bialetti esprsso maker | be-cause – style, travel, collecting and food blog

Pan roasted coffee and Bialetti espresso:
As a regular reader you might know I use the Whiley Pop Popcorn Maker to roast my coffee. But I actually never roasted coffee beans in a pan before today. It is possible but I have to tell you that a lot of movement is involved shaking the iron or iron cast pan every 5 seconds for about 20 minutes. So you will earn you breakfast after it for sure.

So this is how I did it:
– Use a proper pan, iron or iron cast is perfect. One with a higher rim is absolute perfect.
– Fill it with geen coffee beans just a bit less than all the ground is covered. They will expand to about double the size.
– The most tricky part is how to know the right temperature of you oven plate. I would start with 2/3 of the maximum. E.g. I got 9 max. so I choose 6 or 7.
– Too hot will burn the beans to fast. You sould be able to roast the beans for more than 20 minutes until they are dark brown.
– Constantly shake the pan with the cover and make sure they are evenly covering the whole surface of the pan.
– Avoid dark spots by not moving the beans around, about max. 5 seconds is ok.
– After 10 minutes you should hear the first cracks of the beans
– Ater 20 minutes you should hear the second cracks, this about the time when the beans
are close to be ready.
– Wait for the beans to be a darkish brown close to black for espresso, dark brown for regular coffee.
– Fill the roasted beans in a huge bowl and shake off the skins of the beans, your coffee will taste bitter if you leave them with the beans.
– Cool them down and fill them in a jar.
– Keep the cover from the jar open for about a day so the beans can breath out the carbon monoxide
– After about 24hours the coffee is ready to be grinded and ready to drink.

The cheapest, one of the most tasting and most joyful method to make coffee is using the typical Bialetti Espresso maker. A 3 or 4 cup sized Bialetti is the perfect choice for a breakfast for two. Not too much attention is needed, the smell of fresh made coffee is distributed wonderfully through the whole apartment and the end is announced by a nice bubbling sound of the espresso maker.

My recent finds, a “Lehnartz Mocca Mahlwerk“. I went back after 2 weeks to finally buy it. Be-cause I already have a “Rancilio Rocky” standing next to the “Rancilio Silvia” it made no sense to buy this manually operated mill. Or does it? I was impressed by the craftsmanship the look and the manual operation.

It is quite a labor to grind a portion of coffee with it and why just not buy a Nespresso machine and Tabs? To have a quick coffee! And it’s good coffee! … BULLSHIT!

Ok let me draw a picture of a preparing a cup of coffee if you are willing to take your time, want to slow down a bit and want to “celebrate” it.

You need:
– a coffee machine, my choice would be a bialetti style one
– fresh roasted beans no older than 2 weeks max! (or roast them fresh by yourself – but this would kill the whole post by it’s length, I will write the process soon). Wrote the process now: check here: Home roasting coffee.
– fresh milk from the farmer, 3,8% fat +
– brown cane sugar
– a coffee/mocca mill like the Lehnartz, one which is adjustable
– a special mug to serve it
– good sound

That should be enough, don’t mind if you have not all things for the beginning.
Essential is the right grinding for the type of coffee machine you use. For the bialetti style machine you should grind it medium, not so fine as with an real espresso machine and not to big as for a filter coffee maker. It takes a bit of practice and adjustments. Too fine and water will be blocked, to big and the water rushes trough. Thats the reason you need an adjustable mill for good coffee. Buying already grinded coffee, mostly does not hit the point for your machine or use perfectly.

After you filled the filter with the coffee and applied some pressure. What is the right amount of pressing the coffee – good question, this is variable 2. Practice, not too dense and not too loose, then close the machine and put it on the stove. While listening to your music, take the mug and poor some spoons of brown sugar in it. Get the bottle of milk out of the fridge and prepare the pot for heating and foaming the milk. Choose a flat pot for a lot of room to stir. After the coffee is through the filter, poor it in the the mug with the coffee and stir it well. Then put the pot with the milk on the stove, it should not take more than about 1 minute to heat it up to about max. 60 Celsius. If you boil it the milk will loose it’s sweetness. To foam it manually and not with the espresso machine, I recommend to use one of those flat wire wisks (drop me a note if you do not get the picture, I can post one). You should be able to just still touch the pot, thats about 60 Celsius. Pour the milk in the mug and stir it with a spoon, so the coffee and sugar flavor also is in the foam. Drink it and take your time!