Espresso Coffee – How To Make An Excellent Espresso At Home – You usually drink coffee if you find yourself sleep-deprived, right? , while others won’t touch a drop of the stuff. Drinking coffee may do much more than just give you an energy boost. And that’s fine. The fact is, it has several health benefits, like improved brain function and a lower risk of serious diseases. Coffee can be very wonderful for your brain, your skin and your body. Best Espresso Maker
Espresso is strongly brewed coffee made by forcing steam and hot water through darkly roasted and finely ground coffee beans. The aroma of espresso makes it especially hard for many coffee lovers to resist. Coffee aficionados the world over know that a shot of excellent espresso is crucial to making a good cup of coffee. There are a variety of espresso machines out there that can produce great tasting espresso.
So how do you make a great cup of espresso? Here are the basic steps:
1. Remove coffee ground residue of the previous shot in the shot holder before using the espresso machine to make a new cup of espresso.
2. Have adequate ground coffee ready and place it in the grinder hopper.
3. Release seven grams of the ground coffee into the shot holder, making sure that you get a full pull as you do so.
4. Using a hand tamper, even out the coffee grounds. Tamp only once and don’t twist the tamper as you tamp the coffee grounds. By doing this, you are assured that the hot water and steam will evenly extract the coffee. It’s also possible to correctly gauge the pressure if you use a hand held tamper to pack down the coffee grounds as well as remove excess coffee grounds from the shot holder.
5. Secure the shot holder in place and lock the espresso machine
handle so that water does not leak as it passes through the coffee
grounds at a high pressure.
6. Position a warmed up espresso cup under the the espresso machine’s
coffee holder spout. Start the espresso machine. Control the
the color and consistency of the brew coming out of the spout. In 15
to 20 seconds, you should have about 1.5 ounces of freshly brewed
espresso in the cup.
Making a well-brewed cup of espresso does take time and practice. The
presence of a creamy honey-colored foam called crema that is about a
quarter of an inch thick sitting on the coffee’s surface is a sign
that you’ve successfully made an excellent cup of espresso. And if a
teaspoon of sugar can rest on the crema, you can probably consider
yourself an espresso guru!
The crema is the results of several important factors: the coffee
blend, fineness of the coffee ground, extraction time, water
temperature and amount of coffee used. You achieve a perfect cup of
espresso every time if you can consistently attain an optimum mix of
these factors.
* Most espresso aficionados will agree that the coffee blend should
include some Robusta beans.
* Several reasons could account for a dark color of crema: too much
coffee grounds may have been used; the coffee grounds were packed too
hard and too tightly in the shot holder, resulting to a longer
extraction time of the coffee; the coffee grounds used was too fine;
or too much water was used.
* There are several reasons, too, for less crema: the coffee used may
not have been enough; the time it took to extract the coffee may have
been too short since the coffee used was coarsely ground; there was
not enough water to pass through the coffee; the coffee grounds were
packed too lightly in the shot holder; or the water that passed
through the coffee was not hot enough.
* If the espresso machine, shot holder or cup is cold, it may affect
the amount of crema produced.
Espresso can be served as it comes out of the espresso machine or it
can be served in many different ways.