Castillo advises timing your shots to get the best brew ratio (the ratio of ground coffee to hot water). “Typically with espresso we use a 1:2 brew ratio, because espresso inherently is a very concentrated drink,” he said. To achieve that ratio, he recommends a shot time between 24 and 30 seconds. If your machine seems to be pulling shots way faster or slower than that, it’s likely that your grind size is off—make adjustments and work your way toward that target time range.
Some semiautomatic machines like the Breville Infuser come with preset times for both single and double shots, but you can also start and stop them manually. And once you’ve figured out your ideal timing, you can adjust the preset times accordingly and repeat them at the touch of a button.
A properly pulled shot of espresso should be a swirled or speckled mix of caramel brown and lighter blond tones. A shot that is uniformly light in color is likely to be taste a bit sour, and is a sign that you should use a finer grind setting. Photo: Michael Hession
Now that you’ve pulled your first shots, you can get down to the nitty-gritty of making them more perfect. If everything looks visually okay at first—a nice volume of viscous liquid, with a caramel-colored crema on top of the shot—taste it, and go from there. Just remember: Nothing you can read will train you to produce good espresso more than training your palate by tasting, tasting, tasting, and adjusting, adjusting, adjusting.
You should clean and dry the portafilter after each use to ensure that coffee buildup doesn’t form on the inside (here’s a good video on how to do it from Whole Latte Love).
Castillo has one last tip: “It’s crucial that you make a mess in the kitchen. That’s part of it.”
Frothing milk
The key to good steamed milk is finding and maintaining the sweet spot that generates foam but doesn’t make big bubbles. Photo: Michael Hession
Want to add milk? We recommend a full-fat cow’s milk (because it’s delicious), but there are many made-for-baristas milk alternatives (oat, almond, soy, and beyond) available that perform well when steamed. Castillo recommends filling the pitcher to just about a finger’s width below where the spout begins. Before plunging the steam wand in, make sure to purge any condensation first by turning it on for a moment. Otherwise, especially with the Infuser, you’ll get a bunch of dribbles of hot water in your milk before the pump is ready to go. (You’ll also want to purge the wand again, then wipe it down fastidiously with a wet rag, when you’re done.)
To steam, place both hands on the pitcher (you’ll need to feel the temperature of the milk) and position the wand’s nozzle at a slight angle near the pitcher wall. “As soon as you turn it on, you want to lower the pitcher,” said Castillo. “Move it farther away from the steam wand until you hear a hissing noise, which is air being introduced into the milk—that’s what creates all the texture.” The trick (which takes some practice) is to keep the nozzle just below the surface of the milk, maintaining a quiet hiss that creates fine, velvety bubbles, rather than a loud screech or gurgle that creates unwanted large ones.
By holding the steam wand just off-center, you can create a whirlpool effect in the milk pitcher. Video: Michael Hession
Though some instruction manuals say to swirl the milk while steaming, Castillo recommends holding the steam wand just off-center, to allow the force of the steam to create a whirlpool effect by itself. “When the pitcher gets to about hand temperature, you want to push it back up and stop the hissing,” he warned. “You don’t want to aerate past hand temperate because that’s when your milk changes from smooth and silky to grainy and bubbly.” Did you oversteam your milk and end up with giant foamy bubbles, instead of a tight silk? You can always coax the bubbles out a little bit by swirling the pitcher and thunking it on the countertop.
Keep learning and improving
As you refine your technique, you’ll definitely want to dig deeper into online tutorials and YouTube videos (Seattle Coffee Gear has a lot of great how-tos, as does Whole Latte Love). Or, if you want to go really far down the rabbit hole, Scott Rao’s The Professional Barista’s Handbook is chock full of both espresso theory and science. And with coffee having the renaissance that it is, local coffee companies in many major (and some minor) cities offer barista classes that can give the hands-on experience that no amount of reading will provide.
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-make-espresso/
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