There’s at all times room to up your recreation, and there are fairly a number of extra instruments that may allow you to make the very best espresso doable. These are all instruments you’d make use of earlier than the brew, setting the stage for the proper extraction.
Fellow Atmos Canister for Espresso Beans ($40): A vacuum canister is a good way to retailer your espresso beans. By vacating the chamber of all air each time you shut it, the Fellow Atmos slows down the degradation of all these flavorful oils and chemical compounds inside your freshly roasted beans.
Oxo Conical Burr Grinder ($99): That is one in every of our prime picks in our Greatest Espresso Grinders information, and it is a sensible choice for espresso. Espresso requires a high-quality and constant grind, the likes of which you’ll be able to simply get out of a burr grinder. Simply make sure to get in there and provides your burrs a sweep at times—upkeep that the Oxo makes straightforward, with a bean bin that snaps aside with none fuss.
Bezzera Bottomless Portafilter ($80): Nothing will enhance your espresso brewing like a bottomless portafilter. Not as a result of it is going to make your espresso higher; it’ll make you higher by making you extra conscious of your errors and inconsistencies. Bottomless portafilters are finicky, and when your grind is off otherwise you’ve over-tamped your grounds, the bottomless portafilter allows you to see that in how the espresso coats the underside of the filter and pours down into the cup. Be sure you double-check the circumference in your espresso machine’s group head, although (the place the filter attaches). There are a selection of normal sizes, so you might want to be sure to order the fitting one. The most typical are 53 mm and 58 mm, and nearly each bottomless portafilter is available in every of those sizes.
Crema Distributor & Tamp ($44): As soon as you set your grounds into your portafilter, the subsequent step is giving them an excellent, even tamping. You wish to use about 30 to 40 kilos of strain, and whereas you need to use a scale to find out precisely what that appears like, I discover it’s higher to only press along with your higher physique, then extract a shot and see the way it went. If it’s too bitter, you tamped too exhausting; if it’s too watery you didn’t tamp exhausting sufficient. A distributor (additionally referred to as a leveler) makes it straightforward to get a fair floor so that you can tamp, and this one has a tamp on one facet and a distributor on the opposite so you possibly can degree off your beans, then flip this instrument over and provides ’em an excellent tamp. Simply be sure to get one that matches the circumference of your machine’s portafilter!
Duralex Picardie Shot Glasses, Set of Six ($21): These are my favourite shot glasses on the whole, however they’re additionally nice espresso shot glasses—tall and slender sufficient to permit a splendidly aerated crema to kind on prime, and manufactured from tempered glass to allow them to stand as much as the warmth. They’re additionally nice for serving up smaller drinks like macchiatos—a shot of espresso with a dollop of froth on prime.