How much coffee powder does it take to make espresso?

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

Italian concentrated cooking formula: analysis of powder filling quantity

The Italian concentrated cooking formula contains the following three main variables:

Amount of powder filled-dry weight of coffee powder loaded in the brewing handle

Output-the weight of espresso produced

Brewing time-the contact time between coffee powder and water

The amount of powder filling is like the positioning anchor of the Italian concentrated cooking formula. It is the weight of the dried coffee powder you use to make espresso, and depending on the style you want to make espresso, it can be any weight between 5 and 30 grams, although the amount of powder used in today's espresso is generally in the range of 18 to 21 grams.

Determining the amount of powder filling is the first step in developing your Italian concentrated recasting formula. And the only thing you really need to think about is:

How much espresso do you want to make?

More powder fillers can produce more Italian concentration, and vice versa. It's that simple.

Think of the amount of powder filling as a cake recipe: use more raw materials = more cake. The amount of powder filling is equal to the raw material in the formula. By weighing, you can make the same cake.

Don't adjust the flavor balance by changing the amount of powder.

Don't adjust the production time by changing the amount of powder filling.

Do not adjust the concentration of Italian concentration by changing the amount of powder.

Change the amount of powder only if you want to make more or less Italian concentrate.

Of course, if you increase the amount of powder, you will need to increase the production of espresso accordingly.

Cup size and taste

We assume that you produce a lot of large cups of milk-based coffee drinks. A small amount of powder is likely to make a delicious spaghetti concentrate, but once you add 300 milliliters of milk to the cup, the coffee in this drink will be less fragrant. And a larger amount of powder (correspondingly, more production) will make the coffee in the drink more intense.

If you only make black coffee, or a small amount of milk coffee, you probably need to choose a smaller amount of powder, because you don't need to use too much coffee to balance the taste of milk.

However, the milk-based coffee made by some boutique coffee is still very strong. At this point, you can use less powder. The flavor and quality of the Italian concentrate you produce will not change, but you will have more choices in the quantity of the product.

Another reason

Another reason for changing the amount of powder filling is the size of the powder bowl used in the cooking handle. However, the size of the powder bowl is not determined by you to adjust the quality of Italian concentrate. It is simply to achieve the best extraction effect of the powder bowl you use. Most powder bowl manufacturers will specify the standard powder filling amount of the powder bowl, and in general, the best extraction result will be obtained when the powder filling amount is within the error range of 1 to 2 grams.

When you are in a dry powder state, you should not fill enough powder to touch the water distribution network. If you install and remove the powder-filled brewing handle and find that the coffee powder is in contact with the water diversion net, you need to reduce the amount of powder filling. In this case, more powder filling will not produce more espresso, but will only make the extraction efficiency lower and the extraction more uneven. If your pressed powder is still wet after the extraction, it doesn't mean the product is not good enough-it just means that there is a large gap between the coffee powder and the water distribution network. This happens when your amount of powder is much lower than the standard amount of powder in the powder bowl, or when the density of coffee powder is too high.

It's not a big deal if you have to make the filling amount deviate a lot from the standard powder in the powder bowl. But the quality of your espresso is likely to be unsatisfactory.

Keep it simple.

Changing the amount of powder will affect the product flow rate, water absorption of pressed powder, extraction temperature, amount and concentration of extraction substances and extraction uniformity. There's probably other data.

If you often change the amount of powder, it will be extremely difficult to understand the product. Keeping the amount of powder consistent makes it much easier to adjust other variables and understand a cup of coffee.