Creating good espresso at home requires an understanding of what espresso is and how the equipment you will need creates espresso when you use it correctly. Espresso is a thick extract brewed under great pressure. The result should be about 1 to 1.75 ounces (depending if you're making a single or double) of espresso extracted in about 20 to 25 seconds under 9 bars of pressure. Espresso is a brew method and you can make espresso from any coffee (if it's fresh). If you make drip coffee using beans from a bag marked 'Espresso Roast' or 'Espresso Blend' you do not have espresso - what you have is drip coffee you made using a blend intended for use with an espresso machine. To help you further understand we will have to discuss the types of machines that you can use to make espresso and then we will talk about other essential equipment like tampers, portafilters and baskets and about what type of water you should use - certain types of water can ruin your machine and your espresso. As you can see there is much to know and a lot to discuss...there is also much to debate over. Some people like to split hairs all day about water temperatures and grinders while others take a less scientific approach and focus more on the technique and art of creating good espresso. I think that the key to enjoying your equipment and what you will produce with it requires a good balance of scientific and artistic understanding on this subject.
Espresso is a unique beverage. It is difficult to find a good espresso because to do this you must find a coffee shop that cares about espresso and trains its baristi very well. If these two things do not happen, you get a bitter and nasty drink that will cause you to make a horrible face once you've swallowed it. Many people have tasted and do not like espresso because they have not tasted good espresso.
Making espresso at home is equally difficult. There is equipment to purchase, technique to learn, and science to understand. It is a deep and expensive hobby that consumes many. The goal is to make delicious espresso any time you want it without having to trust someone you don't know to care about or have the knowledge to produce a good espresso for you.
Making espresso at home is equally difficult. There is equipment to purchase, technique to learn, and science to understand. It is a deep and expensive hobby that consumes many. The goal is to make delicious espresso any time you want it without having to trust someone you don't know to care about or have the knowledge to produce a good espresso for you.
Espresso Machines
Espresso machines come in many shapes and sizes but all you need to know (for now) is that there are three major types: manual lever, semi-auto and super-automatic. The first is just what it sounds like - a single boiler machine that heats water to brewing temperature before you push and pull on a lever to extract espresso from finely ground coffee in the small portafilter. There are also a couple of manual lever machines that have a heat-exchanger boiler, which maintains both brewing and steaming temperatures at the same time (though the single boiler does this as well but without much temperature stability).
Semi-automatic and automatic machines are single boiler, dual-boiler and heat exchanger boiler machines that use a switch or button to begin and end the brewing cycle; the automatic machine ends the brew cycle after a pre-programed amount of water has been pumped through. If you're looking for a single boiler machine for beginners you'll want to search for a Gaggia Baby or a Rancilio Silvia. Many times you can find refurbished machines sold by reputable vendors.
Semi-automatic and automatic machines are single boiler, dual-boiler and heat exchanger boiler machines that use a switch or button to begin and end the brewing cycle; the automatic machine ends the brew cycle after a pre-programed amount of water has been pumped through. If you're looking for a single boiler machine for beginners you'll want to search for a Gaggia Baby or a Rancilio Silvia. Many times you can find refurbished machines sold by reputable vendors.
Another machine essential to producing espresso anywhere is the grinder. The grinder, many say, is the most important factor. If you cannot produce a good grind with consistantly fine particles then you cannot produce espresso worth drinking. This is because the water, especially water under great pressure as the water entering your portafilter basket will be, seeks the path of least resistance. You will need an even and uniform bed of coffee in your basket or hot water will shoot through a path of coarse coffee grinds and give you a bitter and weak drink.
You will also want to find out the size of the group head and portafilter so you know what size tamper to buy. These are essential to preparing the coffee bed in the basket and portafilter. It is how you pack the ground coffee together to create a smooth surface and a seemless bed of coffee for even extraction. This also creates resistance against the pump and causes the pressure to build to where it needs to be to create good espresso. The pressure is measured at 'bar' and for espresso we need 9 bars of pressure. This is equal to about 120 pounds per square inch of pressure inside the group head and portafilter during brewing. Now you see why we need an even grind and a well packed bed of coffee in there.
