Consistency in making coffee at home is one of the hardest things to manage. There are so many variables involved from the coffee bean you are using (variety, processing, roast degree and age), the type of espresso machine and even the mineral profile of the water you brew with. One of the major variables that I think gets overlooked in preparing coffee at home is the use of scales to measure your brewing recipe. If you’re curious, we have previously written about what you need to start making good coffee at home.
Using scales for your morning brew can give you control over one of the major aspects of making a coffee you really enjoy and repeating it on a daily basis. We call this the brewing recipe. The brewing recipe is the amount of coffee you use in relation to the amount of water you use in the extraction, or the amount of liquid coffee you produce.
"By using scales or a weight-based recipe, you can...have better control over any finer adjustments you may need to produce the recipe style you desire."
You can’t easily produce a brew recipe that you prefer without the use of scales. Scales can determine the exact amount of coffee you grind (dose) and can accurately measure the final coffee extraction (liquid coffee).
What is a brew recipe?
In simple terms, it’s the amount of water and the amount of coffee you use to create the coffee extraction (liquid coffee). Importantly, in espresso, this dictates the experience of the coffee. Whether you prefer something that is thick and sweet or you prefer something that is silky and balanced, the brew recipe is what helps you attain that experience.
Espresso brew recipes are essentially communicated through a ratio, for example 1:1 ratio(coffee to water), 1:2 ratio and so on. The more water you use, the less intense the espresso. These ratios are not new to specialty coffee, they have been used in traditional Italian espresso making for long before the term ‘specialty coffee” was ever coined. It’s also one of the reasons why espresso tastes different than your usual filter coffee.
Ristretto
Ratio [1:1 to 1:1.5] - 20g dose of coffee = 20g to 30g per double shot.
This is the more “traditional” expression of espresso that is still used in a lot of cafes today. Very popular style for traditional Italian espresso and suitable for darker roasts. The result is a thick creamy, syrupy extraction, cutting down on the bitterness that you may get with darker roasts. Any more medium style roasts tend to have sourness and present as under extracted. This recipe works for short hot milky drinks (flat white, latte etc.), it’s ok without milk but can tend to be quite intense on the palate.
Normale (normal espresso)
Ratio [1:2 to 1:2.5] - 20g dose of coffee = 40g to 50g per double shot.
This is the most popularised espresso extraction style (particularly in Australia). This is great for medium and medium to dark roasts, and is the ratio we use for all our espresso blends and our single origin espresso program. It has a nice creamy texture with more pronounced and clear characteristics (acidity, sweetness and flavour). As the roasts get lighter the more pronounced the acidity is. This recipe is great all round, it’s great with milk (flat white, latte etc.) as it can easily carry the flavour through and is also great without milk as it has a good balance of intensity and flavour.
Ratio [1:3 to 1:4] - 20g dose of coffee = 60g to 80g per double shot.
This is less common in most cafes but is becoming more popular with the advancement of grinder and espresso machine technology. It’s more watery compared with the other recipes yet still silky, is full of flavour and much less intense. Because the texture is less intense it has a more open and nuanced taste balance. More suitable for medium to light roasted coffees. When the coffee is roasted darker there is a higher risk of bitter and roasty flavours with this recipe. This recipe is great without milk as it is lower in intensity and has a higher flavour clarity, although it can be good with a small amount of milk.
It is important to understand what style of coffee we want and the experience we want to get out of it. But the only way to ensure that we are getting exactly what we want repeatedly is to measure it accurately. That’s where the scales come in.
Measuring coffee dose (coffee beans)
We can measure dose in a few different ways, the main ones are volume, time and weight. Volume (such as using a measuring spoon or directly grinding in the portafiler) can be acceptable if you are using the same coffee all the time. Yet, even the same blend can change season to season and even week to week in its extraction. With different blends, due to differing densities and roast degrees, you’ll get different extraction results if you’re only measuring volume.
So, for a lighter roast or higher density coffee, you would be using more coffee (and therefore more soluble coffee) for the same volume as a less dense or darker roasted coffee (less soluble coffee). This will greatly reduce your ability to get consistent results out of your coffee and could produce unnecessary waste. By using scales or a weight-based recipe, you can accurately measure the amount of coffee you are using and have better control over any finer adjustments you may need to produce the recipe style you desire.
Measuring extraction yield (coffee beverage)
The way we can measure extraction is the same as dose: volume or weight. But as we are dealing with varying roast degrees and freshness levels, using volume can be very inconsistent. The extra gases in fresher coffee will make the extraction seem more than what it actually is, and darker roasted coffee can also add to that. If we use scales to determine the extraction yield (i.e. extraction weight), we can very accurately produce the recipe style we want. This also gives us control when we need to make any adjustments based on taste results.
Once you’ve decided on what style of extraction you require, you’ll need a way to measure and then a way to repeat this process. Using scales is the most accurate and quickest way to know where your extraction style sits, and through taste evaluation, you can decide on which direction you want to take it. Once you’ve created or chosen the base recipe for your extraction and set your equipment all that’s left to do is play with grind size to suit your taste preferences. Here’s a guide on how to determine the perfect grind size for different brewing methods.
Without scales we are unlikely to find and truly understand what style of coffee extraction we are making and what we enjoy on a consistent basis. We could potentially be making the perfect coffee already but without an accurate way to measure and repeat the process if something changes we will find it difficult to get the result we wanted. For a relatively small investment, scales can ensure every coffee you make can be as delicious as possible.
Aside from scales, here are essential coffee equipment for your home coffee setup.
