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3 Common Barista Mistakes

There are certain things you shouldn't do or at least avoid doing when trying to make good consistent coffee. In this video Jimmy discusses 3 mistakes in particular which we find are most common when we walk into a cafe for the first time.

The first mistake is tapping your group handle with the tamp after you've just carefully distributed and tamped the coffee. Why shouldn't you do this? You shouldn't because you will crack and dislodge the puck from the handle which will cause extraction issues.

Second mistake is to leave left over milk laying around in milk jugs that has already been stretched only to top them up with fresh milk and stretch it all again. Not only is it a health concern but it's also going to make your coffee taste nasty.

The last mistake is leaving your group handles out of the machine between coffees where they will get cold. This will change the temperature of the water as it passes through the coffee puck and alter the flavour of the extraction to it's detriment.

Unedited Transcript

when i walk into a cafe i see three
common mistakes baristas are making all
the time
stick around i'll tell you what they are
[Music]
hey guys i'm jimmy welcome back to the
artistic youtube channel where we talk
you through all things coffee
if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe to our channel uh like this
video and hit the bell icon so don't
miss out on any of our future videos
so today i want to talk to you about the
three common mistakes that i'm seeing
in so many cafes all around the place so
number one
i'm still seeing people tapping their
baskets with their
tamp now this is why you're doing it why
you're still doing it it's doing so much
damage not only physically to your tamp
trashing your tamp trashing your baskets
and your group heads
but the biggest issue that we see is
channeling so if you haven't learned
enough about channeling go and watch our
other video we'll put the link in
but what you're doing is you're damaging
all of the preparation work that you've
done
you're creating cracks through your park
you're separating your puck from the
edges and that's where the water is
going to run through as quickly as
possible
so you're going to reduce the your
extraction times you're going to reduce
the quality of your extraction
simply by tapping so you've got to stop
it so number two
you've really got to stop reheating milk
so
we all know what it's like when you go
into a cafe and you see a heap of milk
jugs and they've all got leftover milk
in them
basically they're sitting within what is
the australian food standard
of potentially between five and sixty
degrees of that
danger zone of temperature so bacteria
grows within that time so it's just
unsafe to have that
type of heated milk sitting on your
bench for starters get yourself a jug
rinse so you can reduce the amount of
milk
jugs that you even need watch our other
video we'll
link below which is about how to reduce
your wastage and get better at your milk
levels
because the biggest issue is just people
just don't want to waste milk but
you're it's detrimental to the flavor of
your coffee most of all
so when you heat milk the proteins
harden
the air particles stick to those
proteins and you can't replicate that
twice
same as the sugars the sugars will break
down into smaller sugars and they will
bring out some beautiful sweetness in
that milk
but again it's not going to happen twice
so every time you top up cold milk
on top of hot milk you're just reducing
the quality of the coffee that you're
serving
and we just don't want to do that and
lastly
the other thing i hate to see is this
it's leaving your group handles
out of your machine to get cold coffee
needs to
be extracted at the right temperature
and consistently the right temperature
to maintain the flavor that you really
want
so when you add water to your park if
you
have got cold handles you're going to
change the temperature that the water is
going through
and that's going to exchange your
extractions and therefore change your
flavor
i'm all for taking your heads out
cleaning them
flushing the machine and making sure
you're all prepared for next time
but just remember to put your grip
handles back up into your machine to
keep them
nice and hot so then my three pet hates
when i walk into a cafe
what are your pet hates put them in the
comments below we might make another
video
but we'd just love to hear uh people's
horror stories so um
if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe to our channel like this video
and hit the bell icon so you don't miss
out on any future videos
and i'll catch you next time thanks guys
cheers bye
[

 

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