STEP 1
Espresso
Start with your typical espresso recipe – it’s probably delicious and balanced so it will be the middle of the road for the experiment. If you’re familiar with espresso recipes, that’s great! If not, you’ll need to measure your dose and yield. Dose = The weight of coffee in the portafilter in grams. Yield = The weight of liquid espresso in grams. Don’t worry about the shot times. As long as your grinder is calibrated to make your usual recipe taste great, grind size and time don’t matter for our purposes here. Once you know these variables, you can type your typical espresso yield into the calculator①. It will figure everything out for you. You can use this calculator right now and run the experiment, but I highly recommend understanding what’s going on first. You’ll be making 7 espressos with the same dose and different yields. Those yields will sit above and below your usual recipe in intervals of 4 grams. For example my typical espresso yield is 40g, so the the 7 espressos will look like this: Espresso Yields
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Grind, weigh, distribute and tamp your usual dose into the basket. Be as accurate as possible with the dose weight.
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Tare your cup on a small set of scales.
Start the espresso shot and place the cup and scales beneath the spouts. As the espresso progresses, the weight will increase. Stop the shot when the scale reads 2-6g less than your target yield to allow for some drips to exit the portafilter.
5 Less Extraction
More Extraction
More Strength
More Strength
Once again, don’t worry about changing grind size, dose, or monitoring shot times. They’re not important right this minute.
Follow this process for all 7 espressos, aiming to be within 1-2 grams of the target yield (weight) each time. At this point, you have 7 espressos with different extractions and strengths. The next step will dilute those espressos so that they all have a very similar strength.
STEP 2
Dilution
The longest espresso shot will also be the weakest, so we need to dilute all of the other espressos down to the same concentration. Unfortunately we can’t make espresso any stronger, so this is the only way to achieve parity. The shortest shot will be the strongest, so it will need the most water. The amount of water needed will reduce as the yield of each espresso increases. The calculator below will tell you exactly how much water to add. Here’s the amount of water needed with my example recipe. Dilution Amounts
Less Extraction
More Extraction Same Strength
① https://baristahustle.com/blogs/barista-hustle/strength-calculators
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