We aren’t talking about crazy high pressures or anything - could the crack be capillary brazed to repair it? Once the brass filler was filed and sanded down flush, you could have a really nice finish, but I don’t know whether repeated heating to 100C would eventually separate the 2 metals. You would need a brass alloy with similar characteristics to the aluminium of the pot.
I forgot, there’s often one more part, a simple thermostatic cutout for safety purposes. If the heater reaches metal-melting temperatures it cuts out.
The valve is typically just a ball or a flap. Very robust. If it’s a ball, and it’s not just gummed up and needing a good cleaning, you’ll need to find a replacement ball exactly the same size and very roughly the same weight. Check your kids’ toys when they aren’t looking.
The heating element is usually a flat plate type, which is a little harder to fabricate than a nichrome wire coil. But almost any appropriately sized heater that can boil water can be bodged in there, you can use a dishwasher heating element or one from a small stove burner.
I fabricate a lot of parts when I fix things, or bodge in similar parts from things I find laying about (my family hated it when I still owned a pickup truck). When I buy parts, I generally start with Google, but I check Amazon and eBay and Appliance Servicenter in Prices’ Corner (Wilmington, DE). The only thing I have been having trouble obtaining lately is microwave magnetrons, and they almost never fail anyway.
Go for it! Like I said, the worst thing that’ll happen is you’ll break something that was already broken anyway.
Uh, I guess the actual worst thing would be you’d cut yourself on broken plastic, but if you are a software guy you already know about the bleeding edge…
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I have an off brand Moka pot and haven’t used it. Mainly because i find my drip coffee maker to be easier to use. Plus there’s no chance of me messing it up and forgetting the pot on the stove… i’ve killed about 2-3 pots that way. I’ve also tossed one that i forgot to clean for about a month, when i opened it later on it was like unleashing an unnamed eldritch horror. I noped and tossed it straight into the trash.
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I’ve thought about it. It would be a cool project, but I’m not actually sure where the split is. There’s a seam on the bottom from manufacturing that might be out of round. I haven’t tossed it out yet, so I’ll give it a good look when I have a chance.
Depending on your water quality, the pots can eventually develop pinholes, and if there is serious scaling in the central tube in the upper part it can choke the pot and is nearly impossible to remove.
The first time I visited my wife’s family’s flat in Rome I was poking around in the kitchen and was amused to find a lower cabinet full of old moka pots. Over the decades, whenever the pots stopped working properly they were just shoved into the cabinet and a replacement bought at the Standa down the street.
We have a commercial espresso machine in our house (2 boilers, rotary pump, 240v) but we still use a moka pot every so often. They’re magical.
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I thought that pot looked familiar!
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Argh. A “cup” is a unit of measurement. We just bought a 3 cup device, and no it’s doesn’t make 3 cups of coffee. It makes some coffee. And another thing, an espresso is a specific format of coffee. This device is terrific, but badly, badly misnamed. And another thing, I’ve had a lot of coffee today!
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One ridiculous Swede agrees:
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For an opposing point of view, here are some more Swedish musicians
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I’d argue that a decent french press will require less maintenance, since it lacks any rubber parts and obviously can’t melt. Just don’t drop it on the floor.
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If you do, you can buy a replacement jug for it, so it too can last forever.
When I had to buy a replacement gasket for a Moka Express (after about 6 years use), it was slightly confusing as to which gasket I needed; Bialetti listed them by number of cups, and I had no idea how many cups ours was supposed to make.
In the end I found out that gasket size (internal and external diameter) is:
1 cup: 40-51mm
2 cup: 41-55mm
3 cup: 50-60mm
4 cup: 50-60mm
6 cup: 55-71mm
9 cup: 63-81mm
12 cup: 74-90mm
18 cup: 74-92mm
…and also, that my wife drinks 9 cups of coffee in one go.
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My aeropress has been used everyday for a few years now and has no sign of wearing out even though it looks plastic ugly and is messy. Ive tried a few other devices after originally using one of those espresso makers but it makes far superior coffee. Those espresso makers make quite bitter coffee.
I just got a temperature adjustable kettle and at 90 degrees its even nicer coffee. Plus you can make great cold press in the summer with it.
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It is named “Moka Express”, not “Moka Espresso” . Nobody in the market for which it was created and in which it gained its name would be confused.
I know many people (including my parents) who refer to this as an “espresso machine”. Sigh.
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Yeah, the replacement glass is easy to get and cheap. Just saying that, if you don’t fuck anything up, it lasts forever. In the mokka pots however, the rubber will decay and the bottom will get yucky (see the pic by anotherone).
In my Spanish speaking family we just call it cafetera, aka coffee maker. But i’ve referred to it as a percolator as well, which i think is the proper term. I may be mistaken but pretty sure that’s how the moka pot works.
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It’s true, some things last a long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV6LPx1ezYs
I always have a problem with the handle melting and becoming deformed on those aluminum espresso makers.
We can tell. 
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