How to Adjust Espresso Extraction & Create New Recipes

For many coffee lovers, brewing the perfect cup of espresso is a never-ending quest. Many factors influence the taste of espresso and toying with each can not only lead you to that perfect cup, but will also allow you to create your own espresso recipe. Dosing is the main factor influencing the strength of your coffee, but higher is not always better as the taste can become too acidic for your palate. The grind size determines the coffee extraction time with finer grains having large surface area where the contact between water and coffee occurs. Different coffee types will also require different water temperatures for that perfect extraction. By varying the pressure, we can achieve more even extraction, but remember that this variable is connected to the brew time. Lowering the pressure would require increasing the brewing time and vice versa. While many coffee drinkers do not take water quality into consideration, understand that it affects not only your espresso machine life, but also the flavor of your beverage.

Key Takeaways:

You might have to play with water temperature, pressure, or more to get your extraction right.
You should always change one thing at time when you’re making a new recipe.
For example, changing the dosing can affect the texture of the coffee and how sweet or acidic it is.

“Espresso extraction is key to delicious coffees, and for coffee shops, satisfied customers and a good turnover. However, troubleshooting espresso extraction and creating new espresso recipes can be tricky.”