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I made three batches in a row with a moka pot (for Vietnamese coffee ice cream!) recently. I did my best to handle things with a wet rag while still hot, but it was still a bit of a pain and a bit slow. Is there anything else I can do to speed things along or make it easier? Is it safe to just run water over it to fully cool it down?

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  • Fraught with peril! One way to speed up is to pre-boil the water as suggested in this answer, but otherwise I haven't figured a good way except use a bigger moka pot; hopefully someone else has better ideas.
    – hoc_age
    Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 3:43
  • Handle with a wet rag while still hot? If you're talking about handlig hot materials and not getting burnt, use a dry rag instead! Water conducts heat very well.
    – Ludwik
    Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 20:12
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    @Ludwik The point is that water has a high heat capacity, so a rag wet with cool or room temperature water is enough to cool things down enough to handle. A dry rag will insulate you for a bit... and then just get hot, and keep being hot. (Side note: water is actually a bad heat conductor, worse than glass, for example. It's normally pretty good at heat transfer because of convection, not conduction. And if it's already hot, it transfers a lot of heat via conduction because of the heat capacity, not the conductivity.)
    – Cascabel
    Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 20:20
  • @Jefromi Well, you clearly have it sorted out, just wanted to be on the safe side ;)
    – Ludwik
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 9:35

1 Answer 1

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Here's what I do:

  • Boil a kettle with as much water as you're going to need for everyone
  • Fill the sink with cold water
  • Make your pot of coffee as normal: using boiling water
  • After you've made the coffee and poured it out, dunk the pot in the sink of cold water
  • It should cool down within a few seconds, allowing you to unscrew it, clean it out, and reset (it helps if you have a second sink to do the cleaning in)
  • Fill with coffee/boiling water again, and repeat until everyone has coffee
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  • So no problems from shocking it with all that cold water? Awesome!
    – Cascabel
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 16:12
  • @Jefromi AFAIK Aluminium should have no problem being quenched like that.
    – fredley
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 16:15
  • I do this too, and so far no problems with the aluminium pot. But it's still easier to just use a bigger pot, or it's a nice excuse to get another one :)
    – crunch
    Commented May 1, 2015 at 13:39

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