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Brewing with a Bialetti moka pot, I find the espresso looks a bit cloudy or murky. I usually use a medium to fine ground and have experimented starting with both cold and hot water in the chamber. It tastes great, but the appearance seems off, and is rather different from coffee I brew using a pour over. Why does it appear murky and is it impacting the taste? Or is this how it's meant to look?

picture of brewed espresso

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    Taste is the ultimate metrics here. Don't mind the murky look as that can be related to roast type. If your moka pot was damaged (significantly) the taste would be compromised.
    – Miloš Đakonović
    Commented Dec 1 at 10:58

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I find that the main reason pour-over coffee appears clearer than stovetop espresso is that stovetop espresso typically doesn’t use a paper filter, so fine particles and oils can easily pass through the metal filter. (I’m assuming you're not using a paper filter in your moka pot.)

I often notice that my stovetop espresso has a slightly "milky" appearance and sometimes I would call it "murky". Since my coffee grinder isn’t the best, the grind isn’t always uniform, which means some fine particles can end up in the brew and in those cases my coffee can be on the muddy/murky side. This doesn’t happen with my Aeropress, as the paper filters do a much better job of trapping those fine particles, and I almost always end up with clearer cup with minimal sediment and less oils (which can emulsify and also contribute to cloudiness), compared to stovetop.

Do you also notice fine coffee sediment settling at the bottom of your cup, or is just the overall color and clarity of the coffee impacted? Maybe try paper filters in your moka cup and see if that clears things up!

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    Do not!(!!) use filters in a moka pot please.
    – Stephie ♦
    Commented Oct 23 at 5:51
  • @Stephie Is there a reason? I have not personally used paper filters, but I have heard that some people do. At the very least it would be an experiment OP could do to narrow down the cause of murkiness.
    – emmabee
    Commented Oct 23 at 15:40
  • The problem is that a Mokka has a valve that should trigger when the pressure is too high. A filter can throw the balance.
    – Stephie ♦
    Commented Oct 23 at 16:47
  • Got it. Yes, from reading around it looks like pressure balance could be impacted and moka pots can explode, but that seems to happen for a variety of reasons, even without filters. Definitely, still good to be cautious.
    – emmabee
    Commented Oct 23 at 19:11
  • I’m aware that there are plenty of YouTube videos etc that do use a filter paper, but I remember distinctly that at some point bialetti warned against them. Of course I didn’t save the link or quote. So if the user wants to use the moka outside the spec… I cleaned a kitchen from an “exploded” Moka (just the two halves popping apart) once, no intention of repeating that.
    – Stephie ♦
    Commented Oct 23 at 19:33

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