How to Make a Lungo

Ahh, the much maligned lungo espresso shot pull. CoffeeGeeks of all types would never ever admit to pulling one, at least on purpose, much less drink one. So what is it? Well first, let’s tell you what it is not. The Lungo is not a long black. Don’t let Wikipedia tell you otherwise (sidenote: whoever is editing that page is utterly wrong).

The lungo, as it originated in Italy, is simply a longer shot pull. Instead of pulling 30ml per single, the Italian barista, when asked for a lungo, would pull it about 50% longer, giving 45-50ml in the cup, per single. The drink is more bitter, a tad over extracted, and thinner, but it is also lighter on caffeine per ml (it still has a bit more than an espresso shot, but mg of caffeine per ml of liquid is lower) and like many things, became a developed taste and had its fans.

We won’t be demonstrating a lungo that way. We believe there’s a better way to pull this kind of shot, and we’ll walk you through the process. It mainly involves a grinder adjustment to help with the overall extraction rate. For the CoffeeGeek method of pulling a lungo shot, you need to go just a few hairs coarser on your grinder, and use the same weighted dose of coffee that you’d use for a normal espresso shot.

We like thinking of grams of espresso beverage produced per second when talking about ristrettos, normale espresso, and lungos. With the aid of an inexpensive scale and a watch, you can see how many grams of liquid are produced. Ristrettos aim for 1g/second. Normale espresso, 2g/second. And a lungo? 3g/second is a good rate to see.

We’ll take you through all of this in the how to, then get a bit more into the history, theory and cultural placing of the lungo amongst coffee lovers around the world.

For this How To, we’re using a Breville Barista Pro espresso machine with a built in grinder. It’s visual shot timer helps gauge your flow rate, especially when you use a scale. We’re also using the amazing (and expensive!) Acaia Lunar Espresso Scale to gauge our flow rate, but you can easily make due with any Sub $15, .1g scale that’s big enough to hold a couple espresso cups. And we’re using a Guatemala Single Origin selection (La Esperanza) from Batdorf and Bronson to build this long double espresso shot.

The How To Steps

Adjust Your Grind Normally, we grind at 9 or so on the Breville Barista Pro for a normal espresso, using 18g of coffee in to pull our shot. For the Lungo, we’re going one or two steps coarser, to 11, but dosing the same amount. To ensure your grind is uniform, grind out a few grams after making the coarser adjustment, and dispose of them before grinding the dose of coffee you’ll be using.

Grind Your Coffee Grind out your normal weighted dose of coffee into your portafilter. If you have a scale available, definitely use it, as you want to be pretty precisie. For this espresso machine, we’re grinding 18g, but keep in mind, your espresso machine may handle a larger (or smaller) normal dose.

Level, Tamp Your Coffee Tamping technique is even more important for the lungo than it is for a normal espresso. It is imperative to make sure your dose is perfectly level and evenly distributed. When tamping, make sure your tamper is 100% level all around.

Lock PF into Machine and Brew Whatever your espresso machine, be it lever, manual switch, or an automatic (with manual ability) like this Barista Pro, start your shot brewing process. If your machine has controllable preinfusion (like this one does), use it, preinfusing the bed of coffee for about 10 seconds before letting the pump get up to full pressure. We chose to do the manual brew time on this model for this long shot pull.

Brew the Long Shot Because we used a coarser grind, the flow rate for this lungo will be faster than your normal espresso. Where a ristretto aims for 1g/sec extraction times, and a normal espresso is 2g/second on average, the lungo produces almost 3g of liquid per second, once the flow starts. The target is about 75g of liquid from the double shot pull.

Finish the Shot Pull Your aim is about 75g of liquid brewed, or about 75-80ml liquid in the single cup (or split between two cups). Your shot time, not including preinfusion, should be around 25-30 seconds.

Enjoy Your Lungo Once pulled, serve the cup with a demitasse spoon, in order to mix the crema into the shot, if the drinker so desires.

Some History, and Further Thoughts on the Lungo

The lungo is definitely an acquired taste. It’s also something that never really caught on in North America, or elsewhere, outside of Italy. In Italy, it’s long been a staple of cafe menus, and every barista worth their aprons knows how to pull one, the Italian way. And the Italian way is just to let a standard espresso shot run longer, though I’ve been informed that some higher-caliber cafes in Florence and Milan are actually adjusting their grind before pulling lungos, which is a welcome change.

As for the volumes of the shot, it’s all over the map too. For the longest time, a lungo in italy was about 50% bigger than an espresso normale; so if the single shot is 30ml in the cup, the lungo is 45ml brewed. But if you visit the Illy website and read up on the lungo, they claim now that a lungo is 30ml per cup, produced by brewing longer (10 seconds longer); this assumes then that illy now considers a normale to be 20ml per single shot.

At CoffeeGeek, we always try to look at classic and established drinks in the world of coffee, and try to find ways to improve them or set new standards for them. Back in the 2000s, I can recall many rabid and frenzied discussions in our forums about how to make the best possible lungo shot (here’s one from 2012). Remembering these discussions, we toyed and tinkered with the lungo in the CoffeeGeek Lab back in 2009 and 2010; we found the route to the best tasting cup was through a change in grind, not extending the shot pull time.

Though we didn’t experiment with the lungo nearly as much as we did with the ristretto (covered in this How To), we did come up with two methods for making a “better lungo”.

The first method (not outlined in this How To) was to reduce the dose of coffee a bit (keeping the same grind fineness we use for a normal espresso shot). In other words, if our normal dose was 18g for a double espresso shot pull, we’d dose 17g or even 16.5g and pull a lungo from it.

The second method (and our preferred one, as detailed in this How To) was to modify the grind fineness. We found that a) using the same weighted dose, but b) modifying the grind just a few hairs coarser) resulted in an extraction rate of just under 3g of liquid per second that provided a decent tasting cup, one that was better than the lower dose variant.

Why should you pull lungo shots? To be honest, you might actually come to enjoy it more. My wife, for example, prefers her americanos made with lungo shot pulls instead of normal ones. She does use the underdose method because she doesn’t like to fiddle with the grinder coarseness dial, but it’s how she makes coffee every single morning.

I like pulling them occasionally, because the brewing method really challenges my barista skills. It’s much harder to get a quality tasting lungo than it is a normal double. Much like how it’s a lot harder to pull a quality single shot of espresso, compared to a double.

For this reason alone, you should consider fooling around with the lungo shot process. It’ll challenge you and definitely improve your home barista skills.

Machines and Coffees used for this How To

– Breville Barista Pro (Canada link) espresso machine with a built in grinder.
– Acaia Lunar Espresso Scale, though any Sub $15, .1g scale will do.
– Guatemala Single Origin selection (La Esperanza) from Batdorf and Bronson.

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