Information Please: Shots and Brew Times

[mawil1013]

How many ounces is a one shot and then two shots?
How long should brew time be for one shot and then two shots.

How many ounces of milk for 1 shot cupocinno and then 2 shot?

I keep getting misleading info, one that one shot is one ounce or 1.5 ounce. Driving me crazy!

 

[hkeiner]

I use weight instead of volume to measure my shots. For a double, I shoot for double the weight of the coffee I put in the portafilter. For example, I always put 16g of coffee in the portafilter and stop the extraction at 32g. I use a postal gram scale to do the weighing. I monitor the time to see that I’m close to 25-35 seconds when I stop the extraction. I adjust the grind accordingly for the next shot. Of course you can vary from this to suite taste but good to have reliable measures to monitor and reliably repeat. Using volume is less reliable because the amount of crema can vary too much.

 

[shadow745]

I'd say never read into what other people think/do as everybody is different. There may be Italian standards that some still believe in regarding espresso, but I've never gone by time, volume or weight/ratio. I go by taste, texture and color as that's what matters, not a bunch of numbers.

 

[Musicphan]

I'd say never read into what other people think/do as everybody is different. There may be Italian standards that some still believe in regarding espresso, but I've never gone by time, volume or weight/ratio. I go by taste, texture and color as that's what matters, not a bunch of numbers.

Spot on... use the guidelines as rough guidelines and let your taste buds be the judge

 

[hkeiner]

I totally agree that taste and personal preference should prevail over recipe but for a newbie it’s good to have a recipe as a starting point. Imagine someone asking how to bake bread as a newbie. Do you give him a recipe (temp, bake time, ingredients, measures, etc.) as a starting point or just say use your own judgement based upon taste and preference with no extra help. Just saying.

 

[PinkRose]

How many ounces is a one shot and then two shots?
How long should brew time be for one shot and then two shots.

How many ounces of milk for 1 shot cupocinno and then 2 shot?

I keep getting misleading info, one that one shot is one ounce or 1.5 ounce. Driving me crazy!

You'll get some basic information here:

http://www.coffeeforums.com/forum/c...mes-standards-please-read-before-posting.html

and here:
https://coffeefaq.com/many-ounces-shot-espresso/

You can do metric conversions (grams to ounces) on-line here:

https://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/grams-to-ounces.htm

 

[raimo_81]

I'd say never read into what other people think/do as everybody is different. There may be Italian standards that some still believe in regarding espresso, but I've never gone by time, volume or weight/ratio. I go by taste, texture and color as that's what matters, not a bunch of numbers.

I am Italian and have been raised on this concept and agree to it, however, when starting out and not having the benefit of being around coffee and the tradition of making and having coffee all your life you need tools and methods to help you hone in on how to replicate that time you made a good coffee until you get so good at ittbat you can shoot from the hip and still make something drinkable. It may seem over the top but getting to know a machine and a grinder and a new batch of beans takes time and trial and error. And the quickest way to get through this initial process is to use these methods of weighing and measuring and then noting tastes until you've homes in on a set of variables that suits you. Otherwise you are always getting a different taste and you don't know how to get the one you want. Generally I weigh the coffee I put in the portafilter when I get a new batch of beans, until I've figured out what grind size, dose, tamp and brew extraction yields the tastiest coffee on my machine/setup. At some point I get it down to a fairly rough estimate and start shooting from the hip and go by eye and feel and hand weight, and essentially get close to the same results everytime. Making espresso that's worth serving to someone is a journey and an art, take your time, do whatever it takes to get to where you feel good about it.

 

[raimo_81]

That being said, I am not sure that it's about volumes or weight as much as a combination of the variables that change with every changing variable. An ounce of liquid is so different on every machine, grind combo. I would recommend starting off with how much do you wanna drink? What kind of drink? What bean yields the tastiest of the desired combinationnof all those variables.