Emerging from Italy in the early 20th century, the Espresso is a brewing method that forces pressurised hot water through finely-ground coffee beans to create a brew. When correctly extracted, an Espresso possesses intense flavours and a robust mouthfeel - resulting in a highly concentrated coffee that packs a punch.
Although every Espresso machine differs due to variables such as equipment brands and prices, we picked our resident Coffee Head’s brains to pop together some of the best tips to up your home Espresso game. This example recipe will yield a double shot Espresso. Fancy being your own barista? Follow these tips and you’ll be slinging Espressos in no time!
YOU WILL NEED
- 16g of your chosen coffee. Depending on your setup, you’ll either be grinding this yourself or popping it into your machine. Either way, you’re looking for very finely ground coffee, roughly a powder-like consistency.
- An Espresso machine.
- A grinder, if your machine doesn’t include one.
- A tamper, if your machine doesn’t include one.
- A set of scales, ideally to 0.1g accuracy.
- A timer (phones are fab too).
- Your favourite cup to drink from.
METHOD
- Weigh out your coffee and either grind this very finely or pop it into your bean-to-cup machine. Remember you’re looking for your grind to be a powder-like consistency.
- Once ground, remove your portafilter and pop in your coffee, ensuring it is correctly dosed to 16g.
- Gently tap the side of the basket to ensure your grounds are evenly distributed. Gently rest your portafilter on either your tamping mat or a flat surface. Using a tamper, apply even pressure without pressing down too hard, ensuring that you have a nice level surface. This may take a bit of practice so don’t get frustrated - take your time and keep at it!
- Once tamped, gently wipe away any excess grounds from the side of your basket. Give your group a quick flush to ensure there is no residue from previous uses, as this will impact the overall quality of your resulting brew! Reattach your portafilter to your machine, being careful not to disturb your tamped grounds.
- Place your scales underneath your portafilter, pop on your cup and zero your scales.
- Begin extracting your Espresso by pressing the button on your machine to start the water flow. Simultaneously, start your timer. For this example recipe you’ll be working with a 1:2 yield ratio - a 16g dose of ground coffee should produce 32g yield of coffee. We recommend that once your scales hits 29g you stop the extraction to allow for a bit of overflow.
- Once happy with your result, kick back and enjoy - you deserve it. Fancy taking your brew a step further? We have plenty of other brew guides and recipes [here] to follow to utilise your newly-found Espresso slinging skills!
