There’s nothing better than starting the day with the perfect coffee. And what’s more than being able to do so in the comfort of your own home. Here at SO espresso we want to make sure that even at home you can still enjoy a barista style coffee. Which is why today we need to talk about extraction because extraction is everything. Extracting an espresso shot is one of the most important parts of making coffee. If you get this right, your espresso shot will be beautifully balanced and perfect by itself or served as a cappuccino, latte or even an iced coffee.
Our Coffee Experts’ Golden Recipe:
- 21 grams of ground coffee into the portafilter
- 50 grams of espresso out
- 26-28 seconds is best!
Dose
The dose refers to the amount of coffee you grind to use in the portafilter. Our Coffee Experts uses 21g of our House Blend Coffee Beans or our Single Origin Coffee Beans – buy them here. Ensuring the correct dose is very important as you don’t want too much or not enough. Otherwise, it is going to impact how long the shot runs for and how much coffee is extracted. To measure the dose simply weigh the portafilter and add the coffee grinds to it, making sure it weighs about 21g you can have a little bit of leeway of about -/+ 0.2g. Our Coffee Expert Sam advises “Control the Controllables.” Just remember when grinding your coffee beans, only grind what you need. You want your coffee to be freshly ground to keep that lovely flavour. Haven’t got a grinder that’s ok try out our Aeropress or Breville automatic grinder.
Timing
The timing of the shot itself is so important, after years of experience working in the coffee industry our experts have determined 26-28 seconds is the sweet spot for extraction. If the shot runs for less than 26 seconds it may leave your coffee tasting sour. For over 28 seconds the coffee shot is going to start tasting bitter. Both these situations are not exactly pleasant. But don’t fret because we have chatted to our Coffee Experts, and they have shared their simple recipe for perfecting every espresso shot!
“When we were learning the art of making a great coffee, and trying to figure out how to learn if the grinds were too coarse or too fine. We were taught a simple analogy that has helped us ever since.” – Sam Taylor
Just think of coffee as rocks and sand. If water is running through rocks, its going to have a lot more gaps and therefore is going to pass through very fast. However, with sand its more densely packed and the water is going to find it harder to get through, making the run time longer. The same applies for coffee, we like to think of water being lazy and it always finding the easiest way to get through the coffee. So, if you apply the analogy, the coffee is extracting too fast so under 26 seconds it is too much like rocks. You will need to increase the extract time by making the coffee grinds finer like sand. Now if the coffee extraction is too slow and over 28 seconds, you will need to do the opposite. The coffee is too fine like sand, and you will need to reduce the extraction time by making the grinds coarser.
When adjusting the grind don’t make too many changes at once, as a small change will have quite a difference. Plus depending on your machine, it may take some time for that change in grind to reflect, you may need to run a few espresso shots to get it perfect.
Yield
The yield being the amount of coffee extracted is another part of our Experts’ Golden Recipe. We recommend 50g of espresso being extracted. This can be achieved by following our steps above!
Now it’s time to enjoy! We know the extraction process can be a little daunting, however these tried and trusted tips will help you along the way. Let us know how you go via our socials and comment below if you have any questions we’d be happy to help!
