Front Street has noticed that many coffee novices or baristas believe thatespressothe key technique in making it is milk foam production and latte art, but Front Street believes that the most important part of espresso is the extraction of the espresso shot. If the espresso doesn't taste good, no matter how smooth and velvety the milk foam is or how beautiful the latte art is, this milk coffee won't taste good. To meet the needs of various coffee beverage shops, Front Street has blended many espresso beans with excellent flavors, including Front Street Specialty Blend, Front Street Commercial Blend, Front Street Dark Cocoa Blend, and so on. Front Street Coffee currently uses in its own storesFront Street Sunflower Warm Sun Blend Espresso Beans, and thisespresso beanhas a rich whiskey aroma and a nutty finish.
Why useespresso blend beans to extract espresso?
Coffee beans are agricultural products that will vary due to changes in weather and soil. Even if they come from the same place, the flavor of each batch of coffee beans will be different. Blending uses the method of making up for shortcomings with strengths, ensuring that every batch of coffee beans can express a stable coffee flavor. This is also why Front Street chooses blended coffee beans rather than single-origin coffee beans to extract espresso.
When Front Street makesespresso, it uses Front Street Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry and Front Street Honduras Sherry coffee beans, blended in a 3:7 ratio as Front Street Sunflower Warm Sun Espresso Blend. After high-pressure extraction, it has a rich wine aroma, soft fruit acidity, and a nutty cocoa-like finish. By heating milk to activate the lactose within it, after mixing with espresso, the lactose in the milk and the berry-like acidity produce a milkshake-like sweetness, but it does not steal the spotlight from the wine aroma, making people "addicted" after just one sip~
Why do the espresso parameters need to be adjusted every day?
Front Street uses a Lelit espresso machine, and the extraction parameters are as follows:
Pressure: 9 bar
Temperature: 94 degrees
Time: 30 sec
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:1.7~1:2
Dose: 20g (double espresso)
Extracted espresso amount: 40ml (double)
Why doesn't Front Street directly provide an exact extraction parameter?
After roasting, coffee beans release carbon dioxide every day, changing the flavor expression of the coffee beans and affecting the stability of the coffee bean extraction. Everyone uses a different espresso machine, and the condition of the coffee beans is also different, so naturally the parameters will not be the same. Therefore, the parameters given by Front Street Coffee are only reference values. In the end, you still need to adjust through tasting to determine the parameters that suit you.
How does Front Street Coffee extract espresso?
First remove the portafilter and knock out the coffee grounds. (Two things need attention: 1. The portafilter should always remain locked in the group head to keep warm. Do not place it on the cup warming tray or anywhere else, otherwise when brewing coffee the low-temperature portafilter will lower the brewing water temperature and cause the coffee to taste off. 2. Do not knock out the coffee grounds inside before brewing the next cup, because the copper group head at high temperature will produce off-flavors, and coffee grounds have the effect of absorbing odors.)
Lock the portafilter into the group head, press the brew button to rinse the portafilter and group head. At this time, continuously shake the portafilter so that the coffee residue stuck to the group head can be rinsed clean. (Note: if you do not rinse the group head and directly load coffee grounds, the residue stuck to the group head will be extracted a second time, making the coffee bitter and astringent. In addition, this is also equivalent to releasing water at the beginning, preventing the brewing water temperature from being too high and causing over-extraction.)
Then use a dry towel to completely dry the filter basket inside the portafilter. (The inside of the filter basket must absolutely be kept dry. If there is water in the filter basket, after the coffee grounds touch the water, the coffee extraction process will begin before brewing, causing over-extraction. It will also cause the coffee grounds to clump, resulting in uneven tamping. Also, wipe dry the spout of the portafilter as well, to prevent coffee grounds stuck to it from flowing into the cup.)
Then you can grind the coffee beans and dose. (Note: do not leave grounds in the doser. Grind fresh each time you brew. After coffee grounds are exposed to air for a few minutes, they will completely oxidize, and the brewed coffee will be undrinkable. Some coffee shops now are used to filling the doser full, which is incorrect. The correct way is to quickly pull the doser lever while grinding, turn off the machine when the portafilter is almost full, and continue pulling the doser lever until all the coffee grounds in the doser fall into the portafilter.)
After receiving enough coffee grounds, use a distribution tool to make the coffee grounds in the basket evenly distributed. If the coffee grounds fall into the basket unevenly, during subsequent tamping part of the puck will be denser and part will be looser. Because water flow is inert, it will choose the place that is easier to pass through, that is, it will more easily pass through the looser areas, so those areas will be extracted more, while the dense areas will be under-extracted, resulting in uneven extraction, which is also one of the causes of channeling.
Next is tamping! After distributing the grounds, there may still be uneven gaps between the coffee particles, and the loose coffee bed is easily broken apart by 9 bar hot water during extraction, forming channeling. Tamping the coffee bed can make the coffee grounds denser, minimize differences in the gaps between coffee particles, and reduce the possibility of channeling.
Lock the portafilter into the group head. (Note: after locking it in, immediately press the brew button, and then take the coffee cup. Also, the entire process of loading grounds and tamping should be quick, because if coffee grounds stay in the high-temperature portafilter for too long, they will be scorched, making the coffee bitter.)
At this time, the coffee should flow out like a paste, not spray out. If the flow rate is too fast, it is likely that the grind is too coarse or the tamping pressure is too light. It also should not drip out drop by drop; in that case, it may be that the grind is too fine or the tamping pressure is too heavy. Also, espresso made by the same person with the same grind size and the same extraction amount should not differ in extraction time by more than 1 second, otherwise the tamping pressure is unstable or the tamping is uneven, and the difference in coffee taste will be very obvious, so you still need to keep practicing.)
After extraction is completedespresso(After completion, remove the portafilter. The surface of the coffee puck should be flat and should not have any indentation, otherwise it indicates that the tamping was incorrect and you need to continue practicing.)
After adding water to the extracted espresso to make black coffee (Americano), if there are no off-flavors and no astringency when you sip it, it does not feel watery, and the bitterness quickly disappears after entering the mouth, it means the extractionespresso requirementsare basically met. In addition, when making 5 to 10 cups continuously (with the same portafilter specification), there should be no obvious difference in espresso extraction time and coffee taste. Only then does it show that the technique is basically stable.
For more specialty coffee beans, please add private WeChat Front Street Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