Grinders and Tampers
When you finally have your machine and your tampers and your grinder and any other paraphenalia that you discovered while shopping the internet or your local specialty kitchen store it will be time to learn how to actually use this stuff. I'm going to talk mostly about using a pump machine because very few people seek the manual lever machines and there are entire websites devoted to use of those machines. For some more information on levers, click the More Espresso link on this page.
The first thing you'll want to do is switch on your machine and let it heat to operating temperature. Usually there are lights that indicate that this has occured and it is ready to go. Now you will grind some few steps above where your grinders burrs touch (don't grind with them touching or you will destroy it. A grind setting just above zero (where ever your burrs touch) should be fine - maybe 5 if your grinder has number settings. You can see what I'm getting at here - this is just a jumping off grind to see what happens. Once we pull this shot then we can adjust based on what the results tell us. You'll want to heat your cups one way or another: hot water from the machine, from the sink or put them on top of the machine while it heats up. You may also want to use glasses with measuring marks on them and a bottomless portafilter, if you bought one, so we can diagnose the shot.
Dosing and Pulling a Shot
Now you must be careful not to disturb your sweet coffee puck or a crack will develop and you'll have channeling. Give the tamper a little twist (don't push down while twisting) to 'polish' the top of the bed of coffee. Turn the portafilter upside down to let the loose grinds fall off and out. The puck should not fall out - if it does then you didn't do a very good job of tamping. You should have something that looks like the picture on the right.
Quickly! Lock that portafilter into the group head without banging it against anything and hit the switch or push the button or whatever you have to do to get that pump going. Now you'll watch to see what comes out. It should take a few seconds to see anything. Watch carefully, because in this intricate and complex ritual there are many things that can go wrong and watching what happens during brewing will help to discover the part of the multi-step process in which you messed up.
If you got too much espresso in the 20 to 25 seconds that you let this thing pour for, then your grind is too coarse, if you got way less or it took more than 5 to 7 seconds for the pour to start then your grind is too fine. Now you know how to adjust your grind!
If you got blond liquid and but the volume isn't too much above what it should be, you didn't tamp very well and you got channeling. Practice tamping.
If you didn't get any crema or your drink looks great but tastes bitter then your coffee wasn't freshly roasted within the last week to ten days and there is nothing you can do but run out and get some fresh roasted beans. Another source of bitter coffee, if you're finding that adjusting technique and obtaining fresh coffee does not help, is water temperature. Your machine may be producing temperatures too high.
If you got blond liquid and but the volume isn't too much above what it should be, you didn't tamp very well and you got channeling. Practice tamping.
If you didn't get any crema or your drink looks great but tastes bitter then your coffee wasn't freshly roasted within the last week to ten days and there is nothing you can do but run out and get some fresh roasted beans. Another source of bitter coffee, if you're finding that adjusting technique and obtaining fresh coffee does not help, is water temperature. Your machine may be producing temperatures too high.
Steaming and Creating Microfoam
Once your machine is ready to steam you will place the tip of the steam wand just below the surface and turn on the steam slowly. You want to hear a sucking sound that is telling you that air is being pulled into the milk with the steam and getting blown to the bottom. You should also have a little bit of a swirl happening inside the pitcher. Be sure to hold the pitcher steady. This takes a lot of practice and patience. The milk will begin to expand do to aeration and heating. The aeration of the milk should be most extensive for a cappuccino and less so for a latte.
Clean Up
Depending on the type of machine you are using you will need different products for cleaning. Keeping the parts clean - group head, screen, wand stem and tip, baskets and portafilter - is necessary because coffee is mostly oils it will get grimy on your equipment if you don't clean up after yourself. There are products like Cleancaf that are used for descaling the boilers and heating elements of single boiler and double boiler machines as well as coffee drip machines. For a heat exchanger machine or a large commercial style machine I'd use citric acid powder and you'll have to take your machine apart and disconnect autofill sensors and all kinds of complicated whatnots that you shouldn't be touching, so get a water filter and softener setup for your kitchen. Back to cleaning - there are many cleaners out there that are good for backflushing your machine if it has a 3-way solenoid valve that relieves pressure in the portafilter basket and for making a solution to soak parts in to clean the coffee oils off of them. Joe Glo is one and Urnex is another. You can find them easily on the internet from good vendors that will, hopefully, someday advertise here.
