Too Much Coffee

I've not been around these parts for shamefully long - life has just got far too busy.

I've just replaced my 3-4 cup sized moka pot - gone from Alu to Stainless (Bialetti Venus). The thing is, my other sizes of pot all work fine, but the 4-cup one does not. The water heats up, but then the spluttering noise starts that you normally get when it's time to take it off the heat. But there's no coffee in the top yet. If you leave it to splutter, the coffee eventually comes through, and tastes alright - it hasn't been steamed for sure, because doesn't taste scalded.

I've tried putting a second gasket in - so that I have two gaskets. I thought it might be a poor seal between the two halves of the pot, so that the pot was sucking air around the seal and up the middle spout. But even with two gaskets in place, I get the same problem.

Anyone have any ideas? Should I send it back to CB@AC, and ask for a different one, or am I missing a trick? I'm always reluctant to swap something unless I'm really convinced it's faulty, and in this case the design is so simple I can't think what could be wrong. Something is, though.

As I remember the whole thing demands a vacuum be created and I can't think of anything other than this that would stop it working.

It could be that your grind is too fine, and that water can't build up enough pressure to get through the coffee until it reaches and exceeds boiling point - hence the steamy sputters.

Try it with a coarser grind maybe?

kingseven wrote:It could be that your grind is too fine, and that water can't build up enough pressure to get through the coffee until it reaches and exceeds boiling point - hence the steamy sputters.

Try it with a coarser grind maybe?

Thanks folks. Backed the grinder off a little (2 complete turns on the Ib MC2), and it now runs through nicely.

What confused me was that the OPV wasn't opening, which I had had before with too-fine a grind. It hadn't occured to me that the pressure might still be low enough for the OPV not to kick in, but that the temperature was climbing too fast.

I shall now do my lines.

I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.
I will not choke my moka pot.

jameso wrote:I will not choke my moka pot.

Is that a euphemism?

Gouezeri wrote:

jameso wrote:I will not choke my moka pot.

Is that a euphemism?

Grubby, grubby, grubby!

...I approve