Dr. Rubino's Mean Bean Machine: Volume 2, The First Run
[For my birthday, my brother gave me a steam-powered home espresso machine, the DeLonghi Caffe Parma BAR6. While I have been a coffee enthusiast for a long time, I've never actually made espresso before. This blog series chronicles my experiments, failures, and successes as a home-kitchen-barista.]
This morning I felt daring. Perhaps it was the fact that I've been thinking about trying out the DeLonghi ever since I got it for my birthday. Or maybe it was because I woke up at 7:30am, watched A Fist Full of Dollars, and was totally pumped to accomplish something this morning--you know, like the kind of accomplishment The Man With No Name pulls off in the third act of the movie. While there weren't really any feuding gangs for me to mess with, I did get up the gumption to try my hand at espresso.
The first thing I needed to decide, before making espresso, was what beans to use. Do I try and grind my Archabbot Reserve from the St. Vincent Gristmill? What about the fair trade Franciscan Blend my parents got me? From the research I did online, you can technically use almost any bean to make espresso, but results may vary. Usually, you want to use a strong, dark roasted bean, like an Italian Roast. Ideally, I'd want to use a kind of coffee made for espresso. So I decided to bite the bullet and actually go get some. The idea here was to get something that's a surefire success coffee-wise. If things turn out poorly, I don't want the coffee to be to blame. So I went to the most consistent coffee shops on the planet: Starbucks. Roll your eyes if you must, but if there's one thing you can't call Starbucks, it's "inconsistent." I got a half-pound of their Espresso Roast, ground for an espresso machine, and came back home.
I decided to amalgamate the instructions from the manual that came with the DeLonghi with a couple pretentious espresso websites that I found. There are plenty of resources online about how to make your own espresso, but a lot of them are pretty condescending. Since the espresso machine was sitting in my basement for about a decade, I thought it wise to follow their instructions for running water through the machine in order to clean it out. This also allowed me to make sure the thing actually functioned (if it didn't, this little blogging idea would be pretty terrible and probably devolve into a list of grievances aimed at the manufacturer).
The water test went well. The steam test, however, was a little frightening. I didn't really need to use the steamer for the espresso, but I wanted to make sure that worked too. You never know when you're going to need to froth something. After about a 10 minute stint of hissing and spewing steam into my kitchen, the process finally ended. If I had known it was going to take that long, I would have hung up some dress shirts and a pair of wrinkled khakis.
Now it was time for the actual first run! I decided that my first drink will be an Americano, namely because I know exactly what one of those is supposed to taste like; I would instantly be able to judge failure and success. So I measured out enough grounds for a double shot (this machine can either make two or four shots of espresso at a time). I filled up the glass carafe with water and poured it in. But since I wanted to make this whole experiment feel a little fancier, I put aside the carafe and opted for two small glasses, roughly the size of those used on espresso machines in real coffee shops. The espresso would then dispense from the dual nozzle into both glasses. To cut down on the wait time, I also heated up water using my brother's electric water-boiling-thing, that way I could combine the two as soon as the espresso was done.
The difference with this home-espresso machine and the real thing comes down to the preparation of the espresso. In the real cafe, a barista needs to "tamp" down the grinds into the filter. What this means is that barista makes sure the grinds are evenly dispersed and pushed together, allowing for the water to move uniformly through on its way to the cup. The instructions for the DeLonghi make no mention of this act, and after some reading online, most people recommended not doing it for the steam-powered home models.
So I grabbed my camera and documented the first pull. I don't really know why the espresso came out uneven, with more dripping into the right glass, but I'm guessing that's because of the way the water moved through the grinds (maybe from not tamping?). From what I could tell, the espresso looked comparable to that of a cafe-made shot. It may not have been as dense, but it had a slight head on it and the color looked close. (For reference, the DeLonghi has three settings for espresso: light, medium, and strong. For this first try, I put it on medium).
With the machine's work done, and nothing ablaze, I poured the two shots into a standard white mug. I added the hot water, along with a pinch of sugar and creamer. You can only imagine my surprise when I took the first sip and realized... that it didn't suck. No, quite the contrary, it actually tasted pretty good! Perhaps it was because I made it myself, and on the first try no less, that I enjoyed it so much. I know there is still much to do, but my first attempt at espresso was a success. My confidence is renewed... and now I have a big mess to clean up.
Posted by MikeRubino at July 19, 2008 11:43 AM | TrackBack