0.
373
gm/l
If sour
Extract moreIf bitter
Extract lessIf you haven’t measured your beans, treat this recipe as a starting guess. If you have, it’s usually right first time, and almost always within one change. The espresso coffee recipe series is designed for this: taste your shot, then move up the series for more extraction or down for less. Don’t hesitate to experiment with another recipe based on your taste test results—finding what tastes best for you is worth it!
2.1
7
Dark/Darker than Dark
Don’t get hung up on the details. If you can’t change your pressure, maybe you don’t have a complete set of baskets, you don’t know what that grind size even means. It doesn’t matter.
Providing you are changing the dose, the yield, the ratio, the bits you can, you will be changing the TASTE, and that is what matters. YOU are finding a RECIPE that tastes better than the last recipe you tried.
Pre-heat your espresso machine, portafilter, basket, and coffee cup.
Get your single dose out of the freezer. If you are not single-dosing and freezing your coffee, read How to Store Coffee Beans – 9 tips. While at it, read Best Coffee Beans – Six Purchasing Tips.
Shots of espresso these days are nearly always a double shot of espresso. Double shots are now the standard in America and many places worldwide. A single shot of espresso is scarce. Traditionally, a single shot (solo) of espresso uses about 7g of espresso-fine grounds. If you want to make a single, pull a double, but use a split portafilter to halve the shot.
Grind your frozen coffee; do not defrost it. Either grind into an espresso shaker funnel or using a dosing funnel, grind it into the right-sized basket in a naked portafilter.
Puck prep: I use a WDT tool to break up clumps and redistribute them. I use a levelling tool and a levelling palm tamper. Then, I cover it with a shower screen to help evenly distribute the water.
Place the scales under your cup, tare, and start the timer.
Increase the pressure to 0 bar and stop at the first drip. You’ll find this hard without a manual lever espresso machine such as a Flair58+.
Pre-infusion is critical; it is where most of the extraction occurs, and just like the bloom phase in filter coffee, it needs a good 30-60 seconds. If your coffee is fresh and you stored it frozen, it needs to degas and have plenty of time to extract all the good stuff. You are NOT in a hurry.
You can monitor the extraction, use a mirror to watch the bottom of the naked portafilter, but really you just need to see the first drip hit the cup, then stop and wait.
You are NOT looking for those old-fashioned things: convergence streams, avoiding spritzes, colour progression, blonding point, cut-off signals. That was all wrong.
After the preinfusion bloom phase, wash off the extraction with a steady flow rate.
It is your choice to push hard and intentionally get a bit of crema bitterness, good for latte art, or go slow and avoid pushing through fines.
Stop the shot once you have reached your target yield. The extraction time is meaningless.
Adjusting your grind size isn’t as important.
Using an Oxo Rapid Brewer? You can make an espresso-strength concentrate with this recipe’s dose and ratio. Add the Oxo brew water shown above (the yield plus an allowance for the water the grounds hold back). Push gently and stop at the first drip, wait 60 seconds to bloom and extract, then pump until bubbles start to appear. You should end up with the right yield for the dose and ratio.
Now, the most crucial step. Before adding milk, stir the espresso and crema, dip a teaspoon in and taste (you don’t need a spoonful; it just needs to be wet). Is the coffee sour? If so, next time you make this coffee, extract more using the recipe indicated by the button above.
If the coffee isn’t sour, ask yourself whether it is very bitter. Bitterness is harder to judge because all coffee is bitter to some extent. However, you can reduce bitterness by extracting less. Go too far, and it will turn sour. You are looking for the calm spot in between. Just above sour tastes best. If you need to reduce bitterness next time you make this coffee, extract less by using the recipe indicated by the button above.
Add the bypass hot water (optional). Adding hot water reduces the blanket of milk and increases the coffee’s apparent strength while keeping the volume up.
Add the steamed milk. Espresso con panna (whipped cream) may be a little OTT, but adding 5-10ml of cream to your milk before steaming can help the body and taste. Another great option is adding 15% coconut milk.
I only endorse equipment I have purchased myself, and I do not earn a commission or have any links to the companies I recommend.
This is an excellent coffee; Kenya is one of the great origins for juicy, vivid coffees, Kaliluni comes from a lesser-known region south of Nairobi, the SL28 and SL34 are classics, and it is roasted by ONA Coffee in Canberra as an espresso roast. If you haven’t tried it, don’t miss out, grab some here: Espresso – Kaliluni AA, Kenya, Washed – ONA Coffee
The Kaliluni Farmers Co-operative Society runs the Kaliluni Factory, its sole washing station, which serves around 1,500–1,700 smallholders in Machakos County. The co-operative provides agronomic training and soil analysis so farmers can use fertiliser more effectively.
Machakos County is south of Nairobi and is a lesser-known coffee region than Nyeri or Kirinyaga. ONA says buyers prize its coffees for punching above the region’s lower profile with vivid, fruit-driven cups. Farms grow at 1,700–1,900 metres, and there is a main crop and a smaller crop in May and June.
ORIGIN: MACHAKOS COUNTY, KENYA
PRODUCER: KALILUNI FARMERS CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY
ALTITUDE: 1,700–1,900 METRES ABOVE SEA LEVEL
VARIETIES: SL28 AND SL34
PROCESS: WASHED
SL28 was selected in 1935 at the Scott Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya, and SL34 from a tree at Loresho Estate in Kabete. Both have exceptional cup quality at altitude, with low yields and high susceptibility to leaf rust. They are the varieties behind much of Kenya’s famous blackcurrant-like acidity.
The cherries are fully pulped, fermented for 12 to 36 hours, washed and soaked, then dried on raised beds for 7–14 days. This is the classic Kenyan washed process, and it gives the clean, juicy cup. ONA tastes red currant, pomegranate and brown sugar.
ONA Coffee is a specialty roaster based in Canberra, Australia, founded by Sasa Šestić, who won the 2015 World Barista Championship. This is an espresso roast, sold in 200 g bags, with a recommended 20 g in, 44 g out in 25 seconds at 93.5°C.
Model Version:
20261009.06
I have a dream: that this might raise the standard of coffee-making globally, reduce dialling in waste, time, and frustration, and encourage people to explore more varieties and pay more attention to the producers. You might even be prepared to pay more for better coffee if it pleases you, returning more money to growers.
You can help. The best thing you can do is spread the word on other platforms, such as Reddit or Facebook coffee forums, and share with others how this method can solve everyday problems.
Using 0.1g accurate scales and the recommended 100ml measuring cylinder, and entering quality data into the form, helps improve the model. So does evidence-based feedback for parameter range adjustments.
You can also support the site financially via Buy me a coffee to help with ongoing running costs, site hosting fees, and plug-in subscriptions.
