Shoutout to the $4 thrift store moka pot that beat my $20 french press
I grabbed a beat up aluminum moka pot at a Goodwill in Boise for $4 just to mess around with it, since I figured the gasket was shot and it would taste like burnt rubber. First try I ground way too fine and got a bitter, muddy cup, but on my third attempt I went coarser than I ever would for espresso and pulled it off the heat right when it started sputtering. The cup came out rounded and sweet with a thick body my french press never gave me, and now the press just sits in the cabinet collecting dust. I still have no clue if it is the pot or the grind size doing the heavy lifting, so what grind setting do you moka folks run on a hand grinder?
Bought a similar junker for a buddy of mine and he messed with it for a week straight, never got it right. Turns out he was cranking his hand grinder way too fine, like powdery espresso fine. Once he backed it off to a coarse drip setting it finally stopped tasting like wet cardboard.