Espresso Drinks | Basics with Babish

hey folks on the last coffee centric episode of basics we showed you the ins and outs of how to brew the absolute perfect cup of mud at home this week thanks to a sponsorship from trade coffee we're taking a deep dive into coffees fussy high-strung Italian cousin espresso whether served in an oversized novelty mug with steamed milk foam whipped cream and chocolate or greeting you at the door wearing nothing but its crema here's how you can enjoy this hyper caffeinated cafe specialty in the warm morning lights of your home kitchen let's get down to basics [Music] so as I mentioned today's episode is sponsored by trade coffee which is an online subscription coffee service they've got this really cool coffee personalization quiz just answer a few questions click a few pictures and you get a selection of coffees customized to your tastes preferences and brewing methods the coffee is then literally roasted to order before being shipped fresh to your doorstep as you can see I asked for some medium to dark breasts whole bean coffee Zhai deal for espresso and here they are which brings me to a kind of an interesting point that you'll see the only one of these is actually an espresso roast and that's because you don't necessarily need an espresso roast to make espresso it's definitely a good starting place but I've got a whole host of beans here with different roast levels and flavor profiles and just like any brewing method there's plenty of room for experimentation and figuring out which one is right for you another misconception is that espresso needs to be made from super dark oily roasted coffee beans like this or that darker roast somehow have more caffeine in fact the inverse is true lighter roasts actually tend to be slightly higher in caffeine and in the end any one of these guys is gonna make a mean cup of espresso now let's try some out for the sake of consistency I'm gonna go with this flying monkey from Petey's coffee it's a medium dark espresso roast with notes of milk chocolate graham crackers and honey sounds pretty good to me so first and most importantly let's talk about the grind any coffee nerd or barista worth their beans is gonna tell you that you gotta grind your beans fresh and grinding your beans fresh for espresso means making use of a conical burr grinder because it's just not possible to create a consistent grind using a blade grinder this is a relatively inexpensive one at about a hundred bucks but you can get one that looks like a pepper grinder for like 20 then it comes down to what grind consistency is gonna work best for your brewing method let's start with maybe the most inexpensive option the Moka pot this little guy that makes a single shot of espresso is available for about 20 bucks basically you're just gonna unscrew the top chamber brewing Deal here underneath which you will find a little brooding basket into which you're gonna place your coffee just to fill it to the top without pressing it down with a medium to fine grind of coffee fill the chamber below with hot water up to the valve replace the filter basket over top screw the brewing chamber on and you are ready to rock now all this thing needs is a little bit of heat simply place it on you nope that's that's not really gonna work is it all right well I have not busted this guy out in a while but it's time for some vintage babish on to the induction burner it goes over medium-high heat normally you can leave the lid down but I want you guys to be able to see what's going on and within one to two minutes the pressure and heat should build up in the chamber below and press its way up through the coffee brewing you a single shot of espresso while it does not have the distinctive crema floating atop the coffee this to my knowledge is the least expensive and most accessible way to make a cup of espresso at home it's relatively strong it's nice and clean tasting but if you want to go a little bit more coffee nerd it's time to get into Aeropress territory which to make espresso we just have to deviate from the manufacturer's suggested brewing instructions slightly changing the brewing ratio to 20 grams of finely ground coffee and 55 grams of nearly boiling water about 205 degrees Fahrenheit again no distinctive layer of crema atop the coffee but it's still a halfway decent shot of espresso but what if you want to make the real deal without spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars in a complex machine well allow me to introduce you to the manual press this one's called the flair it's available for around 140 bucks and it's a great illustration of how espresso is made with heat and pressure it's also a great example of how important grind size is and why you can't use a blade grinder instead of a conical burr because not only do we need the grinds to be consistent we need them to be a very specific size example number one coffee that is ground to coarse all the extra space between the grinds lets the water pass through too quickly leaving you with a semi strong cup of coffee instead of espresso you can see it's got a little bit of foam on top but not the pumpkin orange crema that we're after for that we need to grind our coffee a little finer but not too fine too little space between the grains makes it almost impossible to press the coffee through and you'll break your machine before pulling a single decent shot as you can see it's got the crema that we're looking for but not quite enough coffee for that we need the Goldilocks situation this is gonna depend entirely upon your grinder and it's just gonna be a matter of trial and error with your machine until you find the sweet spot for me it's 16 grams of coffee ground between levels one and two on my grinder tamped with about 20 pounds of force filling up the cylinder with 60 milliliters of 200 degree fahrenheit water yes I know I just mixed metric and imperial of sorry and extracted with about 35 pounds of force how do you know how much pressure you're putting on the machine well it's a little bootleg but you can use a bathroom scale you should be pressing down in there pretty hard without putting your full body weight into it and the extraction should take about 35 seconds a good espresso shot you'll notice