Tips from Sam Low:
In order to make a very good milk-based beverage whether that be a flat white or latte with latte art on top, ensure that you are using high-quality coffee beans and milk.
First, extract a double shot of espresso for the base. Depending on your coffee bean supplier and how your coffee was roasted, the recipe used to extract your coffee will be different. Ask your coffee bean supplier for an ideal extraction recipe.
A common example of a recipe for a medium-dark roasted coffee in NZ could be:
- 20g dose (the amount of dry freshly ground coffee in the portafilter)
- 30 second time (the amount of contact time the water has with the coffee)
- 30g yield (the weight of the espresso that's been extracted into your vessel)
How to Extract:
When producing your espresso, here are a few simple steps so you can promote an even extraction (meaning that all the coffee grinds has an even amount of water exposure to dissolve all the desired flavours from the coffee):
- Distribute your coffee - once the desired coffee amount has been dosed in your basket, move your coffee around the portafilter by tapping your hands on the side of the portafilter, this will ensure an even distribution of coffee is in your basket before you tamp.
- Tamp your coffee as level as possible - make sure the tamp is level so water will flow through the puck of tamped coffee evenly.
- Consistent tamp strength - everyone will have a different tamping strength, try to keep it consistent every time. Adjust the grind size finer or coarser to counteract your tamp strength to reach your ideal extraction time.
How to Steam Milk:
- Start with milk below 7°C and introduce air (this is called stretch) until 37°C. This step ensures that the air introduced into the milk will turn into micro foam.
- Once the milk has reached 37°C, it’s important not to stretch the milk anymore, but still maintain a whirlpool and increase the milk temperature to 60-65°C. At this temperature the jug is usually too hot to hold for more than 3 seconds.
- The amount of foam you create from the steaming process is dependent on how much air you inject into the milk from the stretch phase. You can only create glossy microfoam milk by stretching your milk before the temperature of 37°C. Heating the milk over 70°C will allow for souring and scalding of the milk.
- The ideal amount of foam to create latte art is about a 20% stretch increase from the milk volume from the start of your steaming process.