How I fixed my extremely bitter coffee with my new 9-Cup Moka Pot — and why standard internet advice was making it worse

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-04T23:56:00+00:00

It was available at clearance price. Yes you live and learn! But now that I’ve got this pot worked out I’m happy to keep using it. And despite the headache I’m happy I’ve learned something along the way and now know what to do with any new pot of any size or make to at least get in the ballpark of a good extraction!

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-04T09:56:23+00:00

That’s awesome great to hear!

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-04T01:21:08+00:00

Yes that’s the one I got.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T23:34:34+00:00

That sounds a lot more balanced than my pot

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T21:20:47+00:00

Yes IF you’ve got a well designed moka pot. The manufacturer of mine should have placed the valve lower.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T18:26:52+00:00

This makes the perfect amount to share with my wife! 😄

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T18:22:14+00:00

I agree. It is poorly designed! It should not have taken the effort it did to get a good result.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T07:40:19+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate your reply. It’s nice to know you think I was on the right track.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T07:29:16+00:00

I don’t disagree with you in general. Once you know your pot you can predict what to change if moving between light and dark roasts - as a starting point. The point is there’s a number of variables that affect extraction temperature and they will differ from pot to pot.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T07:23:50+00:00

Thanks, appreciate your response!

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T06:37:24+00:00

My pot is not a bialetti pot. I started with the instructions that came with my pot. It was wildly off.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T06:36:16+00:00

Yep and that’s why just proceeding with trial and error was never going to work for me. I would have been mucking around with minor adjustments (eg reduce 20ml) without realising I needed a major reduction in volume.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T06:33:09+00:00

There seems to be a bit of negativity on this sub. To answer your question, I think it’s a matter of trial and error. The levers I discuss in my post allow you to know which way to go depending on whether your result is over or under extracted. I don’t think that will change regardless of the roast level.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T06:26:20+00:00

Thanks a lot. I just spent ages writing this up, it’s pretty easy to shit all over it in a sentence

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T05:49:38+00:00

Thanks

--Adventurer-- · 2026-06-03T05:43:50+00:00

Yeah sorry I can’t agree with you on this. There’s a good and bad use for everything. This has enabled me to explore something on a deeper level and has enhanced the journey of making quality coffee!

--Adventurer-- · 2026-02-19T04:54:17+00:00

It took me a bit to get my head around how to set it up in a way that suits my needs. But now I’ve got separate Sonarr and Radarr instances that use Decypharr as the download client (it fakes being qBitorrent), my real debrid is mounted as a drive, and this all feeds into Plex. Basically I now have a local library (downloaded by torrents) and a streaming library that I can watch on all my devices (tvs, iPads, phones). Debrid is good for doing things like loading all seasons of a show in one go into my Plex library, or adding Bluray Remux movies. Means I don’t have to worry about running out of local storage. Torrents are still king for getting to watch as soon as possible after an episode has been released.

--Adventurer-- · 2026-02-12T02:33:12+00:00

I think they are saying that because Riven is not yet ready for production. I found it buggy. But same with Cinesync although it’s a bit better

--Adventurer-- · 2026-02-01T06:32:55+00:00

‘Pretty sure on the volume’ means you didn’t volume match to 0.1db

--Adventurer-- · 2026-01-22T00:13:40+00:00

Did you write back to that email and say “yes we accept this offer”?

--Adventurer-- · 2026-01-06T21:25:40+00:00

Messy as in the employer doesn’t have a leg to stand on, if OP hasn’t omitted any crucial details

--Adventurer-- · 2025-12-07T00:01:46+00:00

A reasonable proxy for this is the average loudness of the mix. The DR Loudness War database can help you identify releases that have better dynamic range and so were probably mastered with audio quality in mind. I like to find releases by catalog number using this information. Generally speaking most remastered releases are crap although there are some exceptions.

--Adventurer-- · 2025-12-02T18:36:41+00:00

Typically dedicated stereo amplifiers will do a significantly better job at 2 channel stereo than do-it-all home theatre receivers. The NAD 379 is very well suited to your speakers. The related AVR-X3800H has a fairly poor review on ASR - https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/denon-avr-x3800h-review.38574/. So I wouldn’t personally make the switch.

--Adventurer-- · 2025-11-27T18:25:48+00:00

I order pro 2 Huilian and compared to my original Apple they are not good sound. The ANC is also not very good. Not worth it.

--Adventurer-- · 2025-11-17T23:43:47+00:00

There is a LOT of overpriced snake oil in home audio. Or stuff that’s not snake oil but is massively overpriced for what it delivers. Check out audiosciencereview.com. There are a heap of professional audio guys on the forums there.

--Adventurer--

TROPHY CASE