Pulling god shots.
The importance of temperature.
Maintaining a stable temperature with espresso is as important as anything else we've covered. Depending on what roast you've chosen your espresso will taste better at certain temperatures. For most espresso the window in which your brewing water temperature should sit in is anywhere from 198 degrees Fahrenheit to 204 degrees.
Group head and portafilter temperatures
Once we've set our temperature on our espresso machine the real fun comes trying to maintain it. Imagine, you've got your brewing temperature set to 203.5 degrees fahrenheit, you engage the pump, it pushes water through the group head, through the coffee, out the portafilter, and into a nice warm cup. When the water starts it's at 203.5 degrees, but lets imagine your portafilter has been sitting out of your group head for 20 minutes and now your group heads temperature is at 90 degrees. Not only that but your portafilter is now 30 degrees. When the brewing water hit's your group head and portafilter, the temperature gets drastically altered. This will lead to bad tasting espresso and ultimately keeps you blind from really knowing what temperature your espresso is being extracted at. The lesson to be learned from this are these key points.
KEY POINTS
- Always keep your portafilter in your group head when not using your machine.
- Engage your pump for a few seconds right before you pull a shot to get the temperature back up.
- Be as quick as possible getting the portafilter back into the group head.
Extraction time
The amount of time the coffee is mixed with water under pressure from the machine.
The three things that affect extraction time.
- Dose - How much coffee you put in the portafilter.
- Tamp - How hard you pack the coffee in the portafilter.
- Grind - The fineness or coarseness of the ground coffee.
Dosing
Click play on the video to watch.
KEY POINTS
- 25 second extraction to 2 ounces of volume.
- The courser your grind, the faster your shot will extract. The finer your grind, the slower it extracts.
- Your puck should be flat and topped off.
Packing
Click play on the video to watch.
Your going to find that from barista to barista everyone has a different method of packing. One of the key commonalities is that the puck is flat, and has been packed with at least 30 pounds of pressure.
Try to develop a consistent hard tamp and change it only if your extraction times begin to vary. Tamping will change your extraction times. The lighter the tamp, the shorter time the shot will take to extract and visa versa. If you have to use a light tamp to get the proper extraction time, you should adjust your grind as soon as possible. The best shots are made with a hard tamp and a coarse grind.
When first learning it's a good idea to do your packing on a bathroom scale that way you can tell how much weight your pushing into the puck.
KEY POINTS
- Pack with at least 30 pounds of pressure.
- Pack straight down, at a 90 degree angle.
- The weight of your tamp will affect your extraction time.
- Check to see if the puck is flat after tamping.
