Make the Perfect Espresso

image credit: Brian Legate

Our understanding of coffee has changed since the introduction of specialist coffee shops. “However it comes” is no longer an acceptable response when asked how we like our morning pick me up. The problems arise when we try to recreate what we experienced in the café at home. No matter how much we spend on a fancy espresso machine the outcome just never seems as good. There is more to making the perfect espresso than meets the eye, however with a little practice and knowledge there is a chance that we can come somewhere close.

Believe it or not there are, in fact, recipes for espresso and these have all to do with timing, the temperature of the water, the amount of ground coffee and the amount of grinding that has taken place. So to get it right you are going to need some good digital weighing scales and a timer or stopwatch.

image credit: scottfeldstein

The temperature of the water is the next problem as most home use machines are not too precise at keeping a constant heat. The water should be somewhere between 92 and 96 degrees Celsius and this isn’t always possible with some machines. If this is the case then you are going to have to concentrate on everything else and hope that is enough.

Getting the right coffee to suit your taste is another factor that needs to be correct. Good coffee tends to advertise the date it was roasted on the packaging and is best used at around 10 days after this date. A day either side is not the end of the world, but any more than that and you are not getting the most from the bean. And while we are on the subject of beans and roasts you need to be aware that dark is the color of chocolate caramel tastes, whilst light is more fruity and flowery.

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Next is the amount of coffee you use per cup of espresso. This is probably the easiest bit if you have your scales. Tradition in Italy, the home of espresso, is 14mg per 30ml of coffee. So start there and adjust according to your taste.

There is more to grinding coffee than just smashing it into finer pieces. The best way to do it is by using a burr grinding machine rather than a blade model. The reason for this is that they don’t cook the coffee when they grind and they give a more uniformed texture. And texture is important because you need the amount of time it takes the water to go through the coffee to be constant. It should take around half a minute from starting the flow to finishing the process.

Finally, remember to keep your tools clean and give the coffee a small amount of tamping to keep it regular in the strainer.

So these are the basics and the more you experiment the better your espresso results will be. If this all seems like a lot of hard work then you might decide to keep using the local shop or look at getting a coffee pod. These types of machine give a pretty good result every time without all the hassle.


About The Author:

Daniela Petkova have a lot of experience when it comes to espresso and she is more than glad to share it.