ESPRESSO AT HOME: GRINDERS, SCALES, AND WATER

When you’re making espresso at home, besides choosing the machine, you want to carefully pick the grinder, scale, and water that you use.

For grinders, we recommend a burr grinder over a blade grinder. The latter one makes it basically impossible to get a consistent grind size throughout. There are two types of burr grinders: flat and conical. The precision offered by flat burr grinders make them common in cafes. Conical burr grinders while not as precise as the flat option do a great job at a more affordable price.

While there are a lot of great conical burr grinders for at-home use, some of our favorites are the Breville Precision Grinder and the Baratza Sette 30. Both of these grinders have 30 steps that allow for control over the fineness of your grind. Whichever grinder you choose, make sure you’re cleaning it out when you switch coffee and grind the coffee fresh right before you brew.For scales, you should be using them when you’re measuring out coffee for each dose and the weight of espresso out.

If you want a scale with a built-in timer, we love the options from Brewista and  cxfgxAcaia. That said, a standard kitchen scale typically does the trick, too!Finally, but possibly most importantly, you want to make sure you’re using good water. If you don’t drink the water from your sink, you definitely don’t want to use it to make coffee (espresso or drip). If you have a good home filter, the often does the trick, but if you really want to level up your espresso, we suggest Third Wave Water. This is a mineral packet you add to distilled water that makes the water perfect for coffee. Pouring Third Wave Water into an espresso machine.

Another benefit to using quality water is that it will extend the life of your machine because it won’t contribute as much mineral build up throughout.