Better Coffee On Your Coffee Machine.
How to get better coffee through your espresso machine.
On the previous blog I briefly explained the ideals of espresso & a few of the variables that will contribute towards making the best drink you can for your coffee shop or home espresso bar.
On a future blog we will delve deep into variables & how to manipulate these but first we need to achieve a base level of consistency, which means working to a basic recipe & consistently achieving this time after time.
Consistency is a key word that drives innovation & technology in the coffee machine world, the barista in a busy coffee shop will make hundreds of double espresso’s every day & these need to taste the same regardless of temperature, tamp pressure & which member of staff is working the machine.
The simple variables for a better coffee.
Lets get to a good base level by concentrating on what we can control, our actions & processes.
Recipe.
Coffee beans.
Cleanliness.
Water Quality.
Routine.
Recipe.
Your recipe is the brew ratio, usually a roaster will offer their advice to get the best from the coffee so stick with this & dial your machine in to achieve this ratio.
To achieve a standard double shot I would work towards 17-19grams of coffee in the espresso machine to achieve around 40-45mil of coffee in your cup, this process should take between 20-30 seconds.
The dose of coffee (17-19g) & yield (40-45mil) is easy to control but the extraction (the time it takes) is controlled by how fine or course your grinder has cut the bean.
The grinder can be adjusted to increase or decrease the time it takes for water to pass through the coffee & into your cup, the longer the water is in contact with the coffee the more dissolvable particles are extracted from the coffee ground, as a loose rule somewhere between 20-30 seconds of extraction time should produce a balanced double espresso which is neither sour (under extracted) nor bitter (over extracted).
Remember your taste & tolerances will be different to the next person so make small changes in extraction time to suit your pallet, once you are happy with the balance in the shot keep those brew ratio parameters & do not deviate.
Coffee Beans.
Fresh coffee beans are a must, I have had dozens of phone calls with machine issues to only discover a customer had been using very old stale coffee which produces zero crema or natural coffee cream as the term was coined.
During roasting the coffee bean takes on CO2 & this when extracted correctly is what produces the beautiful crema on top of the espresso, if the beans are old or not correctly sealed they will quickly go stale leaving you with terrible tasting beans.
Every specialty roaster will provide a roast date & a used by date on their product, this is usually around 3 months however vacuum sealed bags if remained unopened can keep coffee fresh for longer.
If you are a coffee shop then invest in an on demand coffee grinder, this will reduce your wastage whilst only grinding coffee fresh when needed rather than sitting in the dosing chamber, use fresh beans & not yesterdays left overs which remain in the hopper as these will taste much different to fresh sealed beans.
If you are a home barista invest in vacuum sealed storage jars, these allow you to buy Kilo bags & they will not go stale before using them up.
Cleanliness.
Looking after your equipment with maintenance will no doubt prolong the life of your machine, however cleaning the group heads, portafilters & coffee grinder will make huge differences to the taste of your espresso.
Well versed coffee shops should be back flushing their espresso machine at the end of each day or in extremely high volume sites every few hours, there is a build up of coffee oil that gathers on the seals & inside the shower plates, this can drastically alter the coffee taste if not regularly cleaned correctly.
The group handles & baskets will also gather old coffee & contribute towards bad tasting shots, so soak these often in cleaner to give yourself the best chance of repeatable tastes from your coffee.
Purging the group head before a shot is also key as this removes left over grounds from the previous extraction, on heat exchanger machines this is also a way of reducing group head temperature so you are not burning the coffee with over heated water.
The steam wands also need purging & wiping clean after every use as these will stain the wands whilst tainting the taste of the next drink, also leaving a steam wand inside the milk when not in use could draw milk into the boiler which will completely taint the machine, this results in a full strip down of the boiler to remove the soured milk inside the tank.
Water Quality.
Whether you are a home barista or have a commercial coffee shop having an excellent water softener / filter will protect your boiler & components from degrading or scaling up which will result in eventual failure & an expensive repair bill, now with home machines we can pre filter our water before filling the reservoir but commercial espresso machines will require an inline water filter which will need exchanging, your technician or coffee supplier can advise use on frequency based on individual volumes used at your shop.
In terms of brewing great tasting coffee the water that is filtered & of better quality will produce a higher standard shot of double espresso & as 99% of drinks on a coffee menu are double espresso based this will improve the experience for yourself or your customers.
Routine.
We now know what variables we can control by best practice & standards, you will need to build up a routine that is repeatable & exact so you gain consistency across your base double espresso.
Moving equipment around to improve workflow will aid in having a set routine for your home or coffee shop, for example from left to right;
Coffee Grinder & Coffees.
Scales for dosing & puck preparation tools like tamper & mat.
Espresso machine.
Knock-box & barista clothes for cleaning portafilters.
Once you are happy your dosing & yielding consistent double espresso you can begin tweaking or adding processes to your routine to either speed up the process or increase consistency, there are a plethora of tools & machines designed to improve workflow & consistency for your coffee shop or home set up.
Happy brewing, if you have any questions or would like more information give us a call or drop in on one of our open Wednesdays to see our processes.
contact@thecoffeelobby.co.uk or 01225436171.