Building and Enjoying Drinks
So now you want to take that shot of espresso and your pitcher full of beautifully microfoamed milk and you want to build some kind of drink with it. Let me tell you how this part works.
A Capuccino is 1 shot of espresso, 1 part steamed milk and 1 part foam. Your beautifully microfoamed milk will soon begin to separate and the top will be mostly foam. You can hold it back with a spoon while you pour the hot milk into the shot of espresso (which was first pulled into a warm capuccino cup, I hope) and then you can spoon the foam onto this.
To the left is a picture of latte art, which I don't care much about. To me it is akin to a ridiculous touchdown dance. I find that most serious coffee shops have their baristi do it to prove that they know what they are doing - as if it were the hallmark of a well-made drink (I hope not). I guess it serves its purpose.
A Capuccino is 1 shot of espresso, 1 part steamed milk and 1 part foam. Your beautifully microfoamed milk will soon begin to separate and the top will be mostly foam. You can hold it back with a spoon while you pour the hot milk into the shot of espresso (which was first pulled into a warm capuccino cup, I hope) and then you can spoon the foam onto this.
To the left is a picture of latte art, which I don't care much about. To me it is akin to a ridiculous touchdown dance. I find that most serious coffee shops have their baristi do it to prove that they know what they are doing - as if it were the hallmark of a well-made drink (I hope not). I guess it serves its purpose.
A latte is 2 parts microfoamed milk and one part espresso. The best way to know how much of each you have got is to get to know your cups before you start using them. Fill them with water to a level you would fill it with your drink and then pour this into a measuring cup and you'll know what you've got, give or take a little. When you pull your espresso shot into the cup you know you have about an ounce. So you should now know how much microfoam you need to complete your drink - 2 more ounces. Most often you'll be pulling a double (approximately 1.75 or 2 ounces) and then using 4 more ounces of milk to create a nice 6 ounce drink you can enjoy for a while. If you're using any flavored syrups I'd pour a bit of that in the cup last.
Keep an eye on the thermometer and when it gets somewhere in the 80 to 100 degree (fahrenheit) range (80 for a latte) you want to plunge the wand deeper (move the pitcher upward) at this point and let it heat and swirl the milk around until the temperature is about 150. Stopping at this temperature means that the milk is most likely at 160 and the thermometer can't keep up. If you did a good job you'll have a glassy looking surface on your microfoamed milk. This is much better than the dry foam and scalded milk you get when you just stick the wand in and turn the steam on. Again, practice is essential to get this down and the same goes for pulling good shots of espresso.
Water!
Before I forget, I have to tell you about one of the most important factors in taking care of your machine and in the resulting flavor in your cup - the water you use. You should have relatively soft water that has been filtered after softening (if needed) to clean the taste. Water should be around 70mg per liter hardness and about 125ppm (parts per million) or mg per liter total disolved solids (TDS). You can get water test strips at most pet stores, pool shops and even at the hardware store. PH should be around 7 with an alkalinity of about 5mg per liter. These are guidelines, try to stay in the ballpark. Keeping water hardness under control will give you more use out of your machine before you have to descale it or possibly eliminate that hardship altogether. The other factors will ensure that your coffee and espresso and even your tea taste great.
Click the More Espresso link for more information on this rich subject.
Backflushing is a way to clean the grouphead, dispersion screen and the 3-way valve that relieves the pressure in the head so you can unlock the portafilter without an explosion of coffee grinds. To do this you use a blank basket or rubber disc (pictured on the right) in your portafilter with a dose of the detergent powder you've chosen. You lock this into the group and turn on the machine. When the pump quiets this means that pressure is built up and you turn it off. The swooshing sound is the hot water and detergent being sucked out of the group through the screen and into the valve. This will deposit into the drip tray.
