. - Fill the water chamber to just below the valve. Please don't overfill it. - I currently am using Cafe Bustelo in the can, but will be experimenting with other brands like Pilon. - For the 3 cup version, I spoon in coffee by the teaspoon, leveling the coffee with each spoonful. When the basket is full, add a little extra coffee on top to create a mound. Total amount I put in ends up being about 4 heaping teaspoons. Make sure the threads are clear of any grounds, and screw the top on. This will compact the coffee down on its own. - Before you place the pot on the stove, make sure that the top portion is firmly screwed on to the bottom. If it is not, the pot will not brew properly, and you will lose moisture and steam pressure from between the threads. - Never use high heat for this coffee pot. I have an electric range that is about 12 years old or so, and I use one of the small burners, and never turn it past 5. It takes a little bit longer to do it this way, but makes a huge difference. High heat will cause the coffee to have a burnt, bitter taste. - I cannot emphasize enough the importance of keeping the heat low. You have to be a little patient during the heating process, but the difference in the flavor is worth the extra time! - Until you become really familiar with exactly how the pot will work on your stove, I would recommend not walking away. It takes a bit of time for the water to heat enough and build up the pressure, but once the coffee starts coming out into the top chamber, its going to go fast. - Resist the urge to keep lifting the lid of the pot. It's hard to do because its pretty cool to see the coffee filling up the top chamber :) I left my lid open the whole time I made my first batch, and lost some coffee in the process. The coffee will kind of spurt and splatter around during the brewing process, so you can imagine what my stove looked like afterwards. - The first few spurts of coffee that come up will probably have an almost syrupy appearance. This is GOOD! You want this! If the coffee doesn't look like this, and/or its pretty pale, you don't have enough coffee in your filter basket. If the coffee is pale, its still ok to drink, but treat it like you would a regular drip coffee. It will not taste like espresso at all. - Each pot sounds a little different, but learn to tell when the bottom chamber has no more water in it. The sputtering noises in the top of the chamber will increase in volume a little as the water chamber empties. - As soon as the bottom chamber is empty, immediately remove the pot from the heat source. If you let it sit on the heat, it will burn the coffee. This is bad! Burnt coffee is nasty!!!! - If you are dividing the coffee between multiple cups, make sure you either gently swirl the pot a few times, or stir the coffee gently before you pour. You want to make sure that the inital thick liquid from the first few moments is evenly distributed throughout the liquid. If you don't, the last cup you fill will contain a much larger portion of the oils from the coffee, and will be stronger than the other servings. I recommend NOT sharing the espresso, and drinking it all for yourself! It's too good to share!!! :) At this point, you can drink it straight if you wish. If that's what you would like, stop reading now............ If you want to do a little more with it and make it even better, keep reading. Like I said before, I love Cuban coffee. I love how strong and rich tasting it is, BUT it is a little sweet for me. I mean, it's got a LOT of sugar in it. So I do mine with a little less sugar than traditional, though I do like a genuine version once in a while. -While the coffee is starting the brewing process on the stove, I pour about 1 cup of whole milk into a glass measuring cup and add about 2 1/2- 3 teaspoons of sugar. - Microwave the milk and sugar until very warm, but not scalded or boiling. - Remove it from the microwave, and use a milk frother to mix the milk and sugar and to make some foam. This is not necessary of course, but I like a little bit of foam. - Pour it into a large mug or coffee cup (I use a 2.5 cup travel mug) and when the espresso is done brewing, pour it into the milk and stir gently. That's it! Easy and delicious, and a great way to cheer yourself up on a snowy, gray day!!!! Enjoy!

We LOVE our Bialetti. All of the raving reviews are accurate! We have gone through so many espresso machines, both inexpensive as well as pricey and this is by far the best because it is delicious and the price is amazing! Why did we ever stray away from the old fashioned way of making espresso?! Yes it takes a little time but honestly, not really any more than a machine. And I feel like the clean up is less also. Its been a while since I have used our machine because it just became a pain to prep, use and clean. Which is irritating because it expensive and now due to the time it went unused, the pump is no longer working. So I can't sell it, total waste of money. Moral of the story is, go with one of these babies! I also LOVE the percolating since you can just prep it and then go and do something else. I know about how long it takes so I just come back when it should be ready. LOVE LOVE that. Normal machines you basically have to stay the whole time. It's just too much if your on your way out of the house. I read allot of reviews on suggested espresso brands and have yet to stray away from Illy so I can't suggest anything else yet. One thing I am unsure of is the exact grind. We don't have an expensive grinder so we don't have a Moka grind on ours. I tried to grind resembling the Illy for Moka pots that we purchase and I think I got it too fine. I purchase some at a natural foods store and ground it with their machine for the percolators and it was much too course. Can anyone suggest a solution for this? I also read a review that they were a little frustrated that you have to wait for it to cool to clean. Im a neat freak so at first I thought I would share that frustration but it turns out that I like it. With kids and work, as most people, I am always in a HUGE hurry in the morning so since I CANT clean it, its actually good that I can just leave it and clean with the dinner dishes or something. Otherwise I know myself, I would have to clean it before I left and then it would just take more time in the morning that I really don't have. So that is worked in my favor. I had read reviews that the 6 cup is enough for only 1 person. For health reasons (kidney cleanse) my husband has been into tea lately so I just thought I would try it out for myself. My husband tasted and ended up wanting some as well so I would split the 6 cup pot with him. Reason I explain that is if you like a decent amount of milk in yours, then the 6 cup would work for 2 people. Or, if you just want small size portions. Ours always comes out very strong so I think its definitely possible to have the 6 cup for two people. However, I drink allot of coffee so we ended up returning the 6 cup and getting the 9. Works out perfectly, I usually get at least a half cup refill if its two of us or two full cups if its just me. I usually have the chill the second cup for an iced coffee later. We do have a Nespresso machine that we Love and is the only espresso pod brand I have ever tasted and felt like it was real espresso and not water "tea" coffee lol. So we use that if we are in a rush and the Bialetti if we have a little more time. Perfect for us! Long review but I hope it helps out!

