Start · 6 min read
The first shot
From the box to an espresso worth drinking
The machine is on the counter, the box is in the corner, and the first shot runs like tea or drips like honey. Everyone starts here. The only difference is who stays long enough to work out why.
For the first few days with a new machine it feels as if someone switched on a light in the middle of a desert. Too many buttons, too little sense, and the internet is full of people who are certain of opposite things. The good news: espresso has only a few levers. Once you know which they are, everything else is noise.
1. Let the machine warm up, properly
The boiler is ready in a few minutes, but the group head and the portafilter need longer. Small machines such as the Gaggia Classic are ready in about five minutes, and for a more stable temperature leave them longer, with the portafilter locked into the group head. For the E61 group, manufacturers state 15 to 25 minutes. A shot pulled before everything is warm comes out thin and sour.
2. Decide the recipe before you press the button
A recipe is three numbers: dose (how much dry coffee goes into the basket), yield (how much liquid you get in the cup) and time. The classic starting point is 18 g of coffee, 36 g of espresso, between 25 and 30 seconds. A ratio of 1:2. Not because it is the law, but because it is a good point from which it is easy to move left or right.
That takes scales, not a spoon and not your eye. A recipe is measured in grams.
3. Prepare the puck
Grind the coffee into the basket, run the WDT needles through it to break up the clumps, and tamp level. How hard you tamp matters less than people say: in an experiment with 10, 20 and 30 kg the extraction came out the same, while a tilted tamp gave uneven flow and a worse taste. What matters is that the puck is level.
4. Pull and measure
Put the cup on the scales, tare, and start the machine and the timer at the same moment. Stop when the scales show your target yield. Look at the time. That is all the first shot needs to tell you.
- Under 20 seconds: the coffee is too coarse. Grind finer.
- Over 35 seconds: the coffee is too fine. Grind coarser.
- In between: now taste. Flavour is the subject of the next guide.
5. Change one thing
Do not change three things at once, because then you do not know what helped. Change the grind, repeat the shot, write it down. Only once the time is in range do you start playing with the ratio.
Do not give up after the first sour shot. Each one after it tells you something new, and that is the whole game.
Try it in the LabTimer and ratio