Dialing in a shot

Lock the dose, turn the grind

Dialing in an espresso works like any other brew, only faster and louder. Fix the dose to what your basket is made for — an 18 g basket wants about 17–19 g — and keep the target yield the same.

One dial at a time

Then change the grind, and only the grind, in small steps. Pull, taste, adjust. A new bag usually means a new round.

Sour and fast, bitter and slow

Taste first, then the clock. Sour, thin and quick usually means under-extracted: grind finer, so the water slows and pulls more out. Bitter, dry and slow usually means over-extracted: grind coarser.

Match the taste to the first move.

• Sour, thin and fast — Grind one step finer
• Bitter, dry and slow — Grind one step coarser
• Sour and bitter at once — Fix the puck, not the grind

Uneven flow: some of the coffee over-extracts while the rest barely gets wet. Grinding finer can make it worse, so fix the puck first.

The bag is new and the shot is running long. Turn the collar, pull again, and let the clock tell you which way you moved.

Land a 36 g shot in the 25–30 s band.

Ratio is the flavor dial

Once the grind is close, the ratio steers the style. A ristretto, roughly 1:1 to 1:1.5, is thick and heavy, the tragedian of the family. A normale sits around 1:2. A lungo, about 1:3, is lighter and clearer.

That longer shot carries a little more bitterness with it.

A shot tastes sour at the right time. Let it run longer and it will…

Answer: Pull more out, and dilute it too. More water does both at once: it pulls more out of the coffee and dilutes what is already in the cup. A bitter shot, then, can run shorter.

Time is a clue, not the goal

Twenty-five to thirty seconds is where most recipes start, not a finish line. If a shot tastes right at 35 seconds, it is right; the clock merely advises which way to turn the grinder. Running one longer pulls more out and dilutes it too.

You change the grind and the dose between two shots. What have you learned?

Answer: Nothing certain: two changes, one shot. Nothing certain. Change one thing at a time, and write down five: dose, yield, seconds, grinder setting and one word for the taste.