Depending on the day, coffee is the number one or two most consumed beverage in the world. It is enjoyed daily by hundreds of millions of people in virtually every country in the world.
Many lovers of freshly roasted coffee have no idea how their favorite cup of joe is ‘made’ in the morning. This article briefly explains the process of roasting gourmet coffee beans and how those wonderful flavors and aromas find their way into your morning cup!
It takes fifteen to twenty minutes to roast gourmet coffee beans with a typical small commercial gas roaster. The usual rule of thumb is that the faster you roast, the better the coffee.
The short roast retains the highest percentage of the aromatic properties of the gourmet coffee bean. Slow roasting gourmet coffee beans results in baking of the beans and usually prevents them from fully developing. Additionally, slow roasting typically does not produce bright roasts and generally makes the beans tough rather than brittle, even after the color standard has been reached.
Gourmet coffee beans have varying degrees of moisture when green or raw. The best freshly roasted coffee is created by first starting the roasting process on low heat until some of the moisture has been removed from the bean. If too much heat is used at the beginning of the roasting process, there is a high risk of “tipping” or charring the small germ at the end of the bean, which is the most sensitive part of the bean.
“kissing cheeks” of a gourmet coffee bean is caused by loading too many beans into the roasting cylinder at one time and rotating the roasting cylinder too fast. This causes some beans to travel down the cylinder walls for one full revolution instead of falling down the sides into the cylinder as it rotates.As a result, one side of the gourmet coffee bean is burned or ‘kissed’.
There are no universal standards for coffee roasting. Because roasting is part of the ‘art’, a roaster will develop a personal blend and roast combination and establish that blend/roast combination as a sample ‘type’ to be used as the internal standard the next time a roaster batch of that blend/roast. it is roasted Coffee drinkers’ tastes run the gamut of roasting possibilities, from light roasts to extremely dark roasts.
Many roasters use the following roast classifications:
- Light
- Cinnamon
- Medium
- High
- City
- complete city
- French
- Italian
HAS city The roast is a dark roasted bean. HAS crowded city the roast is a few degrees darker still. HAS French the roasted beans are cooked until the natural oil appears on the surface. And a Italian the roasted bean is roasted until charred so that it can be easily pulverized.
In the United States, lighter roast beans are preferred on the West Coast, darker roasts are enjoyed in the South, and a medium-colored roast is the primary roast enjoyed on the East Coast. Coffee drinkers in Boston especially enjoy the cinnamon roasted coffee.
Coffee loses weight during the roasting process. The amount of weight lost varies depending on the degree of roasting and the nature of the bean. Green beans, on average, lose sixteen (16%) percent of their weight during the roasting process. Usually a hundred pounds of coffee in the cherry yields twenty-five pounds in the parchment. One hundred pounds of parchment yields eighty-four pounds of clean coffee. And one hundred pounds of clean coffee produces eighty-four pounds of freshly roasted coffee.
During the roasting process, the gourmet coffee bean undergoes both physical and chemical changes. After being in the roasting cylinder for a short time, the color of the bean turns a yellowish brown that gradually darkens as it cooks longer. Similarly, as the beans heat up, they wilt until they reach the midpoint of the roasting process called the “development” point. At this stage, the beans begin to swell and “open up” increasing their physical size by fifty percent. When the development point is reached, the heat is turned up and the roasting is finished as quickly as possible.
“Dry” and “Moist” Roasts
A coffee roaster uses an utensil called a “trier” (it looks like a long spoon) to check the progress of the beans often during the roasting process. The tester is slid into the cylinder taking a sample of the roasted beans and comparing it to a standard sample. When the coffee has reached the desired roast level, the heat is turned off to “check” or stop cooking by reducing the temperature of the coffee and roast cylinder as quickly as possible.
In it wet roast method the coffee is sprayed with water while the roasting cylinder continues to rotate to cool the beans and stop cooking.
In it dry roast method the beans are poured out of the roasting cylinder into a large colander-type basket where they are quickly stirred while air is blown through the beans to cool them as quickly as possible to stop cooking.
Excessive watering of coffee during and after the roasting process to reduce shrinkage is generally frowned upon. “Heading” the coffee or checking the roast before removing it from the roasting cylinder is considered a legitimate practice.
When water is used to quench the roast and stop cooking, most of the water turns to steam and is not absorbed by the beans. However, the beans tend to swell slightly and lighten the coffee. Although some water is used to control the roast, it is still considered a “dry roast.”
It is doubtful that more than a handful of American coffee roasters use an absolutely “dry” roasting method; it is difficult to maintain consistent results from batch to batch and generally does not provide the best possible product. The term “dry roast” has been abused for years by the marketing departments of coffee companies. Of course, “dry roasted” coffee as described above will always be better coffee than beans that have been soaked in water, but the word “dry” needs to be defined as to what exactly that means between roasters before the term can provide real meaning or value to consumers.
Finish or Glazing
In the old days of coffee roasting, whole bean roasted coffee was ‘finished’ by rubbing it while still wet using a glazing solution. Roasted coffee dulls during handling and a finishing coat was believed to not only enhance the appearance of the roasted beans but also preserve the natural flavors and aromas of the bean.
The freshly roasted beans were finished by placing them in a machine made of flat-sided wooden cylinders. The machine would be approximately two-thirds filled with freshly roasted coffee beans, leaving just enough room to allow the beans to have a nice rocking motion. A common coating used in the past consisted of a mixture of sugar and eggs that was added as the beans rolled, ensuring that each bean was completely covered and ‘finished’. Of course, roasters today regularly coat beans to add flavor and variety to their coffees.
