Lesser examples are often hampered by cheap single boilers, flimsy housing, and useless digital widgets, all of which yield espresso so watery and angular that it is unworthy of the name. Dual boilers, PIDs, and welds that could survive a trip through the hadal zone put the cost of a good home machine at a minimum of $1,000, but the better models command much more. These trappings can push the price of the appliance upwards of $20,000, depending on the bells and whistles and the color of the custom powder coat.įor the same reasons, a home machine with professional-level specifications is also significantly more expensive than its more pedestrian counterparts. Outfitted with two boilers (one for coffee, another for the steam wand) and proportional-integral-derivative temperature controls, or PIDs, they are constructed from heavy materials that maintain heat. Professional machines hit all of these sweet spots every time. If pulling the shot takes longer than 25 seconds, the espresso will be thin and astringent. If the temperature climbs, bitter flavors creep into the cup. If the pressure drops during an extraction, there will be no crema. According to the parameters set by the Istituto Nazionale Espresso Italiano, one of coffee’s governing bodies, this substance forms when water is brought to 9 bars of pressure (about 130 psi) and heated to 88 degrees Celsius (about 190 degrees Fahrenheit), so that the perfect 25-second extraction will yield 25 mL (about 0.85 ounce) of coffee that has the pleasantly dense consistency of lightly whipped heavy cream and a crown of the mahogany-colored foam called crema. More specifically, the machine must be equipped to produce the hydrocolloid known as espresso, which is a combination of water, solubles, insolubles, and oils that emulsify under high pressure. Just as one needs a grill to grill, one needs an actual espresso machine to make espresso. Searing a steak on a hot pan does not make it grilled, nor does packing coffee grounds into a dumbed-down home espresso machine (or popping a pod) and putting a demitasse under the spout make an espresso. An espresso machine makes espresso, which, to be clear, is a method of preparing coffee in the same way that grilling is a manner of cooking a steak.
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