Grind Coffee

 

Before you begin service every day, you must check and set up your grinder. Getting the grind right is the most important part of espresso coffee making. 

 

Grind as required

Ground coffee goes stale quickly, so you should grind on demand – only grind it just when a customer orders a coffee. Ground coffee can go stale very quickly.

Put the beans in the hopper of the grinder, ready for grinding.

After grinding, ground coffee automatically goes into the doser, ready to be used.

Only grind the amount of coffee you need. 

 

Monitor the grind

The grinder doesn’t always produce the same size of grind. Coffee can be affected by humidity. Coffee absorbs moisture and the coffee grounds may expand. This makes extraction slower and changes the flavour of the coffee.

 

You need to monitor (check) the grind during the day, to make sure the coffee grounds are still the right size. You might need to make the grind coarser or finer.

 

To monitor the grind, use your senses:

•  look at the grind to see how fine or coarse it is

•  taste the coffee:

1.  if the coffee has little flavour or a sour flavour, the grind is too coarse and the water flows through too quickly (under extraction)

2.  if the coffee has a bitter flavour, the grind is too fine and the water takes too long to flow through the coffee (over extraction).

•  touch the grind with your fingers – it should feel powdery with a gritty finish.

 

Dose the coffee

The dose of coffee means the amount of coffee you use to make a shot.

This should be close to  7 grams per cup for a single shot, depending on the grind. A double shot needs double the amount, so 14 grams.

Flick the doser lever until you have a mound of coffee in the group handle basket. You will learn how many clicks of the doser lever to use to get the correct amount.

Level it with your finger, moving it gently back and forwards across the basket.

 

Don’t overfill the basket:

This wastes more coffee when you level off the basket

If you tamp the coffee in too tightly, it stops the water flowing through the coffee. This produces a poor-tasting coffee.