A tool for espresso lovers, by espresso lovers.
Dial Your Shot combines a free espresso dialing tool, an educational coffee blog, and an interactive espresso game. The goal is simple: help people understand why a shot tastes the way it does and what to change next.
Dial Your Shot is a free, browser-based espresso brewing guide that helps you improve your espresso, one shot at a time. You enter your dose, yield, grind size, extraction time, temperature, pressure, and then rate how the final shot actually tastes. The app uses those inputs to suggest practical adjustments, hints, and next-step recommendations to help you make the next shot better.
Dial Your Shot is for beginners who need a clear first framework, for home baristas who want to be more consistent, and for experienced espresso enthusiasts who enjoy testing recipes, comparing variables, and refining their process.
Whether you're just getting started with espresso or you've been dialing in shots for years, our goal is simple: give you a helpful starting point, a clearer diagnosis, and useful guidance for moving closer to that elusive sweet spot.
We're passionate about coffee, but we're also humble about what we know. The algorithm behind Dial Your Shot was built by carefully studying a wide range of trusted sources, including specialty coffee research, barista community knowledge, and extraction science. We've tried to turn that into something practical, accessible, and useful in the moment when you're trying to understand why a shot tasted the way it did.
That said, espresso is complex, and every machine, grinder, bean, and environment is different. Our model is a guide, not a guarantee. It does not try to tell you exactly how a shot should taste in theory; it reacts to the taste result you report and suggests where to adjust next. We're continuously working to improve the algorithm, and we actively seek feedback from more experienced people, professional baristas, roasters, and dedicated home brewers to make sure the recommendations stay grounded in reality.
You can optionally sign in with your Google account to save espresso presets to our servers. A preset captures your full parameter setup - dose, yield, extraction time, temperature, pressure, pre-infusion, roast level, bean freshness, grind distribution, and grind size - so you can return to a known-good configuration or compare setups across sessions.
Signing in requires only your email address and basic Google profile information. We request no other permissions. You can delete your account and all saved presets at any time from your Profile page. See our Privacy Policy for full details on what is stored and how.
Dial It In is the interactive side of Dial Your Shot. Instead of logging a real shot, you pull virtual espresso shots inside the browser, diagnose what's wrong with a flawed starting recipe, and correct it before your attempts run out. Everything is scored server-side so the results are fair and tamper-proof.
The game's extraction animation renders in real time in the browser: the shot glass fills, the crema layer forms, and the scale ticks up in grams. When the shot ends, the server evaluates your flavor profile, computes a 0–100 score, awards 0–3 stars, and returns defect labels, correction hints, and theory notes — the same logic the main dialing tool uses, applied as an educational game.
Beyond the dialling-in tool we also publish Coffee Theory — a collection of in-depth articles covering espresso science, brewing technique, and the variables that shape the cup. Topics include the Espresso Compass, grind size mechanics, brew ratios, extraction science, temperature and pressure, and a side-by-side comparison of brewing methods (espresso, AeroPress, pour over, French press, and more).
The articles are written with the same philosophy as the tool: grounded in real extraction science, practical, and honest about uncertainty. If you spot an error or have a better way to explain something, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.
Dial Your Shot is an evolving project. On the roadmap: more brewing-method profiles, deeper roast-level guidance, expanded Coffee Theory articles, and continued refinement of the correction algorithm based on feedback from the community. If something feels off or doesn't match your experience, we want to know — your palate and your machine are the ground truth.
Dial Your Shot was created by PiroTechnique, a coffee enthusiast who wanted a clean, distraction-free tool for improving espresso without having to dig through forum threads every morning.
It's free. The core tool works without an account. When you sign in to save presets, we store only what is necessary to make that feature work - nothing more.