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As some high-performance coffee machines have become more compact, their household positioning has become increasingly obvious, and many friends have also fallen into the pit of espresso. Therefore, Front Street would like to share some common problems when making espresso at home.
1. Buying pre-ground coffee
Some friends think that when making espresso, the machine is the most important thing, and a good machine can produce good coffee. In fact, when you have a good machine but no good coffee beans, making good coffee is still very difficult.
Let's not talk about the differences between coffee beans first. Let's talk about a phenomenon: after some friends buy a coffee machine, they do not plan to buy a grinder, but directly buy espresso-ground coffee. This may be to save costs, or they may think that the grinder in a coffee shop is better and more professional.
But if you want to taste espresso with good flavor, Front Street still recommends equipping yourself with an espresso grinder and buying freshly roasted whole beans. There are three reasons. First, the flavor of coffee dissipates very quickly after grinding, and especially when ground as fine as espresso, the flavor volatilizes even faster. Espresso coffee is sold in specifications ranging from at least 1 pound to as much as 1 kilogram, so it is difficult to finish drinking it before the flavor of the coffee grounds has dissipated. This easily leads to waste.
Second, as an indicator of espresso, Crema will be better if the machine is good and the 9-bar pressure is stable, but Crema mainly comes from the carbon dioxide and oils in coffee beans. After grinding into coffee grounds, the loss of carbon dioxide is actually accelerated, so the crema will naturally not be as rich.Third, espresso is very sensitive to grind size. Even coffee shops need to adjust the grind size every morning to meet serving requirements. Leaving aside whether pre-ground coffee is suitable for the coffee machine you use, even if it is suitable, the parameters will basically change every day, making it extremely unstable.Some friends also ask: I have a grinder, usually used for grinding pour-over beans. Can it be used to grind for espresso? According to Front Street's understanding, most grinders find it difficult to perfectly accommodate both grind sizes. The burrs for espresso and the burrs for pour-over are different.
Take the EK43s used in Front Street's store as an example. Even if the setting is adjusted to the finest, the coffee grounds produced are still coarser than those from an espresso grinder. So if you have already bought the coffee machine, one more espresso grinder is not a big deal.
2. Repeatedly tamping the puck
Everyone who makes espresso knows that tamping should be level. Because of this, some friends pursue extreme levelness and tamp back and forth repeatedly: "I see the left side is a tiny bit higher, so I tamp the left side a bit, then the right side rises up, so I tamp the right side a bit." As a result, the surface is level, but the density inside the puck becomes inconsistent, and during extraction, "channeling" (channels) easily occurs. In fact, there is no need to be overly picky about the levelness of the puck. As long as it is not obviously uneven, it does not have much effect on coffee extraction. When tamping, also try to tamp once. If one tamp cannot make it level, that means your posture and point of force are wrong, so practice the motion again.
Some friends may feel after tamping that there is a bit too little coffee, so they add some more coffee to the portafilter basket and tamp again. This is also very likely to cause "channeling." The correct approach is, if you find the dose is too small, first break up the tamped coffee back into a fluffy state, then add an appropriate amount of coffee grounds, and then tamp.
3. Locking the portafilter onto the group head and then delaying before starting extraction
Some friends, after tamping, find they have nowhere to put the portafilter, so they lock it onto the group head early, then prepare the cup and electronic scale, arrange everything, and only then press the extraction button. The coffee extracted this way is very likely to have a burnt, bitter taste.
Because the temperature of the group head is very high, after the portafilter is locked on, if no water is released for extraction, the puck will be baked by the high temperature and will easily extract burnt and bitter flavors. The best operation is to press the extraction button immediately after locking the portafilter tightly.
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