Love this little maker. Easy to use and small enough to stash away when not needed. Looks great and can be left out on stove. Gets 7-9 servings. Rinse daily and once every 2-4 weeks run with just clean water keeps it clean for my needs. Great gift.

Great 3 cup coffee pot. Easy to use. It is well made and easy to clean. Moka coffee is strong and tastes good with or without cream/sweetener. I might should have chosen a bigger pot.

Everyone says the french press is the best way to make coffee and this has always dumbfounded me. Despite trying about 12 different ways of making it, the coffee always tasted weak and the flavor was like a mixture of good coffee and coffee made with once used beans. I stuck with drip. Then someone recommended I try this moka pot and it has solved all of those problems. My coffee is STRONG and packed with flavor. Yet, I am now using fewer beans, no more filters and a simple stove-top brewing process. After a lot of reflection on this, I think I have the answer: If you like a lot of milk in your coffee, try the moka pot. If you like it black, or with very little milk, go for the french press. Here are some things I do not like, but they are all pretty minor to me. Overall I am very happy with this pot, especially considering the price. -QUANTITY: It's a "6-cup" pot, but the actual volume of coffee you brew is a max of about 1+1/3 cups (I measured). That is when filling up to the pressure relief nipple as most recommend. This amount is perfect for just me in the morning. I add somewhere around 1/2 cup of milk to the coffee and it fills a normal sized travel mug. I was hoping that with a 6-cup pot, I would have some left over to share. It must have been sized for gallivespians. -MINOR DESIGN FLAW: When you lift the lid during the brewing process, water that has condensed on the underside of the lid rolls down the handle-side of the pot and onto your burner. This could be fixed with a very simple change in casting procedure to add a drip lip near the hinge. -HANDLE: It's already a little loose. I have probably used it about 20 times. It also looks very easily burned in a fire while camping. -ALUMINUM: Its made of it. Some say this is a health concern. I'm not that worried about it honestly. With all the canned soda I drank as a kid, a Bialetti pot in the morning is just a drop in the bucket. -GASKET: When I first ran the pot it leaked and steamed like crazy. I took the gasket out and coated it in petroleum jelly (Vaseline) and reran it. It was fine. This is what I use on my aluminum pressure cooker so I thought it was a good choice. I am averaging doing this about once a month now. If you don't it leaks half brewed coffee and makes a big mess. I would plan on it. -TIME: It takes more time to make coffee this way than it does to make drip, but less than french press. This is mainly due to cleaning. In a rush I go back to drip, but miss the taste of the moka pot. You can speed things up by pre-boiling the water in a kettle, but it still takes longer than drip. The french press is frustrating and time consuming to clean. It always puts a lot of grounds in my septic tank as well. With the moka pot you just turn the funnel shaped coffee holder over and blow in the bottom, most coffee comes out. One quick rub with your finger will remove the rest, then take it to the sink.

