Coffee Projects

Things to make with the machine, beyond the daily cup.

Projects for a machine and a grinder already on the counter, most of them costing nothing.

A matt black burr grinder stands on a butcher block counter with its lid off, its clear hopper filled with whole peppercorns, coriander, cumin and two cinnamon sticks instead of coffee, a white bowl of whole dark coffee beans beside it and a few loose seeds scattered between them.

Project

Grinding Spices in a Coffee Grinder, and the Clean-Down That Follows

A burr grinder will grind spices, and the risk is carry-over rather than damage. Which spices it takes, what the makers state, and the clean-down that keeps tomorrow's coffee clean.

Grinding Spices in a Coffee Grinder, and the Clean-Down That Follows

A hand steadies a grinder's open chute over a steel cup on a scale, loose grounds falling in.

Technique

Grind Retention: What Stays in the Grinder Between Two Doses

Retention is coffee that stays on the burrs and in the chute and comes out in the next dose. The DF64 Gen 2's 50 g bellows hopper pushes it out, the Encore ESP grinds into a 54 mm dosing cup, and a scale reading to 0.1 g with a weigh-in, weigh-out check shows how much your own grinder keeps.

Grind Retention: What Stays in the Grinder Between Two Doses

A hand in a dark green sleeve holds a portafilter upside down over a plain stoneware bowl of spent coffee grounds on a butcher block counter, a puck falling into the bowl, with a bare steel espresso machine behind on the left.

Project

Used Coffee Grounds: Four Uses, and the One We Could Not Source

Four second uses for spent espresso grounds: scouring a pan while they are damp, taking a smell out of a fridge once dried, a hand scrub after cooking, and a green layer in a compost heap. A knock box holding up to 20 pucks collects most of a week of them at two or three shots a day.

Used Coffee Grounds: Four Uses, and the One We Could Not Source

A jug pours over a cup of coffee, its surface showing a failed pour, a pale blob off to one side.

Technique

Latte Art That Comes Out Small, a Blob, Bubbly, or Will Not Spread: What Each One Means

Five latte art faults sorted into two causes, the milk and the pour, each with the one change that fixes it and a link to the piece that carries the rest.

Latte Art That Comes Out Small, a Blob, Bubbly, or Will Not Spread: What Each One Means

A hand holds a pencil over a ruled notebook page beside a portafilter, its marks plain scribbles.

Project

A Shot Log: One Sheet That Makes Dialing In Repeatable

A shot log is four columns on a sheet of paper, and it is the cheapest thing on any coffee counter. What to write down, what the grinder's own numbering gives you for free, and what a week of it tells you that memory does not.

A Shot Log: One Sheet That Makes Dialing In Repeatable

A spent coffee puck lies knocked out whole on a dark slate counter beside a round black knock box, its damp cracked face and the shallow crater worn through its middle turned towards the camera, a chrome portafilter on its side with its empty basket showing.

Project

Reading the Used Puck: What the Basket Leaves Behind

The spent puck is a free instrument that reports on the shot you just pulled. Four things it shows, what each one means, and the one thing it cannot tell you.

Reading the Used Puck: What the Basket Leaves Behind

A hand in a grey sleeve tips a plain steel milk jug over a white cup on a dark soapstone counter, the stream of milk finishing a single heart in the foam, white subway tile behind.

Project

Latte Art for Beginners: The First Three Shapes, in the Order They Get Easier

A heart teaches the height, a tulip teaches the stop, a rosetta teaches the wiggle. The three shapes in the order each one builds the next, and what to fix when they fail.

Latte Art for Beginners: The First Three Shapes, in the Order They Get Easier