A Beginner's Guide to Espresso: Part 1

hey I'm Chris with Prima coffee equipment today we're jumping into the world of espresso we're doing a little crash course and making espresso if you're new to it so the first question we should answer is what exactly is espresso is it just really strong coffee is it a special Bean or special roast or something like that and all those the answer is really no espresso is just another way of making coffee with the same ingredient so just as you make a different cup of coffee with a French press or pourover you're making a different cup of coffee with espresso now what happens when you're making espresso is you are using High pressurized water to actually shorten the Brew time and dissolve more solids and emulsify oils which gives you that distinctive layer of Crema at the top of the shot so that's kind of an overview of what espresso is it's just a very concentrated means of making coffee require some different equipment so before we actually get into making it um let's talk about the things that we need to consider as we're making it as with every Brewing method there are certain Brewing variables things that you manipulate and control to get different results so first we have our grind we're going to use a special grinder for making espresso usually and the grind that you're going to use to make espresso has to be very very fine so you're grinding much finer than usual it actually starts to Clump together because it's that fine but it's still has a distinct texture when you rub it um it feels a little bit smaller than table salt perhaps but it is finer than just uh just about any other kind of coffee besides Turkish also there's our dose dose refers to a brewing ratio so no matter what kind of coffee you're making there's always a ratio of coffee to water and we call that dose so with espresso um if you're brewing a double shot you are usually going to be using between 18 and 21 G of ground coffee at least that's what we prefer to use um so some people go outside of that higher or lower we recommend between 18 and 209 gram for your coffee dose and that is actually relative to your yield so with espresso instead of measuring coffee in and water in we measure coffee in and espresso out that's because we're not really able to measure the exact water that goes into um that shot of espresso into that puck because reing espresso machine so we measure the coffee we put in and we measure the yield we get out that dose that I gave you 18 to 21 G is what we recommend for about a 2 oz 2 oz yield or 2 oz shot that you actually get out and that is going to weigh if you're using a scale which we do like to use scales it's going to weigh around 30 G or so so that's the ratio that you're working with so we have dose we have yield we have grind we're also going to be working with a completely new variable and that's Tamp Tamp refers to the act of compressing that coffee when you grind coffee into this which is called a porta filter you're going to have to compress it with a tamper what that does is it creates the Restriction that's necessary for keeping that coffee and that water together because this is under high pressure if you weren't tamping at all the water would just fly right through you get a very weak underdeveloped shot so we Tamp to create restriction so that the coffee and the water are actually forced to hang up together that forces the reaction um it emulsifies those oils um it dissolves more solid so that's one of the very key parts of making espresso that Tamp part now there's also temperature that's not unique to Espresso um but with any with any Brewing process you can manipulate temperature and again it's usually going to be between 195° and 205° fahr that's what most people recommend for making espresso and with this particular machine as with many you can control that right on the display here so I can easily get into into the system and control it right now it's set out 2011 which you can see right there um if your machine that you're working with doesn't have that that's fine you can assume that the machine is doing what it's supposed to for now um there are ways to kind of manipulate that without this sort of display um but for now you can just assume that your machine's doing what supposed to Brewing within that range um that's really all the Brewing variables that we're going to work with so again we have dose grind yield Tamp and temperature now let's look at before we actually shot let's look at the equipment you need you do need some kind of unique equipment um so first we're going to have of course an espresso machine this is what makes the magic happen it's your Brewing method like your French press or your your pourover dripper your espresso machine in that espresso machine you have a porta filter this is really just um a filter in the same way that you have a paper filter um or another metal or cloth filter it's metal it's a little cylindrical basket called your Port filter attached to this handle which you can grab on to you're going to need an espresso grinder these Grinders need to be capable of grinding very fine and often the Burrs are different more cut toward espresso um we do want to highly highly stress that you're using a bur grinder to get consistent results that's contrasted with a blade grinder so espresso grinder that can grind very fine uses Burrs to cut instead of blades and offers very fine adjustment you want to be able within that really fine range to make very minute adjustments you you don't want one click to be a wide swing or else you're going to find it just kind of difficult to manipulate not very fun to work with so this is the mozer mini it's a great espresso grinder we also recommend having at least one scale that can measure in small increments the scales are useful for weighing your dose so weighing the coffee you put in and for weighing the yield the espresso that you get out so we'll use one or both of these scales as we're making it um also