We bought the Hamilton Beach 80374 Custom Grind Hands-Free Coffee Grinder, hoping to make the perfect grind for our Moka Express. Unfortunately the one we got came without instructions so we have been experimenting to find the best way to get a fast excellent cup of coffee. We have several different coffee machines, so if grinding for the Moka Express, we use the largest espresso grind setting. The Hamilton beach coffee grinder has a minimum cup amount, which is 4 cups. Bear in mind that most coffee pots are using a 6 ounce cup as their standard. Since our Moka Express only makes 2 cups espresso style coffee, we found that adding coffee beans until the blade in the grinder is just covered with beans worked great. It's important to be sure that the inside grinding cup is in place and then turned clock wise to lock in place before putting outside clear plastic cover on and turning clock wise to lock in place. They both need to be locked in place separately! This could be why some people claim that the grinder fails to work after a short time. If the inside cup is not locked in place the grinder will not work and if you try to force the outside clear plastic container you can damage the locking tabs. We discovered that using 2 measuring spoons of the ground beans (that come with the grinder) are perfect for the drinks we craft in our Moka Express. In order to shorten the brewing time we decided to start with boiling water in the lower chamber. We were very happy to save the 5+ minutes of brewing time. If you are using the boiling water, then obviously you will need to use a pot holder to protect your hands while connecting the top and bottom of the pot. We set our electric stovetop to 8 on heat indicator set the oven timer to 5 min. and proceed to heat and froth milk while coffee is brewing. Pour 1/2 coffee cup of froth and pour coffee over the milk froth. Hooray! coffee is wonderful. We use a medium roast coffee. The actual brew time is only about 2 min. using this method. The brewed coffee is very robust with medium roast more so then a drip method. Our over all goal was not to waste coffee. We have a family that get's up at different times and makes a full pot, which then would get thrown down the sink as who wants a cup of coffee that's a hour old. This way we get the benefit of saving money and having a relatively quick cup of coffee, kind of like the K cup machines, but without the cost. The flavor of an espresso machine without the cost and the counter space. It's been a win win for us. We have a battery run frother, that makes great frothy drinks. We bought rechargeable batteries so we would always have fresh power. Sending thanks to other people who suggest not to wash the Moka Express with soap. We are thrilled with all the great advice that has literally saved us hundreds of dollars on experimenting on other pricy coffee making products. Thanks Amazon that we have access to to simple, great, affordable products.

First off, I have to state that I've never used one of these before. After reading all of the reviews I was on a quest to some what duplicate our favorite coffe drinks from Scooters and Starbucks. I ordered 'used' listed as 'like new' condition. This showed up in perfect condition. So I was happy as I only spent $16 on it. But would not be disappointed at all if I spent full price for new. If this broke I would buy another one. Although looking at the design, I'm not sure what could possibly break on this thing :D First and foremost, run some coffe through it a few times to help break it in. It seems to get better each time you use it. I only rinse it out now after each use with plain water. Now on to what I've learned so far: 1. Reading the reviews about full rich flavor of espresso, I was excited. But my first few batches tasted horrible. I tried various tips listed in reviews and also online about making espresso. All I can say is, have patience and experiment. I went from course grinds, to finer, then finer. Tried not packing them down to packing them down a bit. Each yield a different result. For now I've settled with grinding fine and tamping down a bit. 2. The heat makes a difference!!!! First few batches, I had it up towards high. This is on a flat stove which does work just fine. Coffe tasted like it was burned. Finally learned to just give it a few more minutes on medium. Now I put it on medium which is the half way point between the lowest setting and the highest. This seems to work fine. Although I'm still experimenting with the heat to make sure the water goes through the grinds not too slow, not too fast. 3. Take it off the heat when you hear the gurgling. It's finished. And it will even work if you take it off when the top portion is mostly full. Then you avoid any burning. 4. Try different beans! I bought Starbucks espresso dark roast. These mimic the taste of the drink my wife likes. I also like the taste. For the fun of it, I tried some of our drip coffe pre-ground beans. That worked also, but was pretty bitter. All in all, the way you grind, the type of beans, and the heat, and other factors play a part in the taste. Fine what you like and go with it. 5. If you like Starbucks, go there and order just a single shot or two of Espresso and taste it. Then go home and taste it against what you are making with this. I did this with Scooters and was really happy that the shot they gave me tasted like the stuff I was making at home. The point being, whether or not Starbucks or whatever chain is considered real coffe, the fact is, if you or a loved one is addicted to what they serve for $5 a pop, then it's worth it to compare. That way you know. Because 99% of the time, the drinks people are ordering from these places have a shot or two of espresso. I was able to mimic my favoriate Scooters drink. But I wasn't sure at first if my espresso was tasting right just plain. After comparing, I know what I make at home is right. Now here is the other thing I am finding. I enjoy drinking the espresso straight. It just has a certain flavor to it and the smell is great. Heck, I could see just making a cup and leaving it sit out in our home. You walk in and it smells like a coffe shop. I am very happy with this purchase and have been using it everyday once or more times a day. I have nothing against the coffe chains as they make some great drinks. But it's nice being able to make them at home and not spend the $$$ to get a good drink. You can find ways to mimic various drinks. With the milk for example, take a mason jar (without the lid), then microwave it for a minute or two. Then take it out, put the lid on, and shake it for a bit. Now you have the likes of steamed milk and froth. You can pour with a spoon blocking the froth. Then scoop out the froth to put on top of the drink. Pretty cool. Hope this was useful!

I had one of these years ago and must have forgotten what great coffee they make. I switched back because I do not want to drink hot water that has passed through plastic due to the microscopic particles that end up in the brain. This Bialetti is safe, easy to use, and the perfect size for me.

After returning from Italy, I realized that I will never be able to drink drip coffee again. Buy one of these and stock up on Illy and Lavazza. Works great with either ground coffee or espresso.