Making good espresso at home can be very challenging, but it will definitely boost your mood and have your day start in a very tasteful manner. And although there are a lot of espresso machines around these days, brewing coffee like this will result in a very unpleasant cup of coffee if you don’t follow some simple steps.
One of the things that will boost the pleasant flavor is to always grind your beans fresh. Either by a manual grinder, or using an electric one, the taste is the freshly ground beans cannot really compare to the pre-ground beans. I
Another key aspect of brewing a good espresso is matching properly the grinding size, with espresso needing very fine ground coffee. Of course the right grinding level will depend on many factors, including the beans type, roast level and of course the type of espresso machine.
But today… I will be focusing on a different step that will further improve the quality of your homemade espresso shot.
You will just need a simple gadget that can be found in many online shops, which is called WDT.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Normcore-Distribution-Tool-Prong-Espresso/dp/B09V1B152R
One of its disadvantages, though, is that it is relatively expensive for what it really is and a price of $30-40 can be just too high for some people. When you add the shipping charges, you’ll end with $50 dollars less in your bank account. But here’s my DIY option that requires just some cheap materials that everyone have in their home.
I used a cork plug from a wine bottle and some toothpicks. It’s definitely better when you use needles of some sort for these “pins”, but toothpicks will do the job relatively well.
The main purpose of this tool is to break apart the clumps that form in the ground coffee and distribute the coffee bed uniformly in the portafilter. Achieving an even coffee bed is one of the most important steps that will help you get a well extracted shot and it will prevent the so called “channeling” when your shot is being brewed.
So now let’s see how this is done in my espresso routine.
As I said, you will definitely want to start with grinding freshly roasted good quality beans.
The Dabov signature blend is definitely my favorite blend for espresso brewing lately. I’m grinding it almost all the way to the finest settings on my grinder, but this will be different when you use different grinder. Of course, the coffee that comes from the grinder has some clumps and joint particles. You need to definitely break them apart to improve your coffee!
Here, another handy gadget will come into use. You need a funnel part that you put on top of the portafilter which will prevent the coffee from spilling everywhere on your kitchen top and creating a big mess. This part will most likely look like this:
But… although it’s a lot cheaper than the WDT tool, you can improvise with it too. In my case I used a paper cup, that had its bottom removed and fits perfectly in the basket of the portafilter.
Then, I start stirring the coffee with the homemade WDT tool and the final result has to be evenly distributed coffee without any visible big clumps. I think when you use needles for the purpose, you’ll get even more perfect distribution.
And now comes the tamping and brewing the coffee.
When I started using this simple gadget, I improved the consistency of my shots by a lot. The espresso machine is not struggling, or choking, the time used to brew the different shots of coffee is very similar and the overall result is better tasting coffee. I found some videos of people comparing different coffee distribution methods and the WDT, although the simplest and cheapest option being available, brings the best results. These same people use a very complex and expensive tools to measure the exact extraction and the data approves the WDT to be the best possible option.
So, why not give it a try? If you have espresso grinder at home and you brew espresso shots, you can easily make one distribution tool and try it yourself. I bet that your day will start a lot better if you boost your morning coffee experience.
That’s for today, see you soon and have a nice weekend!
Bye!
