The Beginnings of my Espresso Journey
ell it all started with a trip to Australia. Prior to this trip, I had mostly been tinkering with different kinds of teas, with green tea being my personal favorite. I know, up until this point I was not a great representive of Melbourne. This trip was different. I got to spend a lot of time in Melbourne at various cafes, and always eagerly ordered a Cafe Late. Compared with Starbucks, these drinks were always so perfectly balanced between bitterness and sweetness, and were not just loaded up with sugar.
That trip started in Melbourne, but finished with a week at my parents place where they had the Breville Dual Boiler. I quickly decided that while I was there for 7 days I should use this time to experiment with some coffee drinks and asked my Mum to show me how to use the machine. Looking back, the first coffees I made were absolutely terrible. I made weak bean water and flooded it with milk that was far too hot. But it was a start.
Upon arriving back in Puerto Rico, It wasn't long before my wife Erin greeted me with two new appliances, the Breville Infuser paired with the Sette 270. This began my journey into the coffee world :)
Getting Started dialing in!
It wasn't long before I quickly realized I knew absolutely nothing about making my own coffee. So here is the basic process I used to Dial in shots.
- Weigh your coffee. To begin with. I started with 18grams
- Put it in your grinder and set your grind. This will be the main variable you change.
- Make sure it's evenly distributed
- Tamp your coffee. Don't be too fancy here, just try and do something you can repeat each shot
- Weigh your cups and TARE your scale. You'll need this for measuring output
- Start your shot. I typically start a timer from when preinfusion is over and the pressure jumps.
- At this point, weigh your shot. This is where the money comes in. If it's a 36g -> 40g, you're in the sweet spot. If you're <36g, grind coarser and try again. If your >40g you should grind finer.
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