[Music]
welcome to a series within a series let
me explain
I've been doing some videos about how I
dial in espresso my patreon back is pick
a coffee you pick a machine pick a
grinder and I dial a coffee and talk my
way through the process I've done three
of these videos and I've been grateful
for a lot of feedback and comments on
one unifying theme has been that I'm not
really doing enough to explain why I'm
making a particular decision why I'm
adjusting something at that point so I
thought I'd do this this is the first of
four parts covering one variable at a
time in a bit more depth a bit more
detail about how I think about that
variable that should make a little bit
more sense when we go back to darling in
a bunch of a random different coffees
from all over the world this first
episode is on DOS on the amount of
coffee that you put in the portafilter
the amount of ground coffee that you
start with well also in the future
talk about ratio how much water you push
through that coffee grind size when to
go finer when to go coarser wenter we'll
leave it alone and brew temperature
we're not going to talk about time as a
variable time is how we're going to
track the changes to our variable it's
one of the two things that we measure
when we're brewing espresso right we're
gonna achieve a recipe see how long it
takes and then most importantly see how
it tastes
that's the whole point of this whole
thing anyway that's what we're gonna
cover I'm gonna talk to you in a bit of
depth about how I think about dose
setting the dose why it matters when to
change it and when to leave it alone now
in order to do this effectively I need
to cover briefly extraction theory
rather than the key idea behind what
we're doing when we're brewing coffee is
we're extracting soluble material from
the ground coffee the more of this we
extract the better to a point this kind
of a lopsided bell curve right the more
you extract it gets better and better
and better and better and better and
then it suddenly kind of falls off a
cliff at one point and tastes pretty
terrible again we tend to talk about
these as percentages because all
let's say 18 grams that you put in a
basket well a percentage of that ground
coffee is dissolved in the cup down
below if you wanted to you could knock
that puck out dry it out in an oven and
weigh it again and you'd find out how
much stuff was in the cup that you drank
earlier like the day before we don't
have to do that that's just how it
worked for a long time until
refractometers happened and then the
world got easier and more complicated
that isn't the point the point is that
extraction getting soluble material out
and into the cup below is work to
increase your extraction you have to
work harder and that's really important
when you're thinking about dos because
the more ground coffee that you start
with the more work you're going to have
to do to properly extract 18 grams
requires 20% more work in a way than
properly extracting 15 grams that's
something we need to bear in mind
because a few things will influence
well how much work we can do and how
much work we should do generally
speaking the quality of our coffee
equipment will determine how easy it is
to do a lot of work a better coffee
grinder grinds more uniformly it does a
better job it's easier to extract larger
doses of coffee it's easier to do more
work with a better grinder
similarly higher quality espresso
machines generally have better
componentry better quality more even
there's been a water dispersion but a
water temperature just they're kind of
better at doing the work that's the
subtext here but machine aside there's
one more thing that we need to think
about when we're deciding what dose to
work with it may seem like a detail but
actually the basket that you're working
with that metal basket that holds the
coffee
well that determines more than anything
else the correct dose that you should be
using many modern baskets now come with
a DOS reference on them the rough kind
of guide so how much coffee you should
use VST baskets for instance might come
as a 19 gram basket a 20 gram basket and
give or take one gram that's probably
what that basket should be using and
generally speaking that is an upper
limit there isn't a low limit in terms
of quality it's perfectly okay to brew
14 grams of coffee in an 18-grand basket
but just know that
the downside of that will be that it
will be very messy the size of the
basket the height of it if you will mean
that if you use a much lower dose
there's a little bit of space between
the top of the cake and the shower
screen where the water came from and at
the end of the shot when all of that
pressure that you built up dissipates
rapidly up through the group head that
way you tend to see a little explosion
of a coffee puck you'll get a soupy
messy destroyed puck it tells you
nothing about what happened in the
extraction it's just very irritating to
clean up it's messy and I don't like it
I like to just knock out a clean puck
and do the least amount of work possible
when it comes to cleaning while still
having good tasting espresso so the
basket is important if you don't know
Google is your friend if you've got an
old-school classic Italian espresso
machine probably start at 14 or 15 grams
they're really just not built for these
much higher doses that people like and
while higher doses have certainly become
popular
it doesn't mean then they're better
there's nothing better about brewing
with a higher dose that tradition of
higher doses came from people manually
filling baskets in order to get a
consistent dose when grinding to order
when grinders weren't designed to grant
order now grinders are absolutely
designed to grind to order so we can use
whatever dose we want and there's no
more messing around and doing the dosing
on the basket with all of the nonsense
then there is another important variable
