Don’t you love watching those amazing baristas grind, stamp and froth their way to a flawless cup of coffee in no time at all? While it looks easy enough, home coffee machines work a little differently. But if you get the basic techniques right, you can turn into a barista yourself, making incredible coffee for your household in the comfort of your own kitchen. Let us show you how…

5 tips for making the perfect coffee at home

Note: This is a guide for people who use a domestic coffee machine.

1.     Buy Beans

If possible, buy whole beans (ideally Organic + Fairtrade) and grind the beans yourself at home. Grinding the beans immediately before use will make sure that the flavour will be fresh and tasting its best.

 2.     Store Coffee Correctly

Most people believe that to keep coffee fresh you should store it in the fridge or freezer. This is false. The best way to store coffee (hopefully beans) is in a cool, dark, dry place. A pantry cupboard is ideal. It’s also best that once you’ve opened the coffee from it’s packaging, that they are kept in an airtight container.

3.     Clean your machine

To keep anything nasty out of your coffee cup, you should regularly clean your machine. See the manufacturer information  for your machine to see how often you should do so.

There are also some things that you should do with every use. The most important is to purge and wipe down the steam arm before and after use in order to flush out any milk residue that may be left behind from the previous coffee. In layman terms, blow some steam out of the steam arm before putting it into your milk jug. Never soak the steam arm in water or leave it sitting in milk. To clean, only purge and wipe down the steam arm.

 4.     Tamp evenly

To get perfect extraction, it is important to tamp correctly. Everyone will have slightly different techniques though these are the two most important things to remember. The first is to distribute the coffee grounds evenly in the group head and the second is to tamp the coffee so that it lays flat in the group head.

5.     Heating the Milk

Milk is hard to master and will take time and practice. We could write five tips alone on how to properly steam milk. As a general rule however, this is what you should look out for.  If  you’re getting a loud pitch ‘scream’ when heating the milk, then it is not getting enough air. Bring the tip of the steam arm closer to the surface of the milk so that you start to hear a slurping noise. Be careful not to let too much air in as this will cause bubbles in the milk froth. Secondly, to texture the milk evenly, you want to aim to have your milk swirling in a clean 360 degree circle in the milk jug.

Now just relax and enjoy!

 

This post was originally posted by Emma Watson on http://sacredgroundsorganic.com/5-tips-for-making-the-perfect-coffee-at-home/