First Time Espresso at Home: One Year Later

It’s been a year with my Breville Barista Express. 

It is and will likely remain the only espresso machine I will use at home and I am really fond of it. Having never taken a practical espresso course, or tried other machines, I would rate my overall experience with it as fulfilling and tending towards success. 

I think improving my espresso skills would have been an inevitable outcome regardless of the machine though. I think there are things that are universal when learning espresso brewing, these things are independent of the machine. Those things include physical, tangible skills and cerebral, thinking skills. 

I want to explore some of those in this article, but before I do, I’d like to do a self assessment on the progress I’ve made over the year.

Starting Point:

• Messy and lots of spills - water, grounds, beans

• No workflow - things not done in order, and slow 

• Really stressful and definitely not pulling espressos for outsiders

• Sour espressos, for a long time

• Very fast pulls

• Struggling with tamping

Now, One Year Later

• Still a little messy, normal amount of messy I would say

• Workflow in place and working

• Enjoyable, fun, worth doing at home

• Not sour, not perfect though

• Timing within the generally correct range more often than not

• Able to get back into that zone when out of it

• Improved tasting skills

• Milk stretching and latte art now in the mix

Here are the skills that I think are worth developing through your journey, based on my uneducated, self-taught and online-researched approach to my first year of espresso at home:

Grinding into the Basket without a Funnel

Espresso Dosing Funnels are collars that sit on the basket that help direct the grounds into the basket, and prevent them from falling over the sides.

The Breville Barista setup up does not include a funnel and I have not as yet invested in one.

I find my basket loads more to the back, with some clumping so I lose some grounds over the sides as the basket fills up. 

I’ve incorporated a few knocks of the portafilter while it is sat on the grinder cradle during grinding. And I stop grinding halfway to tap the basket with my hand and give it a knock on the counter. This distributes the bottom of the bed enough to mostly stop spillover. 

A funnel will eliminate this issue entirely but doing it this way also forces me to keep an eye on the basket volume when I change grind settings. I’m typically using the same brand and roast of commercially available beans from my local higher-end supermarket. I assume some level of consistency in roast and bean to have a generally consistent density. I always dose at 18 grams for my basket, but that sits different when the grind size changes. This is because I’ve been trying espresso and lungo pulls, for weight and time.

Visually monitoring the basket has helped me improve my visual understanding of grind size, how it will relate to puck size when tamped and in a way makes me think about what I expect to see when the water hits it under pressure. 

Distributing without a Distributor

Distributing is the process of moving the grounds around in the basket so that they are evenly spread out, and also evenly filling the basket at the same depth.

I would like to get a distributor. One that spins and sets the bed cleanly. I would be happy with a WDT (Weiss Distribution Tool) to help with the clumps. 

Without them, I’ve had to try the Barista groom and tap options. I now use the side of my index finger to distribution the mound of grounds more evenly across the basket. I then tap at the top end of the basket 2 or 3 times, hitting it back in the direction of the handle. I then knock the portafilter straight down to hopefully distribute clumps to prevent any cavities. 

This is a skill that can improve as you do it more, and I’ve noticed I have become better at it.

Tamping 

Tamping is the process for compressing the grounds. The compressed puck helps create closed system for the pressure to build up, slowing the water flow but allowing the pressure to extract the coffee. Check out (YouTube): ESPRESSO ANATOMY - Does Tamping Matter? 

A bad tamp can ruin the puck. Angled pressure can create a slant and an uneven puck. A spin can ruin the compaction. 

I did struggle to find the hand position on the Breville tamper that worked for me. I later found this video that explained some positions that I didn’t realise were valid approaches. I now stick to the 2 fingered approach (YouTube): The TOP Three Tamping Methods used by Professional Baristas

Interpreting the Drop

The Breville Barista has a one-pager quick start guide which describes how to interpret the shot as it is being pulled. They describe the timing and the look of the espresso as it drops into the cup. 

Though basic, is it a constant reminder that correct extraction has visual cues to help you assess if it is happening correctly. You have to pull many shots, with many different grind settings and doses to relate those general images to the “extraction” - over or under or about right. 

Multitasking Skills

There are a few moments when I do two things at once. Drawing water to preheat the cup while weighting out my dose is something I do. Also grinding the beans while neatening my workspace. You kinda have to watch 2 things at once or something will go wrong.

While not necessary since I’m not running a coffee shop, it makes me feel like a Barista who knows what they are doing. 

Workflow Skills

You’ll have to establish a workflow and modify it as you settle into your rhythm, but what’s important is practicing moving through the workflow. The skill of moving seamlessly from one tasks to the next in the workflow. Each step of a workflow has its own skill requirement, but combining all the individual skills into a successful workflow is what this is about.

These are things that I have found valuable to work on while also learning the essential espresso theory that is necessary for a good shot. I hope these ideas are helpful to you along your espresso journey.