Kens Espresso Fueled Ramblings

Here’s a short tutorial on how to adjust your espresso machine to a new coffee.

First look at the beans, more oily and darker than your current beans? Or lighter roasted? If the beans are darker, adjust your grinder 1 notch courser, if lighter 1 notch finer, that gets you in the ballpark.

Make sure your grinder is cleared of old stale grounds, clean it thoroughly because you don’t want old grinds messing with your measurements.

Now get out your measuring shotglass, (30ml or 60ml doesn’t matter as the timing needs to be the same) and your stopwatch.

Lock and load and start the extraction.

After 25.5 seconds stop the shot.

Evaluation time. If you got to much in the glass adjust your grind 1 notch finer, if to little, 1 notch courser.

Now it’s time to look at shot blonding, you want to reach those magic 25.5 seconds right when the shot starts to go blonde and look waterish, preferably right before this happens. A naked portafilter helps a lot here. By looking at the “crema cone” you can easily tell when the shot is about to go blonde. The stream will start out with a nice and fat cone, then about 5 seconds before blonding,the cone will collapse into an umbrella shape and that’s where you stop the shot, right before blonding where all that’s left is sour water. Remember that the golden rule (25.5 secons for 30/60ML) is not a rule at all, it’s a guideline, the real rule is looking for blonding and ultimately… how does the espresso taste?

An experiment that every home barista should try is to pull a shot, then as soon as the shot flows have a spoon ready and taste the stream every 5 seconds. This is realy an eye opener as you will now know exactly what each part of the shot contributes to the taste.