going to need a tamper of course we talked about that this is what you're going to use to compress the coffee into the Porta filter if you want to get really particular about your Technique and really H that in we recommend the primma Tamp very strongly I like that a lot finally you're going to need a shot glass to get your shot into and then the timer is going to be helpful too just to keep track of the whole whole process so let's get started the first step is going to be preparing your supressing machine you just need to fill the machine with water in this case there's a reservoir right in the back here that I can fill with water some of these machines you can actually Plum directly um so you want to get your machine full and then you're going to need to heat it up the machine depending on its size could take anywhere from 10:15 up to 45 minutes to heat up larger commercial machines even longer perhaps but don't just jump into things as soon as you see that temperature ready to go I right here can see when my temperature is ready but I actually want more than that I want the whole machine to be hot I want to make sure every component is really warm and ready to go before I'm started or else all of these wide swings while I'm actually brewing and that's not going to end up well for our shot so put your water in heat your machine up um next you're actually going to begin preparing your shot so what I like to do is go ahead and just run water through the group and through the Porta filter what's that going to do is bring fresh water to the front since there are a couple of you know pipes in here that are filled with water that have been sitting for a while it's going to bring fresh water to the front and it's also going to get everything hot so my group is hot Porta filter is hot and that's going to help me ensure temperature stability while I'm brewing I'm gonna go ahead and wipe this out wipe the Porta filter out top and bottom and wipe that screen so that everything is dry before we actually start if it's dry you're going to have coffee sticking in in weird places um clumping together more and that's not going to promote even extraction very well so that's good to go now I'm going to go ahead and grind and dose my coffee so get the port filter right under here and I'm going to fill this up shooting roughly for like I said earlier 18 to 21 G of coffee so we'll get this going and as I do that you're going to see me sort of moving the Porta filter around that's going to help distribute that coffee evenly in that basket I'll tell you why in just a second all right now as I'm feeling you are going to see me distribute this by moving the Porta filter and sliding my fingers across the BRS there that's going to help to make sure that everything is already distributed before I Tamp even packing of the coffee actually starts right at distribution if you have a big peak in the middle and then you go ahead and Tamp you're going to have uneven pressure so the goal is to make sure everything is nice and even before you even Tamp and then you're really sealing that off when you T So based on what my Grinder's been doing this is about between 18 21 that range I was shooting for I'm going to go ahead and Tamp make sure that your tamper is dry it's a free from any loose coffee particles anything that's on here can actually mess with the puck and we don't want that there's already enough room for eror there so go ahead and Tamp just by setting this in the basket feeling with your fingers here make sure that it's nice and even and you're going to give it a nice firm press with everything aligned your wrist hand all the way up through your arm and elbow give that a firm press and give it a little twist that twist there sometimes refer to as a Polish is going to help really put loose grounds in their place and make sure that everything is nice even and smooth for the water to begin penetrating that that's good to go I'm going to stick my Porta filter inside the group this time I'm going to use a scale to weigh my yield so turn that scale on got a dead battery in our scale or something no worries this is a 2 O shot glass so we know that it's yield is going to be um just about right if we get to the top of this glass so that's all lined up now I'm going to go ahead and start my timer right when I activate the switch and that's going to turn the pump on get this going right now I am using something called a bottomless or naked Porta filter you can see unlik some Porta filters it's ch to the bottom there aren't these spouts and what that helps me do is helps me check my tamping I can actually see after this weather and and during actually whether the stream is even which would indicate whether or not my Tamp was even conf firm and everything so we right to the top there which means you're right at about 30 g 2 o or so right in there you can see this sort of Guinness effect is it's referred to and you can see that distinct layer of CR at the top which indicates that you have actually made espresso with the right pressure I'm get fresh coffee all those sort of things so that is how you make a shot of espresso it's very simple very easy once you have the equipment and get the hang of it to actually make really tasty espresso at home it's not second rate um it's the real thing just like a cafe experience and you can really enjoy it at home so get that going work on that for a while if you start to notice some problems you can actually check some of our other films in our blog to get some troubleshooting techniques which will help you discern um how to change certain things that went wrong if your shots tasting kind of funky so going to make a shot of espresso thanks for watching and enjoy

Channel: Prima Coffee Equipment

Views: 715,334

Keywords: Coffee (Beverage Type), Espresso (Beverage), Coffeehouse (Industry), prima, coffee, equipment, espresso, beginner, guide, how to, tutorial

Id: -kd-zX-JOVU

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 25 2015