Espresso at Home: If you’re someone who enjoys indulging in a smooth espresso, latte, or flat white from your favorite café, but you wish you could recreate that barista-quality espresso at home, then this guide is just what you need!
Espresso at Home: Coffee experts Kim Ossenblok and Danilo Lodi, who serve as ambassadors for the Italian espresso machine company Dalla Corte, have generously shared their top tips for making professional-quality espresso right in your kitchen.
Espresso at Home: Brewing an excellent espresso doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems. With the right tools and a bit of knowledge, you’ll be pulling perfect shots from the comfort of your home in no time.
Decoding the World of Espresso
Espresso at Home: Before diving into their expert tips, let’s first understand what espresso really is. Espresso is a concentrated coffee known for its bold flavor, small serving size, and the unique brewing process that involves high pressure.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) defines espresso as “a 25–35 ml beverage made from 7–9 grams of coffee, brewed with clean water heated to 90.5–96.1ºC, forced through the grounds at 9–10 bars of pressure, and extracted within 20–30 seconds.”
Espresso at Home: While the 20–30 second brew time is a good guideline, it’s not a strict rule. The extraction process can vary depending on factors like grind size, coffee origin, roast level, and more.
With this basic understanding in place, let’s now explore the experts’ recommendations for making barista-level espresso at home.
Start by Selecting Premium Coffee
High-quality coffee begins with selecting the right coffee beans. “To start, you should choose specialty coffee,” Kim explains. “Ideally, it should be fresh and recently roasted, showcasing flavors like chocolate, red fruits, sugar, and caramel, with a touch less acidity since it tends to be more pronounced in espresso.”
Espresso at Home: The roast profile of the coffee is also crucial. Dark roasts can become overly bitter, while light roasts might be too acidic, lacking the sweetness and balance essential for crafting a barista-quality espresso.
Kim suggests, “I’d say the ideal limit is a dark brown roast.” He recommends opting for medium espresso roasts. “Always ask the roaster, ‘What do you recommend for espresso?’”
Espresso at Home: The roast date is another key factor to consider. Coffee can become stale as time passes, but it’s also important to note that there can be such a thing as “too fresh” for espresso. After roasting, coffee undergoes a degassing process, where it slowly releases the carbon dioxide that has built up. Initially, this degassing happens quickly, which can interfere with extracting the flavors and aromas. Conversely, if the coffee degasses too much, the flavor can diminish, making it difficult to achieve a good crema.
The best practice is to purchase whole coffee beans and store them in a place that is shielded from oxygen, sunlight, and excessive or fluctuating temperatures. The only time this advice changes is if you’re using a low-quality grinder.
Danilo suggests buying smaller quantities of coffee to help maintain its freshness. “If the coffee bag has a ziplock, squeeze out the air before sealing it, and ensure it’s kept away from light, heat, and humidity,” he notes.
Make Sure You Have the Best Equipment
While having quality equipment alone won’t ensure a barista-level espresso, it certainly contributes to achieving it. Essential tools you’ll need include a grinder and an espresso machine.
Choosing the Right Grinde
“The grinder plays a crucial role in maximizing the potential of your coffee,” Danilo explains. “You need consistent grind particles with the ability to adjust from coarse to fine. This flexibility allows you to adapt to different coffee types and extract the best flavors.”
Kim recommends using a flat burr grinder, as it not only operates more quickly but also produces a more uniform grind size.
Essentials of an Espresso Machine
“You should prioritize stability in pressure, temperature, and water volume,” Danilo advises. “The machine should consistently deliver the same quality from the first cup to the last.”
Espresso at Home: When considering a machine, it’s important to inquire about the boiler. Kim recalls purchasing his first espresso machine, a Dalla Corte Mini, when he entered the coffee industry. He chose it for its independent group head boiler, which allowed him to practice latte art without compromising the machine’s stability or the consistency of the espresso.
Kim shares similar priorities as Danilo but also emphasizes the importance of controlling various parameters. “What should I look for in a machine?” he asks. “The ability to regulate temperature, pressure, water flow, and other factors that let you experiment.”
User-friendliness is also a key consideration. While having control over settings is beneficial, it’s crucial that you feel comfortable using all the features. For instance, home espresso machines like Dalla Corte’s upcoming Studio model come equipped with control panels that allow you to adjust temperature, dosing, pre-infusion, and more. Choose a machine that you’re confident you can operate effectively.
Finally, don’t underestimate the importance of maintenance. Danilo recommends cleaning the machine after each use. “This will keep your equipment functioning properly for years,” he explains. Additionally, he suggests changing the water every two weeks if the steam boiler is not in use.