Macchiato - I think this is one of the most misunderstood drinks. It's not a latte with an extra shot of espresso, it's a shot of espresso with a very, very small amount of microfoamed milk. The world macchiato means 'marked' in Italian. You 'mark' the espresso with the foam. Just mark it, o.k.? Otherwise you're having a latte.
What is Espresso?
The pour should start after about 3 to 5 seconds and it should look like dark honey oozing out. Somewhere in the range of 25 seconds you should have your shot. 1.5 - 2 ounces for a double or .75 to 1 ounce for a single. If your shot looks something like the photo on the left (f you're using a bottomless portafilter) then you did a decent job. You may want to use shot glasses with measure marks when you're starting out. If any of these things are not true for your pour then something is off. Let's find out what it is.
The standard is 7 grams of ground coffee per shot, so if you're using a double basket, and usually you'll get better results pulling doubles, use two scoops. Grind and dose into your basket in the portafilter. Now clean off the grinds that went all over the edges of your portafilter. We want the gasket to seal nice and clean or hot water and pressure will escape. Now we must do what is called distribute and there are quite a few ways to do this. You can use a finger to push the stuff around to each edge (up, down, left, right) until you get a flat and well distributed bed of coffee (called the NSEW move) or you can just do two big swipes with your pinky. There is something called Stockfleth's move that I do not use but you can find a video of it somewhere on the internet. I think it is useless.
Super-automatic machines do almost everything for you, some even steam and froth the milk for you. You pour coffee beans into a container in the rear of the machine, set the grind type, fill with water, close it up and push some buttons. For me and for many, many others out there this is not the way to get the best espresso (a major chain of coffee shops that decorates with the color green now uses this type of machine). For a little more information on machines click on the More Espresso link on this page.
A quick word on dosing - this has become a much-debated topic in espresso production over the past few years. I am in favor of a standard 7 gram per shot dose for many reasons (especially for home use). Many coffee shops use a much higher coffee to water ratio because their espresso shots are, 90% of the time, going to get buried in a LOT of milk for a latté. Due to this fact, the shots need to be a little stronger and you may see a barista dose up to 21 grams for a double or even more for a triple shot to be used in a latté. For more on this see the More Espresso page.
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Espresso is complicated but rewarding.
If you have a naked or bottomless portafilter you will see this happening on the underside of your basket - it looks like very blond extract and maybe even one side of your basket has dark tiger striped extract coming from it, but the other has blond liquid bubbling out. This means that something is wrong in the basket - either your grind or your tamping. You can also get sputtering squirts through what are called channels in the coffee bed or puck. Channels are formed by space that allows the water to speed through as described above. You will spend a minimum of $300 on a decent grinder for making espresso, so make sure you remember this when shopping for a machine.
Steaming or microfoaming your milk (also called texturing) is not much easier than getting a great shot of espresso out of your machine (and yourself). You need a medium sized pitcher if you've got a machine with decent steam power but if you have a very small machine then use a smaller pitcher. I bent part of the rim down with plyers, drilled a small hole and inserted a food or candy thermometer into my steam pitcher.
Dose the coffee into the portafilter - the grinds should stick out of the top of the basket a bit. Now you've smoothed it around with your finger trying to evenly distribute the grinds around the basket and you brushed off the excess. Now you're going to tamp that coffee. Grab your tamper and gently place it on top of the coffee and push down a little and then, with your thumb pointing toward the piston (hold it like a torch and then turn your arm upside down...yes it's awkward...elbow in the air) push straight down with about twenty pounds of force. You can practice on a scale if you like. Just push down hard and you should be fine.
Other factors that can contribute to success and failure in this department are the portafilter baskets - keep them clean and if they become damaged throw them away and get new ones. You can find replacement baskets many places on the internet. The picture below shows a double basket on the left and a ridgeless basket on the right for making overdosed doubles or even triple shots.