Coffee Beans Roasting On an Open Fire. Jack Frost Nipping....

Please excuse the title of today's post, I'm very much in the holiday spirit!

We're ready to move from the coffee growers to the coffee roasters! In this post, I'll teach you how coffee is roasted after it is shipped from the bean producers. In the next post, we'll go over the different roasts, and you'll be able to decide which one sounds like the best one for you!

Roasting allows the coffee bean to become the dark brown that we're all used to grinding and enjoying. It also allows the bean to gain that glorious flavor we've grown to love (and depend on). Roasting may be done at home, but this blog is dedicated to the professional preparation of coffee beans. Later, however, we will be analyzing at-home methods of preparing coffee.

Professional roasting involves cleaning the shipment of beans, roasting them, cooling them, and packaging them. Occasionally, grinding before packaging could be included in this process, but I'm choosing to disregard this step in favor of at-home grinding for quality purposes.

Cleaning the beans is comparable to searching for gold in a river. The beans are dumped onto a screen and heartily shaken to remove any additional debris left over after they were harvested. They are then weighed and transferred to the roasting area. Roasters are usually heated up to as high as 540 degrees, or as low as 370 degrees. The roasting process takes up to 30 minutes, depending on the temperature and how dark the roasters would like the bean to be.

Here is a picture of a roaster:

Roasters are made to continuously move the coffee beans around in the heated vat so that they may all be evenly heated. The longer the coffee is roasted, the less the beans retain their original flavor. The darkest beans lose almost all flavor, and are left with the smoky, harsh flavor left by the roasting process.

Roasting may be accomplished through direct and indirect firing. This means that the beans either come into contact with flame, or they only come into contact with extreme heat from a flame on the other side of the closed surface they are roasting on. It may be concluded from the styles of these roasting methods, that the direct firing method uses much more heat, and thus a much darker roast in a shorter time, than the indirect firing method.

After the beans are roasted, they are cooled in a chamber infused with cool air. This is the final step before they are packaged and sent off to be sold.

The different types of roasts come with each of their own unique set of attributes. This means that there is one type of roast that leads to the perfect cup of coffee, but there is that one type of roast that will lead you to your own perfect cup of coffee. Stay tuned for the next post, because we'll go over what flavors each roast produces and where you can find them at your favorite Maryland coffee roaster!

Sources Used:

http://www.coffeefair.com/coffee-facts-roasting.htm

http://www.coffee-machine.org/coffee-roasting/

From the Root to the Report Card!

Hello my caffeinated friends!

I'm back to give you the low down on coffee bean (specifically arabica bean) processing! Because there's a right way and a slightly-less right way, and I want to get you that perfect cup of joe!!

We've determined that the arabica bean is the right one for you... so now lets go over how that arabica bean leaves the farm and enters the process of going into your coffee grinder!

Coffee beans are the seeds of the fruit of the coffee plant. These plants produce "cherries" (although I don't think you'd snack on these specific cherries or prepare them in a pie...). After these cherries are harvested, coffee farmers go through the process of extracting the coffee bean from the ripe, quality-tested fruit and drying the coffee bean out.

There are two ways that arabica beans are dried out. This can be done by machine, or the older method of fermenting and washing. The ferment-and-wash method involves removing the remaining pulp from the coffee bean by letting it ferment in its own juices or added water. The beans sit for a bit (usually a little over 24 hours) and then washed to remove the loosened pulp.

The machine method is newer and allows the farmer to cut down on pollution and water usage. This method does, however, result in the loss of flavor because the coffee isn't sitting in its own flavor.

This analysis of each processing style leads us to the need to decide between the perfect flavor or the risk of environmental pollution. For our purposes, we are going to choose the ferment-and-wash method. Feel free to prefer the machine wash method, but we're currently looking for the perfect taste in your morning coffee mug, not the greenest taste!

The ferment-and-wash method allows the bean to acquire the most flavor, thus allowing the avid coffee drinker to enjoy the most depth of coffee flavor.

After the coffee bean is washed and cleared of all remaining pulp, it is dried. The most effective method of drying is allowing the coffee to be spread out in rows and raked every couple hours to promote circulation. This step is important because coffee that is too dry will become brittle and more beans will break, thus will become defective. Coffee that is too wet will spoil and become unusable in a short time span.

When the coffee beans are appropriately dry, they are hulled to remove any remaining pulp and polished to an attractive sheen. The beans are then ready to be graded!

The beans are graded by size. Size is usually associated with the quality of the bean. The largest beans are grade AA in general, however other factors may allow other grading scales to be introduced, for example Grade 1 coffee is described with a 9-13% moisture, no coffee bean defects, and all beans range between 5% of the standard grade 1 size. Grading may also take into account the density/hardness of the coffee bean.

Sources Used to Support This Post:

http://www.coffeepartsplus.com/CoffeeBeans.htm

http://www.zecuppa.com/coffee-terms.html

http://www.quaffee.co.za/Pages/xtras/QualityArabica.aspx

http://www.zecuppa.com/coffeeterms-bean-grading.htm

http://www.coffeegrail.com/a-consumer’s-guide-to-arabica-cultivars/coffee-beans/

The Unroasted Bean!

Hello caffeinated followers!

It has come to my attention that... to make the greatest coffee in the world, you must first start with the most wonderful coffee bean in the world!

Coffee beans may be separated into two categories, "robusta" and "arabica". Robusta beans are grown at lower altitudes and in warmer climates, making them more versatile and easy to grow. Arabica beans are grow at high altitudes (1,800 ft to 3,600 ft above sea level). They must be grown in areas that experience defined seasons.

As a result of the different needs of the two types of beans, you may have figured out that robusta beans are able to be grown and matured all year, where as the arabica beans are grown in one season (the season with the most rainfall) and matured in the drier season.

The result of the different growing styles of the two plants result in a clear winner between the two beans.

The arabica bean takes the mug!

The arabica bean offers to the (more-than) occasional coffee drinker a dense bean and much milder and comparatively-less bitter tasting coffee. While the robusta bean does offer the drinker a higher caffeine content, the bean gives less than desired results for a quality cup of joe.

The robusta bean is used primarily for espresso, although coffee manufacturers do utilize its year-long growing season and associated lower cost to create their lower-cost grocery store blends that we've all grown to occasionally tolerate when the local coffee shop isn't an option at that moment.

Sources Used to Support this Post:

http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/environment.htm

http://www.wholelattelove.com/articles/arabica_coffee.cfm

(Picture) http://nicolekrueger.com/coffee/beans/plant/arabica-vs-robusta.html