we'll separate into three parts initially a thick creamy crema and a saunter II mysterious dark orange body below that that slowly disappears into the crema and the deep chocolatey Brown coffee underneath it all I know this seems awfully fussy but espresso is an awfully fussy drink and there's only one way to make it the right way and once you've made it the right way you can make all different kinds of things out of it let's start with maybe the easiest one espresso Romano which is really just a shot of espresso served with a little squeeze of lemon and a lemon wedge I know this seems pretty simplistic but it's actually a really nice that said it obviously does increase the acidity of the coffee a great deal I never really take sugar in my coffee but a little half teaspoon in this case goes a long way and now maybe even easier the cafe americano which is really just an approximation of American style drip coffee by adding hot water to a double shot of espresso this is largely believed to have originated during World War Two in American GIs would watered-down espresso to get that familiar taste of home but this is not confirmed now to make most other espresso drinks we need two things milk and steam now usually steam ones like this one are attached to relatively expensive machines and unless you spend a whole lot of money they don't work very well there's sputter E and slow to start and they're perfectly good for foaming milk but not so good for getting micro bubbles that you might want for something like a latte a much less expensive at-home option is an automatic milk frother these guys have pretty set it and forget it add some milk hit the button and in a few minutes you will have some nice hot foamy milk with an emphasis on foam this machine produces a lot of foam and not that much steamed milk which is great for some drinks like cappuccinos but not so great for others an even better option that you probably already have kicking around the house is a French press simply heat your milk to 145 degrees Fahrenheit pour it into your French press and froth it using the metal filter by just sort of jamming it up and down a few times this when done with restraint produces steamed milk and foam that much more closely resembles what you get with the steam wand than most other at home Solutions the last step here is to swirl it tap it on the counter and let it rest for about 30 seconds this gets rid of any larger bubbles and makes the foam nice and glossy alright so we got our steamed milk Matt but we make some drinks with it I'm sure I'm gonna get a few things wrong here but tell me exactly how I'm wrong in the comments let's start with a cappuccino which is a double shot of espresso and equal parts steamed milk and very frothy foam we're gonna start by pouring from up high which allows the steamed milk to mix with the coffee and then move closer as we get to the foam which allows it to settle on top you can see that the foam is pretty thick and forms a clearly defined layer on top of the coffee now the big difference between a cappuccino and a latte is that a lot say has more steamed milk and a more finely textured foam same deal pour from a bond high and then get down low once you've reached the foam if you were looking for lot say alright you came to the wrong channel I am NOT that talented nor graceful the foam should be very light and creamy and not too bubbly and frothy as you can see it's a much less defined layer than with the cappuccino next up we're doing a cafe mocha we're gonna start with a double shot of espresso and add to it an equal amount of chocolate sauce then from there right now it's kind of the same deal as a lot a whole lot of steamed milk a little bit of foam and we're practically eating dessert at this point so we might as well top it up with some whipped cream cocoa powder chocolate drizzle cinnamon stick big chunk a birthday cake I don't know okay I'm talking trash but this is obviously delicious just don't tell anybody I said so and maybe serve this with a little cookie or something instead of a cinnamon stick next up we have a Cortado which is a single shot of espresso to which we're going to add an equal amount or more steamed milk on top with a little dollop of foam easy peasy and even easier is the macchiato or a double shot of espresso with a big dot of foam on top yes this is a macchiato now what Starbucks has led you to believe is a macchiato last but not least if we really want to eat our coffee we have to serve it over ice cream in what is otherwise known as an affogato a single scoop or in my case a couple tiny scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with a double shot of espresso cold and hot sweet and bitter this is a simple and lovely Italian dessert for the ages and for any time of year I know it's not really an espresso beverage per se but I was running out of ideas I just wanna say thanks again to trade coffee for sponsoring this episode the first 100 people that use the link in this video's description or enter code babish at checkout will get 30% off their first match and never pay shipping trade has a massive amount of high-quality coffees roasted to order customize to your preferences and continually evolving to suit your tastes it only takes a minute to take their coffee quiz online and get matched with the Roasters and beans that best suit your brewing practices it's fresh it's convenient it's personalized and it is the best price for the best quality coffee you're gonna find anywhere I hope you guys give it a try for yourselves tell them Bab Sencha and get to brewing the best coffee you've ever had today [Music]

Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 3,430,186

Rating: 4.9438219 out of 5

Keywords: espresso, coffee, how to make espresso, how to make a latte, how to make cappuccino, how to make coffee, espresso recipe, recipes, coffee recipe, cortado, macchiato, latte, cappuccino, americano, cafe mocha, how to make a mocha, espresso machines, milk frothing, how to froth milk, how to steam milk, binging with babish, babish, babbish, cooking with babish, basics with babish, pear qwerty horse

Id: W-osWU1WJuM

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Took a quote on quote “shot” at us though with the macchiatos