in all this which is the coffee itself
now I'd love to say this hard and fast
rules and I guess there's one or two
generally speaking the darker the roast
of a coffee the the less work you need
to do to extract it the easier it is to
get those syllables out so it's it's
generally okay to use a higher dose with
a darker roast coffee with a lighter
roast coffee you've got to work really
hard to extract it and that means if you
start with a big dose you've just got
too much work to do you've got an
impossible amount of work to do you're
always going to have a sour harsh under
extracted week thin bodied sadness and
you don't want that no one wants that so
I would recommend with lighter roasts go
for a lower dose your taste buds will
thank you the old rule of thumb for a
long time was that density was the key
right and the high density coffees
coffees grown a high elevation washed
coffees typically well they were harder
to extract it's a it's a
double rule of thumb generally speaking
lager and coffees are easier to extract
than higher grown coffees but it's not
an absolute now we move into the
all-important decision-making which is
we've started darling in our process
what should we do and as much as
possible really you want to keep your
dose a constant you start with what is
quote-unquote the right dose for your
setup you haven't gotten too ambitious
with the amount of work that you're
gonna do and you would keep it
absolutely the same and I would
recommend doing that as much as possible
it's pretty much the last variable I
will change but there are certain
situations where I'd recommend just
tweaking the dose slightly now at home
you might have a grinder that when you
adjust the grind setting you need to
grind through a little bit of coffee
because it retains a bit of ground
coffee that was the old grind setting so
to speak so you gotta grind through 5 10
sometimes 20 grams of coffee to get your
new grind setting to come through if
you've got 250 grams of a coffee and
you're dialed in and you're pretty close
but not quite there right you pulled a
shot you put 18 in you've got 36 out in
like 25 seconds and it tasted nearly
good looks like it was like okay but
needed a little tweak but you have got
much coffee left it's precious
you're limited I wouldn't change my
grind I wouldn't do that I would just
increase my dose half a gram and use
that extra coffee to help slow the flow
through the cake obviously the more
ground coffee that you have the more
resistance that cake will provide the
harder it is for the water to get
through and the longer the contact time
will be to get to your desired ratio and
in this case it may push your shot from
a 25 second shot to a 28 29 second shot
and that's small increase in contact
time you're gonna keep your ratio the
same so you gonna brew a little bit more
liquid through that may just around the
shot out that may just take you to a
place that is delicious with the least
possible
waste now the opposite situation may be
true you might have pulled a shot that
was maybe like 32 seconds you didn't
really love it well you could yes reduce
your dose a little bit that shot will
flow quicker but bear in mind by
reducing your dose you've given yourself
a little bit less work to do so the
chances are you'll still do a pretty
good job of extracting it even at that
slightly quicker flow rate so small
tweaks are okay as long as we're in the
ballpark of good but if you're a long
way from good I wouldn't touch the dose
keep it a constant and go back again now
there's one more variable I want to talk
about there's a couple of quick things
first every video right now has a
giveaway if you are out of work if
you're laid off if you're struggling and
you need a pack of coffee there's a link
in the description down below
I'll send 10 bags anywhere in the world
to the winners of those things on the
condition that they can't afford coffee
if you can't afford coffee please buy
local support great businesses and I can
do this because these videos have a
sponsor in this case the sponsor is
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Skillshare for sponsoring this video the
last thing that we need to talk about
that is important to me that I don't
really see discussed anywhere is
caffeine the more ground coffee you
start with the more caffeine is going to
end up in the beverage that you drink
caffeine is highly water soluble so
generally speaking a bigger dose of
ground coffee equals a bigger dose of
caffeine now you like me
probably really enjoy making espresso
it's a bear in mind that the more ground
coffee that you dose in each shot that
you drink well the less time in a day
you should probably be making espresso
by pulling lower dose shots you can pull
more shots in a day and not over
caffeinate yourself we used to mock the
Italians for that kind of 14 gram double
that seven gram single how could you use
just seven grams of ground coffee but on
the upside it means they get to drink a
lot of coffee in the day and that's
pretty good
so do bear that in mind think a little
bit about the impact of just how much
coffee you're drinking on you know how
many shots you can pull in a day but
maybe you're not like me maybe you just
like to use caffeine as like a big 2x4
to the head to get your going in the
morning and well we've all been there
but if sometimes you want to pull a few
more shots already spend some time with
a coffee then drop that dose set
yourself up to pull more shots have some
fun but I'd be interested to hear from
you what I haven't talked about when it
comes to dose what have I missed what
else needs to be discussed what else do
you want to hear in the upcoming parts
of this series what do you want to make
sure that I cover I'd love to hear from
you down in the comments below
but for now I'm gonna say thank you so
much for watching and I hope you have a
great day