The secret to great espresso, in fact the secret to all great coffee, is that there is no secret. No magic formula. No easy answer. The secret to great coffee is in the details and in the hard work applied by everyone involved in every part of the process. As Baristas we know that we are the last step in a long line of people working to bring high quality coffee to consumers.
Photos by Devorah Freudiger, Gimme! Coffee.
There are many precise steps we follow to brew every shot shot of espresso. This week we challenged some of the steps to find out if they were all necessary. Guess what? They are. We found that by not completely drying the portafilter before each new shot we got shots that were unevenly extracted. Tasting both sour and bitter. Yikes!
We tried pulling shots with pre-ground coffee. Letting the grounds sit for only a minute made a difference, the shots were flat and boring tasting. Ground coffee may smell amazing, but what you are smelling is compounds dissipating that add taste to your brewed cup. This degassing process happens faster the finer the grind is, so with coffee ground for espresso you don't have much time.
Purging the dispersion screens not only gets rid of the old coffee grounds that get stuck up there, but also helps keep the temperature of the grouphead hot enough. The shots we pulled with cool portafilters or cool groupheads ran fast and tasted thin and sour.
Always keep your work area clean. You'll feel better and it's easier to keep an eye on whats important: your shots!
This is the oil left on a portafilter from ONE espresso shot. We pulled a second shot on this dirty portafilter and the shot tasted like old oil. Surprise! We expected the taste, but not how strong it was!
We also pulled shots into a used and lightly rinsed cup. The taste of old oil was noticeable in this shot too. Way bitter!
Keep the forks clean or grounds can end up in the brewed cup. Also, be conscious if you are overdosing and brushing off too much coffee, it took a lot of work to get those beans to your grinder. Don't waste them.
Backflushing on a regular schedule makes a huge difference in the clarity and sweetness of the shots. We noticed a difference even after moderate use of a grouphead.
The last step to be mindful of is timing, you gotta serve that shot right away. In thirty seconds we lost half the volume of the shot and a lot of its sweetness. It takes a lot of focus to make a great shot of espresso, and more steps than mentioned here. None of it is accidental and no steps are unnecessary. It takes time to prepare a shot, and a great one is worth the wait.
erin Sep 16, 2009 – 8:33 PM
heck yes! so glad to see you all are geeking out. wish i were there...did you try not tamping?
devorah_freudiger Sep 17, 2009 – 12:08 PM
AAHHH! Not tamping makes the gasket and group head so mucky! It makes my skin crawl. We did the old 45 degree tamp... that was fun. Not as unpleasant as any of the old oil ones. Uneven tamping was probably one of the best of the bad shots.
David Roebuck Oct 8, 2009 – 11:25 AM
I find Tamping both shallow and pedantic. Shame on you all. When I was in Colombia we had many methods of making coffee and Tamping was in none of them!