Summary How to Pull an Espresso Shot: Everything A Beginner Needs to Know - YouTube (Youtube) youtu.be
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n/a Hey, everyone, and Salon. I've only had my Espresso machine for about a month, but you'd be surprised at how many
n/a of my followers dm me asking me for tips on how to pull espresso shot.
n/a In this video, I'm gonna try to
n/a give a basic down that should hopefully help any beginner like myself, pull an acceptable. Balanced espresso shot. I used to think that all coffee is just really sour or really bitter. But then I recently learned that espresso should tastes like a balance of sour, sweet and bitter. Let's get into it.
n/a The 5 tastes things that I focus on when making espresso are the dose, the grind size, distribution, brew time and output or the yielded espresso. So first things first, There's no such thing as an nespresso bean. You can technically use any roasted coffee bean to make espresso. It's just that some beans are roasted with certain parameters that result in a roasted bean, obviously. With notes and flavors that only espresso would yield.
n/a So because of that, many roasting companies label some of their beans as espresso, it's their recommendation for the best tasting result. Dialing in your espresso does acquire some willingness to sacrifice a little bit of your beans. I don't like to waste my beans or espresso So the first thing I decided on when I started using my machine was the dose amount. The dose is simply the amount or weight of coffee that you put into your porta filter. My machine has a built in grinder and is designed to hold your coffee beans in the hopper up here.
n/a And when you start a grinder. It just grinds for
n/a a specific amount of time, not weight output. So I don't really like to use it, the instead of storing my beans in the hopper, I measure them out each time I
n/a pull a shot. It's more efficient in my opinion because rather than potentially wasting grinds every time I prep a puck. I just grind until the beans in the grinder have run out. So the first accessory I recommend you get is a digital scale. The scale I have is from Amazon, and it was...
n/a Less than 15 dollars. It's lightweight and thin in height. So not only can
n/a I use it to measure the dose but I can also put it on my drip tray underneath my cup so that I
n/a can measure my espresso as it's coming out of the machine? I'll link it down below
n/a for you so that you can take
n/a a look. So anyway, for my go to dose, I settled on 19 grams, If stuck
n/a with this amount ever since, and I recommend you stick to a general dose amount as well when starting out. Just to
n/a make it easier for yourself. This gram amount that you settle on will depend on your machine and filter basket Different beans do grind differently and yield different volumes. So technically, yes, the dose amount may vary depending on the bean. But I think what matters more or most is the ratio between how much coffee you pack into the filter. And how much espresso comes out.
n/a Okay. After figuring out the dose, next up was figuring out a grind size for my machine. Before I even installed the hopper onto the grinder, I adjusted the setting on the inner burr of my built in grinder to a finer setting. I adjusted from the default number 6 to 4, The grind setting number on my machine ranges from 1 to 30. Adjusting the inner burst setting slightly shift, these 30 settings to be finer or coarse overall.
n/a Okay. So the first time I pulled a shot, I had the grind size set to 15. The middle setting. Again, the inner interval was set to 4. This shot came out way too fast, way too watery, and yielded so much espresso.
n/a So I needed to create more pressure in the extract. Since I wasn't gonna change the amount of coffee I put in the filter, the dose. Right? I had to make the grinds size much finer in order to create more pressure. So I dropped the grind size down to 10, and I pulled my second shot.
n/a This shot was still fast, but much less so than the first. And then on my third shot, I tried a grind size of 7 and hot shot was much, much better. So for the first being that I ever used in my machine for espresso shots, hot A grind size of 7 or 6 with an inner burst setting of 4 was a great guideline for me, a great starting point. I do recommend you refine your own shots and figure out that I feel grind size for your own machine and beans, but If you have the same machine I do, which is the B barista pro, maybe you can try out and inner burst setting a 4, and test your shots starting at a machine grind size of around 9 or maybe 8. That way, your starting point is a little closer to ideal than what I started with and hopefully you'll waste a little bit less beans and espresso in figuring out your ideal settings.
n/a Okay. On to factor 3. Distribution. It was really difficult and annoying for me to grind directly into my porta filter and tap tap tap to distribute my grinds, like not even that well. A lot of the grinds would fall out out and make a mess, and I would just sm them in toward the center or press them down on my finger, which just packs them in some areas and not so much in the others.
n/a I've seen many beginners grind a proper dose into their basket. And then because a lot of it falls out when they're trying to tap, They conclude that, oh, I need less coffee to start with, and then they end up dosing too little. And I've also seen some people grind a little bit of coffee into the porta filter. They tam lightly. And then they'll grind more coffee on top of that and then tam again, and that is not good for a lot of reasons.
n/a So please don't do that To solve this problem, I highly recommend buying what is called a dosing cup.
n/a You could alternatively get a dosing funnel instead,
n/a but there are some minute details and issues that come up. With various grinder and how they spit out the grinds not so evenly. And I think a dosing cup can solve a lot of those issues its main function is to collect and fit your dose into the porta filter. So you would grind the coffee directly into the dosing cup, and then the lip of the cup fits perfectly inside of the filter basket. You will need to know what size your porto filter basket is before ordering the dosing cup.
