How to Make Better Espresso at Home
Does this sound familiar? You walk into a coffee shop, order your favorite drink, and quickly realize you’ve just spent someone’s minimum hourly wage on a single cup of coffee? Now, either one of two things immediately come to your mind, the first, “Ah, it’s only a few bucks what do I care.” or two, and probably the most common, “There’s gotta be a way to replicate this at home.” Well, I’m here to tell you there is — and likely even better than what you’ll get served at your local coffee shop. By no means is this a dig at them in any way, simply, coffee shops are typically in a hurry to get orders out the door and keep customers happy.
I know the feeling all too well. For this very reason, I decided to take matters into my own hands and began learning more about brewing techniques, pouring ratios, equipment needed, and much more. This quickly became an obsession but thankfully one I could justify (somewhat). Now, after hearing this, I hope you aren’t feeling overwhelmed. This guide is meant to cover just the basics to get you going with a great shot of espresso. What you do after this is entirely up to you and I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to travel further down the rabbit hole. I’d like to warn you though, much like me, you’ll likely see things you might not have or even know about, and while you might get the urge to quickly grab everything you see, I would first suggest making sure that what you currently have can’t provide the level of quality that you are looking for.
So what do I need?
At the most basic level, you need these three important items;
A good espresso machine
A high-quality grinder
Fresh whole-bean coffee
If you have these three things, you can already brew yourself a decent cup of espresso.
What if I want something better than decent?
That’s where those other items I mentioned you might want to buy come into place. You see, the key to getting a fantastic shot of espresso comes from all the factors I mentioned before combined with exceptional puck prep. This is the process of compacting your finely grounded coffee into your portafilter basket in the best way possible with the right amount of force. For this you’ll need the following;
A tamper
Some sort of distribution tool such as a WDT or coffee leveler
The reason we want to focus on puck prep is to ensure we extract the coffee we put into our portafilter as efficiently as possible, after all, we’re aiming for a shot that’s flavorful, sweet, and complex. Poor puck prep can lead to channeling, where small crevices spread open in the coffee allowing water to run more freely and lead to an under-extracted espresso shot that tastes acidic and bitter.
It’s all about ratios
For a double shot, or Doppio, you want to aim for a 20 - 30 second brew with a final weight of 36g if your dosing 18g of coffee into your basket.
There are definitely a lot more nuances that I’m skipping over but for the purpose of this article, let’s just say puck prep is very important.
Let’s talk workflow
This is where the fun starts and just so happens to be my favorite part. There’s nothing better than waking up, grinding a fresh dose of beans, and brewing your favorite cup of coffee before conquering the day. Let’s do it in steps, shall we?
Grab your scale and favorite dosing cup, and weigh out 17-18g of coffee. This will be dependent on your portafilter and basket size. In most cases, it’ll be 58mm with an 18g basket, but if you have a Breville Bambino as I happen to have, then you’ll be looking at a 54mm portafilter. (Prior to buying any tools, make sure you know your portafilter size. Very Important!)
Insert the 18g of coffee you’ve just dosed into your grinder and make sure you’ve set the grind settings to one of its finer settings. This part will take a few tries as you’ll want to dial in the grind size to the specific bean you decide to use. You’re aiming for the size equivalent to a grain of sugar. (Depending on what grinder you have, you may want to use RDT which essentially assists in reducing static-loaded coffee grinds by adding a droplet of water onto your beans and shaking them prior to grinding.)
If you have a dosing funnel, now would be the time to use it to aid in filling your portafilter with 18g of the coffee you’ve just ground.
Distribute the coffee within the portafilter using your WDT tool until you feel you’ve gotten everything distributed as evenly as possible. What we are trying to do here is remove any sort of clumping that might occur after grinding. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a distribution tool, simply place your palm over the portafilter and distribute the coffee as best you can. You can also use a safety pin if you have one laying around.
Grab your tamper, lay the portafilter on a solid flat surface, and apply about 30 lbs of force to compact the grounds into a puck. (You can find spring-loaded tampers, such as Normcore’s tamper, to take the guesswork out of the equation.)
Place your scale beneath both your cup and portafilter once you have it mounted and begin brewing. Again, the aim is for a 20 - 30 second brew time with a 2:1 ratio so about 36g of total liquid.
Enjoy :)
Summary
Much like you, I too have just begun my journey into home espresso brewing and still have much to learn. This article is not meant to be an in-depth bible on how to make the perfect cup of espresso but rather an aid for making a better one.
Try not to get too caught up in buying everything all at once or having the latest and greatest, but rather, enjoy the journey of experimenting and perfecting your brew with what you have.
