How to Make Espresso at Home: The Recipe, the Ratio and the Fixes

There is no single official espresso recipe, but there are published reference points. INEI, the Italian espresso institute, sets conditions for its certified Italian espresso. The SCA reproduces the heritage SCAA definition in its 25 Magazine. Baratza, a grinder maker, publishes a simple starting recipe for home use. And the same SCA article surveyed working baristas about what they actually do.

Read the table across a row and the pattern is clear: everyone agrees on roughly 9 bar and 20–30 seconds; they differ on how much coffee goes in and how the output is measured. INEI's numbers describe a single shot by volume. Baratza and the survey describe a larger dose measured by weight.

The chart puts the coffee dose from each source on one scale, together with the capacity of a typical home basket. The single-shot figures sit at 7–9 g; the home recipe, the double range and the basket all sit around 18 g. If your machine came with 1 cup and 2 cup baskets, the 2 cup basket is the one the home recipe assumes.

Espresso needs more kit than drip coffee, and skipping any one item tends to be the reason a first attempt fails.

Heat the machine as its maker says. Flow-through heaters are quick: Breville says the Bambino's ThermoJet is ready to start in 3 seconds. Boiler machines take longer; Profitec states about 7 minutes in Fast Heat-Up Mode for its single boiler GO. Lock the empty portafilter into the group while it heats so the metal warms too.

Weigh 18 g of beans, or whatever your basket is rated for. Weighing beans before grinding is the simplest way to keep the dose the same from shot to shot, and a repeatable dose is what makes the later adjustments mean anything.

Grind fine. Breville's manual describes the failure on each side: too fine looks like powder and feels like flour, and water won't flow through it under pressure, giving a dark, bitter, over-extracted shot; too coarse and water flows through too quickly, giving an under-extracted shot lacking colour and flavour. Baratza adds that small changes in grind size can move a cup from sour to balanced, so adjust one step at a time.

Tip the grounds into the basket, settle them level, and press down with the tamper until the bed is firm and flat. The aim is a puck with no loose edges or cracks, so water meets the same resistance everywhere.

Breville's Dual Boiler manual lists a pressure gauge not reaching 9 bars as a symptom of coffee not tamped firmly enough, which shows how directly tamping feeds into pressure. Some machines take this step over: De'Longhi's La Specialista Opera tamps with a lever at 20 kg of even pressure, Breville's Impress models assist the tamp, and the Oracle Jet tamps automatically.

Wipe stray grounds off the basket rim before you lock in, so the seal against the group gasket is clean.

Lock the portafilter in, put a cup on a scale under it, and start the shot. Start a timer at the same moment. Baratza's recipe counts from start to finish, and INEI's 25 seconds ± 2.5 is a percolation time, so time the whole shot the same way every time.

Stop when the scale reads about twice the dose, 36 g for 18 g in, and note the time. Between 25 and 32 seconds is Baratza's target; INEI and the heritage SCAA definition sit in the same window. Many machines stop by volume on their own; Breville's 1 cup and 2 cup buttons are an example, so weigh the result at least once to see what your machine actually delivers.

About the pressure: espresso is extracted at around 9 bar. INEI sets 9 bar ± 1, the heritage SCAA definition 9–10 atmospheres, and the SCA's barista survey found an average of 8.5 bar with 9 bar the most common answer. A 15 or 20 bar figure on a box is the pump's maximum rating, not the brewing pressure; Breville's own Barista Express has a 15 bar pump and lists 9 bar extraction.

Taste the shot before adding anything to it. Baratza's rule is short: adjust grind finer if the shot was sour or quick; coarser if it was bitter or slow. Change the grind by one step, keep the dose and yield the same, and pull another shot. Changing two things at once makes it impossible to tell which one helped.

You can make espresso from pre-ground coffee, but only with the right basket. Breville's instruction books spell out the split: use single wall baskets when grinding fresh whole beans, because they let you experiment with grind, dose and tamp; use dual wall baskets with pre-ground coffee, because they regulate the pressure and help extraction regardless of grind, dose, tamp pressure or freshness.

Pressurised (dual wall) baskets come with many entry machines, including the Breville Bambino, the Gaggia Classic E24 and De'Longhi's double wall filters. If your shots run fast and watery from a bag of supermarket espresso grind, check which basket is in the portafilter before you blame the machine. When you get an espresso grinder, move to the single wall basket and the recipe above.

Most espresso drinks start with the same shot. INEI's definition of a traditional cappuccino is 25 ml of espresso and 100 ml of steam-foamed milk, which gives you a ratio to start from even if you pull a larger home double.

To steam, purge the wand, put the tip just under the surface of cold milk in a metal jug, open the steam, and lower the jug as the milk expands; then sink the tip deeper to heat and spin the milk. Machines differ in how much they do for you: the Bambino has a manual wand, while Breville's Bambino Plus and De'Longhi's La Specialista Touch list automatic wands with adjustable temperature and texture.

If you make milk drinks back to back, the heating system matters more than the recipe; a single boiler has to switch between brew and steam temperatures, which Profitec says suits occasional milk drinkers.

Not with a moka pot, by the standards' definition. Bialetti, which makes the Moka Express, says a moka pot brews at about 1.5 bar against at least 9 bar for modern espresso machines. INEI requires 9 bar ± 1 and the heritage SCAA definition 9–10 atmospheres, so moka coffee is strong stovetop coffee rather than espresso, even when the box says otherwise.

What does reach espresso pressure without a pump machine is a manual lever press. Flair lists 9 bar brewing with a gauge on its Classic and 6–9 bar on the 49 PRO; you supply the pressure with your arm and the hot water from a kettle. Hand-pump portables such as Wacaco's Minipresso GR also exist, though Wacaco's listing does not state a brewing pressure. Our guide to espresso makers versus espresso machines covers these in detail.