Mastering the Coffee Grind
Degassing occurs rapidly once coffee is ground. The fresher the grind, the better the flavor, which is why whole beans are preferable.
Espresso at Home: When you’re ready to grind, pay attention to the grind size, as it directly impacts the extraction rate of the flavor and aroma compounds in the beans. A finer grind allows for quicker extraction.
Controlling the extraction process is crucial. The initial compounds extracted provide fruity and acidic flavors; the next batch contributes sweetness, while the final compounds lead to bitterness and astringency. The goal when brewing is to achieve a well-balanced coffee that showcases sweetness along with some acidity and bitterness.
Grind size also influences how quickly water can flow through the coffee, affecting shot pull time. If the grind is too fine, it resembles wet sand, which slows down the water’s passage, increasing brew time and extraction.
Kim notes, “The grind should be fine enough that it takes about 20–30 seconds to pull the shot. If the grind is not fine enough, the espresso will brew too quickly, resulting in a lack of sweetness and leaving you with more acidic and salty flavors.
“When you extract your coffee in that 20–30 second window, you’ll achieve a balance of acidic and salty notes along with sweetness.”
Espresso at Home: A coarser grind leads to faster extraction, resulting in less bitterness and more pronounced acidity. Conversely, a finer grind slows extraction, resulting in increased bitterness and reduced acidity.
Espresso requires a fine grind due to its short brewing time. However, if your espresso isn’t tasting quite right, consider adjusting the grind settings to see if that improves the flavor.
Determining the Ideal Coffee to Water Ratio
Espresso at Home: How much water should you use? The answer depends on your desired coffee strength. Kim suggests starting with a 1:3 ratio, meaning for every gram of dry coffee, you should use 3 ml of espresso in the cup.
Feel free to experiment with different ratios based on your taste preferences. For a stronger brew, consider a 1:2 ratio, while a 1:4 or even 1:5 ratio can yield a lungo-style coffee.
It’s important to note that there isn’t a single “best recipe” for achieving barista-quality espresso; rather, the ideal recipe is one that suits your coffee and personal taste.
Regardless of the ratio you choose, measuring both the coffee and water using a scale can be very beneficial. Many specialty baristas weigh their ground coffee and the extracted shot to ensure they maintain the correct ratio, allowing for consistent and delicious results each time. This practice is also easily adopted by home baristas.
Water Quality and Temperature: Key Factors in Brewing
It’s not only about the quantity of water you use; the quality of the water is equally important.
Espresso at Home: Using poor-quality water can harm your equipment. Hard water, in particular, can cause limescale build-up, which negatively impacts your machine’s performance.
Additionally, water quality directly affects the flavor of your coffee. If your tap water contains chlorine, it can make your espresso taste flat. Water that is excessively hard may lead to dull brews, while soft water can result in coffee that feels lacking in body.
Espresso at Home: Kim recommends using water with a neutral pH and total mineral content between 100–150 milligrams per liter. “Using bottled water or an active carbon filter is a good idea,” he suggests. “Several brands are suitable for home use, and a carbon filter for tap water is always beneficial.”
Espresso at Home: When it comes to water temperature, experimenting can help influence your extraction process; hotter water extracts flavors and aromas more quickly. However, Kim advises keeping the temperature between 90–93ºC (194–199ºF).
“A few degrees hotter or cooler can significantly alter the flavor,” Kim notes. “That’s why maintaining temperature stability is so crucial.”
The Importance of Even Distribution and Tamping
Espresso at Home: Now you’re ready to pull that espresso shot, but hold on: what if your coffee is unevenly distributed in the portafilter? The answer is simple: you’ll end up with subpar coffee.
Great-tasting coffee depends on achieving a uniform extraction of the coffee grounds. If some grounds are packed more tightly in one section of the portafilter than others, the water will naturally flow through the path of least resistance, favoring the areas with more air. This results in over-extraction of the more exposed grinds while the less accessible ones remain under-extracted.
To avoid this, ensure that the coffee grounds are evenly distributed before tamping. If you grind directly into the portafilter, you can gently move it around while dosing to promote even distribution. There are also various techniques and tools available to help achieve this.
Once your coffee is evenly distributed, you can move on to tamping. Danilo emphasizes, “We need to tamp the coffee evenly and consistently to extract the flavors and sugars into the cup. Even if you’re a home user, it’s essential to do this for great results.”
“It’s not about applying excessive pressure,” Kim adds. “Just use enough force to compact the coffee so that the water meets a consistent level of resistance across all the grounds.”
