When making the perfect cappuccino a few things are necessary-
-Coffee
-Coffee Machine with steam wand (commercial grade)
-Milk
The ingredients may be few but the room for error is EXTREMELY large.
Extracting the Perfect Shot
1.Preheat Machine and Mug- This keeps the coffee from being shocked by rapid heat transfers during the coffee extraction process.
2. Grind the Coffee to appropriate coarseness- This is huge! Coffee goes stale fast. It must be freshly ground and the mass of grounds in the shot cup should be between 12 and 14 grams. After the grinding process 30 lbs of force needs to be applied to compress the shot. This force along with coarseness of the grounds can be altered as needed to change the volume flow rate of the heated water.
3.Start the extraction process-Start the flow of water through the compressed coffee grounds at a pressure of 9 bars. This pressure should remain relatively constant throughout extraction process and should take a between 23 and 31 seconds. Earlier than 23 seconds results in a loss in the complicity of flavor whilst a coffee taking longer that the recommended 31 seconds has a bitter edge which is considered undesirable. The total volume of a finished shot according to HomeBaristas.com should be around 1.2-2 oz.