Three tips for adjusting espresso on rainy days! Quickly find the right water temperature, powder, and grinding ratio for espresso!

Guangzhou has been covered by dark clouds for several days in a row, making it very sultry. Qianjie opened the weather forecast and found that it would almost rain for a while, so what does this mean? This means that the rainy season is coming that will scare baristas! As we all know! Espresso can be said to be very difficult to adjust on rainy days! If you are lucky, you may pass in three rounds as usual. But on most rainy days, baristas need to drink themselves until they are full to make a relatively delicious cup of concentrate. If they are unlucky, they may not even be able to make it well... Many friends are not new to coffee, and they have already had their own understanding of coffee extraction, and can easily distinguish between under-extracted and over-extracted coffee. But even so, for them, adjusting concentration in rainy weather is not a simple task. Therefore, whenever the barista in charge of morning conditioning gets up early and sees the sky covered with dark clouds, he has to be mentally prepared to adjust concentrated and puke.

So is there any way we can quickly make espresso on a rainy day? This is a question that many friends will ask in the tweet comment area shared on the Internet and Qianjie. To be reasonable, there is no way to ensure that concentration is quickly adjusted, because rainy weather has a great impact on concentration and extraction. However, there are some ways we can reduce the impact of rainy weather on extraction, thereby increasing our chances of adjusting concentration. To do this, we first need to understand why espresso on rainy days is so difficult to adjust!

Why is it so difficult to make espresso on rainy days? Qianjie mentioned earlier that even a barista with a certain foundation has difficulty making concentrated coffee on rainy days. The reason is that the problem of espresso coffee we encounter on rainy days is unusual, and many friends cannot directly judge the problem based on the taste or Parameters. Because the problem expressed by coffee is neither insufficient nor excessive extraction, but is both bitter and sour, and then the aroma is still very weak.

That's right! This is typical of uneven extraction. No matter how much we grind, this problem always exists, and even some older coffee makers will have the problem of ineffective blending. The main reason for this situation is that the humidity is too high.

Reason ①. The humidity is too high: The environmental humidity on rainy days will be significantly improved, and the air humidity will usually reach more than 90%! This high-humidity environment first affects coffee beans and ground coffee powder. Without sealed storage, coffee beans will absorb a large amount of water molecules in this environment, which will cause the coffee beans to grind out a large amount of fine powder during grinding. At the same time, due to moisture absorption, the ground coffee powder will have a certain "stickiness", which will cause the coffee powder to be adsorbed in various places or agglomerated in groups after grinding.

If coffee powder is adsorbed on the knife head of the bean grinder, then for some old style bean grinders, this will easily lead to grinding failure. That is, even if you adjust the grinding scale, the ground coffee powder is still the same size as the grains without adjustment. Unless you empty the bean bin and idle, you will need to grind another 3 to 4 handfuls of coffee powder to get the cutterhead into the desired clearance range. If coffee powders adsorb each other and clump together, then it will be very easy for your extraction to have a channel effect. Because the density of the powder cake is not uniform enough, hot water will concentrate in places where it flows easily when it seeps under pressure.

Qian Jie previously shared in the article on Channel Effect that this will lead to over-extraction in local areas where hot water flows intensively, and insufficient extraction of coffee powder in other areas. In the end, you will easily get a cup of under-extracted espresso with both charred bitterness and acid.

Reason ②. Low air pressure: Secondly, it is affected by low air pressure on rainy days! Because the extraction of espresso machines requires pressure assistance, and in a low-pressure environment, the effective pressure difference generated by the pump pressure of the coffee machine will be reduced. For the extraction of espresso coffee, pressure is an important "extraction helper", and the reduction of pressure will cause the amount of dissolved coffee substances to decrease simultaneously. Therefore, with the same parameters, the extraction rate will not be so high and the concentration will be relatively low. In addition, such an environment will also weaken our sensory acuity and aroma dissipation, so not only does coffee taste and taste not be so outstanding, but the aroma experience is also greatly reduced.

In such an environment, if we want to quickly make espresso, we can start from the following aspects. First of all, we need to reduce the emergence of channel effects. There are many ways, but the Front Street Conference recommends closing doors and windows and then turning on the dehumidifier to remove moisture in the air. This not only reduces the amount of agglomerated coffee powder, but also reduces the amount of coffee powder. The impact of coffee powder on the bean grinder; The second is to store coffee beans well. Especially if the coffee beans are not used for a long time at night, we can store the coffee beans in the bean bin into bean bags or cans for sealed storage to reduce the contact of coffee beans and absorb water vapor.

If we have done the above points well, the only thing that needs to be improved is the extraction problem. Qianjie mentioned earlier that due to the reduced extraction pressure, our extraction efficiency will not be so high. In this case, we can appropriately increase the extraction parameters, such as fine grinding or extending the extraction time, to dissolve sufficient flavor substances. Take Qianjie as an example. The Italian coffee beans used in Qianjie are the classic Italian blend of Qianjie in the Qianjie bean list. They are medium and deep roasted coffee beans. The parameters used for extraction and concentration are: 20g powder, 1:2 powder to liquid ratio, and the extraction time is controlled at about 30 seconds. The flavors extracted in this way are expressed as chocolate, caramel, nuts, and cream, with a mellow and silky taste and a long sweet aftertaste.

But if it is rainy and rainy, then we can slightly increase the extraction time on this basis. For example, if the powder amount and liquid weight remain unchanged, the extraction time is controlled within the range of about 35 seconds. This can make up for the missing extraction efficiency and allow us to extract sufficient flavor substances. So the above is all the content shared by Qianjie this time! Everyone can refer to it and then make plans and adjustments based on actual conditions. It is worth mentioning that if it is impossible to dehumidify the room due to various factors, Qianjie just saw a good method online and would like to share it with everyone here...

Add drying bags to the bean bin... Just kidding, that's all ~~~

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