Espresso with a built-in grinder machine
Grind straight into the portafilter, weigh, tamp, and pull a 1:2 shot.
⏱️ 10 minA little practice
Starting recipe
18 g coffee → 36 g espresso in 25–32 s at 93 °C (199 °F), starting from the middle of the grind dial.
Grind: Fine, like powdered sugar that still feels a little gritty
You need
- 18 g fresh whole beans per shot (roasted 1–4 weeks ago is ideal)
- Your all-in-one machine with its built-in grinder
- The double basket and the tamper
- A small kitchen scale (0.1 g is nice, 1 g works)
- A timer (your phone is fine)
- A clean cloth
Step by step
Heat the machine
Fill the tank with fresh water and switch on. Lock the empty portafilter into the group head so it warms too. Wait for the ready light. Set the temperature to 93 °C if your machine lets you.
Set the grind dial
Start in the middle of the built-in grinder's range, or the espresso setting your manual suggests. Put beans in the hopper. You'll fine-tune this after tasting, so it doesn't need to be perfect.
Most built-in grinders should only be adjusted while running or empty of beans. Check your manual.
Dose 18 g into the basket
Take out the portafilter, wipe it dry, and grind into it. Then put it on the scale and check you have about 18 g. Add or remove a pinch to get close. Many machines let you set the grind time so the dose stays the same.
Level and tamp
Tap the portafilter gently to settle the grounds and break up the mound with a finger or a needle tool. Rest it on the counter edge and press the tamper straight down until the coffee stops compressing. Keep the tamper level: a tilted puck makes water run through one side.
Lock in and start right away
Run a second of water through the group to rinse it, wipe the basket rim, lock in the portafilter and put the cup on the scale under it. Start the shot and the timer together.
30 sStop at 36 g
Watch the scale. Stop the shot when it reads about 36 g. Note the time: 25–32 seconds is the target. Faster means grind finer next time, slower means grind coarser.
Taste, then change one thing
Give it a stir and a sip. Sour? Grind one step finer. Bitter? One step coarser. Change only one thing per shot so you know what helped.
Knock out and rinse
Knock the puck into a bin, rinse the basket, and run a little water through the group head. Wipe the steam wand straight after any milk steaming.
Common mistakes
- Not weighing the dose, so every shot is different and the grind seems to change by itself.
- Tamping at an angle, which makes water channel through the thin side.
- Leaving the filled portafilter on the hot group before brewing, which starts cooking the grounds.
- Turning the grind dial several steps at once and overshooting.
- Stopping by eye instead of by weight: crema makes the cup look fuller than it is.
Tastes off? Fix it
| If it… | Try this |
|---|---|
| Sour and runs fast (under 25 s) | Grind one step finer so the water slows down and extracts more. |
| Sour but already slow (over 32 s) | Keep the grind and let the shot run longer: stop at about 40 g instead of 36 g. |
| Bitter and slow (over 32 s) | Grind one step coarser so it flows faster. |
| Bitter but already fast | Keep the grind and stop a little earlier, around 32 g. Check for channeling too: tamp level and break up clumps. |
| Weak | Stop the shot earlier (less espresso in the cup), or add a gram of coffee to the basket. |
| Spurts from one side, pale stripes | That's channeling. Break up clumps before tamping, tamp level, and make sure the basket rim is clean. |
Words you'll hear
- Dose
- The weight of dry ground coffee in the basket, in grams. 18 g is a common starting dose for a double shot.
- Yield
- The weight of liquid espresso in your cup, in grams. Weighing beats measuring by volume because crema makes millilitres misleading.
- Ratio
- Yield divided by dose. A 1:2 ratio means 18 g of coffee becomes 36 g of espresso. Longer ratios taste lighter, shorter ones more intense.
- Extraction
- How much flavor the water pulls out of the coffee. Too little tastes sour and thin; too much tastes bitter and dry. You're aiming for sweet in the middle.
- Crema
- The reddish-golden foam on top of a shot, made from gas and oils. Fresh beans make more of it. It's a nice sign, not a measure of taste.
- Portafilter
- The handle with the metal basket that holds the coffee and locks into the machine's group head.
- Tamp
- Pressing the ground coffee flat and firm in the basket so water can't sneak through loose spots.
- Puck
- The packed disc of coffee in the basket. After the shot it's the damp cake you knock out into the bin.
- Channeling
- When water finds a weak path through the puck and rushes through it. The shot runs fast and tastes sour and bitter at once.
- WDT
- Stirring the grounds in the basket with thin needles to break up clumps before tamping. Short for Weiss Distribution Technique.