Espresso Making Tips
All tips tagged espresso making ✕
Make sure the coffee beans are ground finely to the size of table salt. This will allow the coffee to be packed more tightly when you tamp on the coffee. Tightly packed coffee puck can yield a more aromatic espresso
When tamping, make sure you exert an appropriate pressure. The optimal pressure is 30 pounds. Loose coffee puck will result in water flowing in certain paths only. Thus yielding poor tasting espresso.
Use sufficient ground coffee. If too little, the coffee puck will not provide sufficient resistance to the water. Thus, it will result in a poor extraction of the coffee oils.
Monitor the brewing temperature. Make sure it stays around 190 Fahrenheit. Any higher, you get a bitter, burnt taste. Any lower, you get an acidic flavours.
Monitor the brewing pressure. Make sure it stays 9 bars. Else, you won't get the crema layer.
The time to extract an espresso can greatly influence the espresso taste. Ideally, extraction should stop before the thick dark crema changes to a light color. After this time, the espresso will have a bitter and burnt taste. The optimal time for extraction is 25-30 seconds.
Only a good espresso maker with solid components can ensure the stability of brew temperature and pressure to make good espresso. With a good machine, you have won half the battle.
The best grinder to use will be a burr caconical grinder. They are able to grind the coffee beans gently and finely in a consistent manner, generating lesser heat in the process. With lesser heat, less of the flavours in the coffee beans will be destroyed. Avoid a blade grinder
The cleanliness of your espresso making machine can destroy your espresso. Espresso made from a dirty machine will have a bitter and burnt taste. Make sure to clean the inners of the brew head and portafilter before every brew.