About the actions of Espresso before making pressing powder

I talked about the impact of powder pressing on the production of Espresso. In fact, before this, there is a small step that has a great impact on the following pressing powder and extraction. Today, let's talk about a small step before pressing powder-the influence of cloth powder on the following steps.

Cloth powder, in fact, after the coffee powder is ground, the coffee powder is manually put into the powder bowl and evenly distributed. The most important thing in this step is to be uniform. After putting the coffee powder into the powder bowl, the coffee powder will not be distributed evenly, but will be piled together, generally, there are more in the middle of the powder bowl, and some parts of the powder bowl are not covered by coffee powder. If there is no cloth powder, it will be evenly distributed. Then it is difficult to achieve uniform and dense powder pressing steps after that, and it is difficult to achieve perfect extraction.

So how to achieve uniform distribution of powder?

It's actually very simple. After putting the coffee powder into the powder bowl, first gently pat the edge of the powder bowl to make the coffee powder slide to the edge of the powder bowl to achieve the basic cover; then use your fingers or the powder bin lid to move the coffee powder from more places around so that the coffee powder is evenly distributed in the powder bowl.

The use of finger push is more suitable for double-head handles (that is, handles that can make two cups of Espresso at the same time) rather than single-head handles. Because the bottom of the double-headed powder bowl is a flat surface, it requires that the coffee powder should be evenly distributed so that each part of the coffee powder has the same thickness, which is convenient for the control of the pressing power and the overall uniformity. While the bottom of the single-headed powder bowl is not a plane, it is generally a two-step structure from the outer edge of the powder bowl to the center. This makes the central part of the coffee powder thicker than the edge part after the coffee powder finishes forming a plane on the surface, so that although the central part and the edge part are subjected to the same pressure, the compactness is not the same, which has a great impact on the future extraction. Therefore, at this time, it is required that after the coffee powder is evenly distributed, the surface should be slightly concave in the middle (so that the overall thickness of the coffee powder can be kept consistent), and then pressing the powder is easier to achieve a uniform and compact effect. Therefore, it is not suitable to pass by fingers, but it is more suitable to scrape off part of the coffee powder from the middle of the powder bowl to form a concave shape with the lid edge of the powder cartridge.

How to judge whether it has achieved the effect of uniform distribution of powder? In addition to carefully performing the action of the cloth powder and careful observation, the production process can also provide some clues to determine whether the cloth powder affects the quality of the extraction and Espresso.

In general, the extraction time should be controlled at about 24 seconds, but sometimes it will be found that the state of coffee outflow will soon become unstable, a large jump, and the color will soon become very light. At this time, we can judge: there is a problem inside the pressed powder (there is a crack) or the less part of the coffee powder is overextracted due to the uneven pressing powder (and this may also be caused by the uneven distribution of the coffee powder) or it is the uneven distribution of the powder. so that the edge is not covered with coffee powder, causing water to flow directly through there. After the extraction is completed, take off the handle and observe the shape of the pressed powder. If there is no coffee powder on the edge, or the coffee powder is soaked, it is because of the uneven cloth powder that leads to the extraction failure. Then the next adjustment will start with the cloth powder.

Cloth powder is just a simple action, but it can have such a great impact on the next steps. What else needs to be paid more attention to in the production process of Espresso? We'll talk about it next time.