COOLING YOUR COFFEE BEANS
COOLING YOUR COFFEE BEANS The most overlooked part of home
roasting
The process of roasting your own coffee beans is easy once you
have a basic understanding of how it works. Home roasting is
catching on rapidly and has been touted as the fastest growing
hobby in the United States today. While simple, it does require
some knowledge to produce roasts that are truly great.
Understanding the entire process is mandatory in order to
deliver the ultimate cup of coffee.
The number one problem in producing great coffee roasted at home
is the failure to cool the roast quickly after roasting. Coffee
is “roasted” rather than “baked” and for good reason. When
roasted properly at high heat quickly allowing convection
between the heat source and beans as well as from bean to bean
you will avoid “baking” your beans. The baking of coffee beans
renders them flat and void of the brightness and zip they should
have. Baking occurs when the beans are roasted too slowly or
allowed to remain in a slowly decelerating heated situation.
When this happens the coffee is losing the zip it has at peak of
roast.
The manufactured home roasters that I have seen or heard of all
have the same problem; they lack a good cooling system. It is
virtually impossible to cool your roast quickly enough in the
same chamber that they were, moments ago, roasting in. We in the
industry uses sample roasters which are all outfitted with a
separate cooling pan built to cool the roast as quickly as
possible. We watch the roast checking it with a small scoop we
insert into the roasting chamber about every 15 seconds when the
roast is nearing the profile we desire. When the roast hits the
desired profile we immediately dump it into a cool and operating
cooling pan and generally stir it to speed the cooling along
further. It is easy to build a very efficient cooling pan which
I highly recommend. Following is a simple plan for building a
cooling pan:
To build an in-expensive, simple cooling pan that works very
well, you will need: One of those 5 gallon buckets like at the
bakery or Home Depot WITH THE COVER. A large stainless steel
mixing bowl, a couple draw hasps (National Hardware # N208-512
V35) (Bungee cords will work - if you’re less mechanical). A 1×1
(1 gallon/1 hp) shop vac. I bought one yesterday at Wal-Mart for
$19.99 and a wooden spoon. Cut the top of the bucket so the
steel bowl fits snug on top of the bucket. Drill several hundred
little (1/8″ or smaller) holes only in the bottom of the bowl
(colander will not work because the holes go up the sides). Cut
a little hole 3 - 4 inches from the bottom into the side of the
bucket so the vacuum cleaner hose will fit into the bucket
SNUGLY. With the steel bowl snugly fastened on the top and the
shop vac snugly in the hole you will have a very strong downward
draft through the holes in the bottom of the bowl. This makes an
excellent cooling pan!
There are other, even easier ways including a 12 inch box fan
blowing downward with a colander resting on top. For more
information on cooling beans and cooling pans email at:
info@u-roast-em.com .
Next time you roast, make an effort to cool your roast as
quickly as you can and taste the difference. When everything is
done right, your coffee will be noticeably better in the cup and
that is why we roast our own.
