Welcome to Coffee Addicts

Your Very First Shot

At Coffee Addicts, we know that espresso machines can be a reasonably intimidating appliance if you’re not comfortable with them. We’re always on the show floor, happy to demo how machines work, but sometimes our open hours (or physical location!) aren’t accessible to you. I get it! Except for Julian, coffee baby extraordinaire, no one is born knowing how to make espresso. Here I’ll talk through pulling a shot just like I would demonstrate for someone who has never made espresso before. There will be some variations depending on what kind of machine you’re working with, but we’ll run through pretty much what I cover in an intro to espresso class. Please note - if you’re really new to this, many of the words may be unfamiliar to you. Check our Coffee Glossary if anything isn’t making sense!For this blog, I’ll also be assuming here that you have a grinder at home capable of grinding to espresso fineness. If you don’t, that’s fine. I’ll be doing a future blog on going grinder-less for espresso. For brewing espresso; Grind some coffee!! How much can be determined by weight, a safe weight to start at is *generally* 18g. Keep in mind that for some machines though, standard “double baskets” are smaller, 14g or so. If you put 18g of ground coffee in your portafilter basket and it just seems like Way Too Much, that’s alright! Just remove a bit until it feels more comfortably full. I like to weigh my beans first, then grind only the amount I’m using per shot, but if you prefer to keep a hopper full of beans (a hopper is the container for beans attached to the top of a grinder), that’s a-ok as well. Now that the coffee is ground, transfer it to your portafilter, a Now that we have Some Ground Coffee in our portafilter , level that coffee out, with a tool like a distribution tool or even your finger is fine. We’re looking to have the amount even across the coffee bed in all areas before  Tamp your espresso, keeping the tamper as level as possible, and aiming for about 30lbs of pressure.  I have been saying that this feels like a slightly rude shove worth of pressure -enough to move someone unexpecting, but not enough to knock someone over. If you’re nicer than me, this may feel like the amount of pressure you’d use to give a massage.  Lock your portafilter into your machine, and pull your shot and evaluate- How is the espresso coming out of the portafilter?  If it’s really fast and watery thin viscosity, and you’re getting over 1 oz or 30ml in under 20 seconds (ish!), we’re grinding too coarsely, and we’re under extracting our coffee. This will taste kinda weak, but pretty acidic. Acid/sourness/tartness is the first flavour to be extracted, and we haven’t ground fine enough to balance out that acidity. If, on the flip side, your coffee is just barely dripping, coming out really slowly and it takes a minute to get even 20 ml of coffee -  we’re over extracting! We’re grinding too fine, and need to coarsen up our grind.  Adjust your grinder to finer or coarse as needed, and try again! This is very normal to not have a great shot the first time. In fact, having a great shot the first time is so rare, even seasoned baristas brag if they get that with a new bean. This process is called “Dialing in”, and is the process of finding on our grinder what size we need to be at to get the best out of the beans we’re using. This will be different grinder to grinder, bean to bean, even basket to basket! Try not to switch it up too much until you feel comfortable with dialing in, then you’re likely to have a much better experience playing with different coffees =). Keep in mind there’s several ways to decide if our espresso shot is pulling well, I like to teach these three different ways to check if your shot is good; Weight in/Weight and Time out – This refers to having a 1:2 ratio, in a time frame. Generally, this means when you put in 18g of coffee, you will get about 36g of liquid out in 25-35 seconds of brewing. Visual - viscosity, colour – This refers to how the espresso looks while it’s coming out of the machine. In Italian espresso, there is a phrase that says the espresso should look like a “coda di topo”, in English, “mouse tail”, as it pours out in a thin and steady stream. It shoudn’t be too drippy, nor too thin and running like water. I tend to say I want it to look like a “house paint viscosity”, your choice which analogy suits you best! Taste - Do you enjoy it?  – This is BY FAR the most important one to me. It’s very easy to get lost in the minutia of coffee. I have met (more than one!) coffee drinker with an espresso excel spread sheet of variables. The most important part is you enjoy the taste, and hopefully enjoy the experience of making the coffee! If you hate making the coffee, if it becomes a tedious chore, you’re less and less likely to do it. Enjoy it! Don’t worry too too much about “hitting the right numbers”. The basic idea here is if the coffee is too acidic (lemony, vinegar sour), grind more finely. If the coffee is thick and intense, sometimes a bit like salty soya sauce but in a very bad way, grind more coarsely.You can stop right here, enjoy your espresso, or add water for an Americano, Or or or... Add Milk! (or alternative “mylks”)   When dosing your milk, be aware that it will double to triple in volume. Start with cold milk in a cold pitcher, the volume of milk you use is directly related to the size of drink you’re making. A tiny cortado? You only need a very small amount of milk. A huge 20oz latte? Fill that sucker up! Do be sure to never fill your milk pitcher more than halfway or so though, as you’ll overwhelm the pitcher as the milks’ volume increases. Just get a bigger pitcher if you want a bigger drink, this will significantly reduce the risk of you ending up the center of a scalding milky mess. Purge your steam wand to expel any water sitting in the steam wand, then submerge the steam tip all the way into your milk pitcher to avoid it splattering your face when you turn it on. Open the steam valve all the way (or press the steam button if that’s what your machine has). Once the steam is at full blast, pull the milk pitcher down until the steam tip is  just at/ just under the surface of the milk and you can see air being added into the milk, "stretching" the milk. You’ll start to hear a soft “paper ripping” sound when you’re at the right level. Keep pulling the pitcher down and down as the air causes the milk level to rise, to keep the steam tip at the surface of the milk. After 3-5 seconds your milk should have about doubled and you’re done “stretching” the milk. Now, fully submerge the steam wand again and tilt the pitcher back and forth until you can see a lot of motion, creating a “vortex” at the surface of the milk. Once you’ve found that rolling motion, hold the pitcher still. We’re now looking to "texture" the milk by breaking down the large air bubbles into small, fine micro foam without adding any more air. As far as when we’re done steaming the milk, I say once it's too hot to touch the outside of the milk pitcher with your hand, you're good to go. This generally takes under 15-20 seconds total. If you prefer a really hot drink, this may be too cool for you. Feel free to use a thermometer if you’re a hot drink lover, or if you have sensitive hands that don’t like the heat. Pour your milk into your espresso shot, and enjoy!  You’ve done it! =)