n/a Now, the way the dosing cup solves, the distribution issues
n/a that I was mentioning is that you can shake the grinds into the porta filter. Doing this, will likely result in the grinds falling and settling into each cr within the basket. Okay. Technically, even with the dosing cups grinds won't really settle properly into the very edges of the basket because the lip of the dosing cups sits there, but this is still much better in my opinion than having to press those fluffy grinds down with your fingers just to get them into the filter before you even distribute them or you tam them.
n/a Since the dosing cup sits snugly in the porta filter, you can shake shake shake and they won't fall over the place.
n/a This is a distributor and tamper 2 in 1 tool. 1 side has a protruding angular design. Which is meant to evenly spread out your coffee grinds before you tam. This is called distributing. The weight of the tool itself and the design of the distributor along with the spinning motion will even out the top layer of your puck.
n/a I like to spin it a lot to make sure any lopsided ness gets flattened out.
n/a And then I flip this tool over
n/a and tam. Okay. Now with tam, you definitely want press hard, but not so hard that it's like an arm workout. Press hard enough to what's comfortable for you to consistently do for each shot that you prepare. If you're using a traditional tamper like
n/a the 1 that comes with most machines. Maybe you can press down to
n/a a certain memorized depth. I use the 2 in 1 tool, and so what I've done is un unscrew out the tamper side of my tool to a depth that I'm comfortable with and effectively presses my puck. Too shallow, and it won't pack it tight enough. Too deep and your she might not even be able to push water through the puck evenly, resulting in what's called choking, I think.
n/a So don't worry too much about tam hard enough to
n/a break the counter. Just give it
n/a a good tam and move on. Now is a great time for me to thank those of
n/a you who are still listening and kindly request that you subscribe if you're finding my content helpful. I really appreciate the support.
n/a And I hope to be able to keep making helpful content for you.
n/a Okay. So your puck is all prepped and ready to go. The next factor in making sure your espresso is dialed in is the extraction time.
n/a Now to be honest, you can just stick to the default setting built into your machine if yours has 1. My machine is supposedly designed to yield about 57 to 60 milliliters of espresso. I think that's roughly 2 ounces. So if I'm putting in 19 grams of coffee, that's my dose remember and the output of espresso is around 57 to
n/a 60 grams. What is the ratio of coffee to espresso. Roughly 1 to 3. Now the general guideline for coffee 2 espresso ratio is 1 to 2, Remember, I'm still beginner 2. So what I do for brew time is I still use the automatic double shot.
n/a Setting built into my machine, but if I notice that it's brewing for too long and my yield amount has already been reached, then I press the button again to stop it. If you choose to do this, I recommend stopping 1 to 2 grams before it hits your goal. Because there's kind
n/a of a delay. When you tell the machine to stop, it does stop pushing water through, but whatever's already gone through the puck will still come out a little. So even after you press stop, it'll look like it's still going. You don't have
n/a to have the scale that fits under the cup on the drip tray, the thin 1, but it would be really helpful in nailing your shots. Because you can keep an eye on the brew time and the yielded output at the same time. The general guideline for brew time is 25 to 30 ish seconds, and that's supposed to include pre infusion time. Okay. So if you don't have a thin enough scale, you'll weigh your empty cup, tear the scale, pull the shot, and then immediately after you'll weigh the cup with the espresso in it.
n/a And then you can do the math and see if your yield was too much or too little. And then you would adjust your factors accordingly when you pull your next shot. Now if brew time and espresso weight is not enough for you to pay attention to while the shot is coming out, I also like to observe and guess what stage of the extraction my shot is at. I remember that the very beginning like 1 fourth of the shot is a deep brown color, the main half of the shot is that rich saturated golden colored cr, and the last 1 fourth of the shot is a pale cr that's more thin in texture. If you're short if you're short, if your shot starts to look very obviously watery, you've probably let it go on too long.
n/a Okay. So those are the 5 things I pay attention to every time I pull a shot of a espresso though. The dose, the grind size, distribution, brew time, and output, Trust me, you will get the hang of this. And unless you switch between different coffee beans regularly, you might only have to figure out these factors when you're first dialing in. Although it may vary a little bit from bag to bag of the same bean,
n/a so don't be afraid to adjust your original settings.
n/a Okay. I hope that wasn't too overwhelming for you. I remember when I first got my machine, which was just like 4 weeks ago. A lot of what I had learned from Youtube just like flew out the door because everything felt on so unfamiliar in my hands. But after pulling like 4 shots, I got the
n/a hang of it. And I'm sure that you will too, especially if you're enthusiastic about it. Once again, if you found this video helpful, please give
n/a it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content in the future. If you have any questions or just want to let
n/a me know your personal experience with espresso, be sure to comment below. I hope you're doing well,
n/a