A key part of being a barista is making sure that you are constantly producing good coffee. Milk texturing is a whole other story we will get into later, but for now let's focus on espresso extraction (how water passes through the coffee grounds to become an espresso shot).
Probably you have noticed that throughout the day, sometimes the espresso shots pour faster, sometimes slower. Plenty of environmental factors affect the shot time, including temperature, humidity, how busy it is, or if the roast date of the coffee has changed.
In this post, I'll explain a bit about espresso recipes, and how to follow one.
UNDERSTANDING THE RECIPE
So what is an espresso recipe? This refers to the guidelines that a barista has set, to ensure that the espresso tastes consistently good, no matter who on the team makes it. For example, you might see that the recipe says, “19g in, 36g out, 25 seconds”.
There are 3 factors that we can manipulate which influence espresso extraction, and therefore the taste. These factors are DOSE, YIELD and TIME.
DOSE : The weight of dry ground coffee
YIELD : The weight of the resulting espresso
TIME : How long it takes for the shot to run, starting from the moment you press the button.
So as per our example, the dose is 19 grams of coffee, the resulting espresso weighs 36 grams, and it took 25 seconds to pour.
Your job as someone who follows this recipe, is to make sure that the espresso keeps on pouring like that. And unless someone has gone around and changed the DOSE and YIELD, the only thing you need to worry about is the TIME.
FOLLOWING THE RECIPE
The main factor that determines how fast the espresso will take to pour is the GRIND SIZE. A finer grind pours slower, and a coarser grind pours faster.
So if your espresso shot is taking too long to pour, you need to adjust the grind size to be a bit coarser (towards the 8 usually). If your shot is pouring too fast, you need to adjust the grind size to be a bit finer (closer to 0).
When you adjust the grind size, a small movement of the slider is enough to make a difference in the shot time. Once you have adjusted it, purge (throw away) one shot's worth of ground coffee . You will only be able to see the difference in the next shot.
As you get the hang of adjusting the grind size and the particular grinder, you will learn how much you need to move the slider on the grinder to get the appropriate change in shot time.
IMPORTANT NOTE : Grinding finer increases extraction - but up to a point. If it is too fine, channeling in the puck increases which decreases the quality of the extraction. So if you find yourself needing to grind way too fine, then you are better off adjusting the dose or yield instead.
In the next posts, we'll go over the theory behind espresso extraction, and also how to adjust the recipe itself when needed.
Have fun!
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