1. CLEAN YOUR PORTAFILTER
Before dosing the coffee to your portafilter, make sure that the portafilter is clean and tidy.
2. DOSE CORRECTLY
This should be pretty easy. With on-demand grinders you just need to push a button with your portafilter or hand and the grinder will dose your pre-set dose.
3. DISTRIBUTE YOUR GROUNDS IN THE PORTAFILTER
Most likely your grinder will dose the grounds to the portafilter’s basket to a mountain or a pyramid shape. This means that you have uneven distribution of the grounds so some parts of the basket will have more coffee and some parts less if you don’t distribute them before tamping (στουπώνω). Bad distribution of the grounds might lead to channelling (κακή διοχέτευση)
4. TAMP EVENLY AND CONSISTENTLY
The aim of tamping is to remove any air pockets in the coffee puck (δίσκος) and do this so that the puck is completely leveled. Tamp so long and “hard” that you feel that the puck is compressed (in other words it doesn’t go down anymore).
5. RINSE YOUR GROUP HEAD
Before inserting the portafilter to the group head, you might want to rinse the group head to remove any old coffee from it.
6. INSERT THE PORTAFILTER AND START BREWING IMMEDIATELY
After rinsing, insert the portafilter to the group head and start brewing IMMEDIATELY! If you don’t start brewing immediately, the heat from the group head might “burn” the surface of your coffee which leads to bitter notes in the cup.
7. BE AWARE OF THE YIELD & BREW TIME
If you are using a manual espresso machine, be aware of your yield (απόδοση, σοδειά) e.g. if your espresso is running a bit too fast, you are just diluting (making it milder) your espresso and possibly also over-extracting at the same time.
