Espresso Tips (and a video on How to make a good Flat White)
Watch Video Below (and Subscribe)
What IS a flatwhite?
Flatwhites are made with a double espresso in a 5-5.5oz cup with heated textured milk. The origin is debatable whether it's from NZ or Australia... but since Australia claims most good things and I'm a kiwi, can we side with my country this time on this gem please?!
The milk should be smooth, creamy and have a velvety texture. The milk should be thinner than a latte and "flatter" in head volume.
A flatwhite should be a short, strong tasting coffee with milk. Thats why its so good!
Espresso TIPS
Use good quality specialty coffee beans – often found at a good independent café (or you can order some from my online shop here)
Your grind should be fine, more like fine sand than a powder (Turkish)
Your coffee should look dark, thick in consistency and trail down like a mousetail (thick at the top and taper down).
Espresso should extract at an even speed – not too fast, not too slow
When your espresso starts to look thinner and more watery, “blonde” (a lighter browny/yellow) or starts to “pulse”, wait a second or two and switch the water flow off.
You want your espresso to have a balanced taste and flavour.
Recipe guide
18-20g Ground Coffee in (I use these scales)
30g liquid coffee out
25-30seconds
Like all recipes this is a guide only. The biggest problem when your espresso isn't extracting well, is the grind size. Especially at home, many people don't realise their grind is still far too coarse. I would suggest grinding your coffee finer than you would normally think to, if not just to see what happens. Invest in a good espresso grinder (quite different to a filter grinder).
If your grind is very fine, and is running very slow, then you have two options:
Lower your dose (don't put so much in the porterfilter)
Or slightly coarsen your grind
Do the opposite of this if your espresso is running too quickly. Only do one of these two options at a time so you can see what difference it makes.
Milk TIPs:
My next blog...