You stand there. The stylish espresso machine and the high-quality grinder, both polished to a shine and maybe already shown off to a friend or two in a photo. But you yourself are standing there a bit frustrated because your espresso just won't turn out right? Too sour? Too rancid? Just somehow not convincing?
In this post, we'll go through 20 mistakes when making your espresso. If you follow all the tips, that's a good step toward making great espresso. Let's get started:
1. The dirty portafilter
The portafilter should be clean and free of old coffee oils. Please regularly remove the basket from your portafilter and clean both the back of the basket and the inside of the portafilter.
2. The dirty espresso machine
Residue also remains in the shower head. Old coffee powder, oils, or other contaminants. Regular cleaning is a must. You can find out how to do it here.
3. Uneven tamping
Water is forced through the espresso puck under pressure. There, water takes the path of least resistance. If you tamp at an angle, this leads to uneven extraction and your espresso won't extract properly.
4. Distributing the coffee grounds in the portafilter
Before you tamp evenly, you should first distribute the grounds evenly in the portafilter. Most grinders don't distribute the powder evenly on their own, so you should do this with your finger or with a leveling tool. If you don't distribute the grounds, you risk uneven extraction and channeling. We typically don't use a leveling tool, but instead gently smooth the grounds with our finger and then tap the portafilter twice gently on the tamping mat. We refer to this as vertical compression.
5. The machine isn't hot enough
Every machine needs time to heat up before the first shot. A blank shot can also help with this. Best of all, before the first shot of the day, use the time to grind a bit of coffee from the grinder to "clean" the dead space. This way, the first espresso of the day will taste good too.
6. Not rinsed beforehand
After each espresso, you should flush water through the shower head once. You clean the shower head and normalize the temperature for the upcoming shot.
7. Wrong tamper size
The size of the tamper should fit your portafilter as precisely as possible. There are very fine differences, e.g. 58mm or 58.5mm. The better the tamper compresses the entire coffee puck, the more consistent the extraction.
8. Poor grinder
The grinder is almost more important than the espresso machine, since you have to set the right grind size and the particle distribution should be balanced. Only then can your espresso be consistently well-extracted.
9. Old burrs in the grinder
Burrs need to be sharp, otherwise they squeeze the beans instead of cutting them. They need to be changed from time to time. Don't worry, this isn't necessary every year, but usually only after several years.
10. Cups on the machine
The cup should sit on the bottom of the cup on the machine. The lower part of the cup is warmed through and the espresso doesn't cool down too quickly. This way it's also more hygienic.
11. Old coffee
It's best to only fill the grinder with as much coffee as you'll consume in a maximum of 48 hours. Not too much time should have passed since the roast date either; it's best to use the coffee within the first 4-8 weeks after roasting.
12. Fresh coffee
Fresh, but not too fresh. The coffee needs at least a week to degas CO². So you should wait at least this long before using it.
13. Channeling
Channeling means the formation of channels within the coffee puck. Water flows through this channel too quickly and underextraction occurs. Your espresso tastes sour. Carefully lock the finished tamped portafilter in place and don't tap it anywhere so that no cracks form in the coffee puck and thus no channeling occurs.
14. Hard water
Too many minerals make the water hard, and that's neither good for your machine nor for the coffee flavor. The acidity is no longer properly incorporated into the beverage. Water that's too hard can have a massive impact on the lifespan of your portafilter machine. If your water is too hard, you'll need to filter it or use bottled water. You can find out what hardness your water has from your water supplier, or even more accurately if you test it yourself (with a water test kit).
15. Wrong grind size
The extraction should take between 25-35 seconds. If the coffee flows too quickly, it will be sour (underextraction); if it flows too slowly, it will be bitter (overextraction). You control the flow rate by adjusting the grind size of the powder. Too fast, then you need to set the grind finer. Too slow, then you need coarser grounds.
16. Brew ratio
In espresso preparation, there are so-called brew recipes. How many grams of coffee grounds become how many grams of coffee beverage. We recommend a brew ratio of 1 to 2.5 or even 1 to 3 (10 grams of coffee becomes 25 or 30 grams of espresso). The brew recipe is rounded off by the shot time, which ranges from 25-35 seconds. The "sweet spot" varies depending on the coffee, and everyone also has their own taste preferences. In our coffee descriptions, we always provide a brew recipe for how we find this coffee tastiest. This can serve as a basis for "your" brew ratio. You can find more on this topic in our blog post How much coffee per cup.
17. Please stir
Please stir the espresso in the cup after extraction. This way you blend all the extraction phases together and your espresso will taste more balanced.
18. Wrong coffee
Not bad, but wrong. Espresso should be brewed from espresso beans. Filter coffee, for example, is roasted much lighter, which doesn't work with the espresso brewing method.
19. The temperature
The temperature at which the water hits the coffee puck should be between 92 and 93.5 degrees. You usually achieve consistent temperature with the pre-infusion flush. Both too high and too low temperatures significantly change the result in the cup.
20. Bad coffee
Even if you buy the right bean type, there are big differences in coffee quality. It's best to get your coffee from local or transparent coffee roasters who understand their craft and can also advise you. If a coffee, for example, doesn't have a roast date printed on it, its age is unknown and the coffee is usually not fresh but old.
After naming 20 mistakes, our article Making espresso - step by step can help with any further questions.
