Rehydrating beans - any experience?
Posted: Tue 04 Jan, 2022 1:34 pm
Hi and a Happy New Year!
This has been up before in a couple of threads. I didn't take it seriously as I thought I had fresh beans. With a roast a week ago I noticed that the roast didn't work as expected. The beans were "left overs" from 2019. They didn't develop so well inside. I have more beans that are becoming "old" as the pandemic made me buy more than I needed as I thought there may become a shortage of coffee.
@benjaminfleon mentioned rehydrating coffee when he introduced his Raost profile. He gave a link: https://christopherferan.com/2021/03/15 ... -protocol/ . In this link the author recommends to rehydrate coffee to about 16% humidity to get better taste. In the trade it isn't it recommended that green coffee should have more than 12% humidity. In the article he gives an example howto humidify beans from 9% to 16%. I have no moisture meter (yet!) so I supposed what was left of my beans had that humidity so I added the water needed in a container with the beans and waited 9 hours before roast. I used the same amount by weight of the beans as 10 days before but in reality there were less beans and more water of course. I used the same D-Light profile that I had modified with a different fan profile to lessen the power demands as I'm on 230V (not 240V). https://kaffelogic.com/community/viewto ... =318#p2320
The screenshot of the roast with this 2019 bean is with a washed Peru Tropical Mountains that was roasted 7 days ago. The ROR curve is X5 on the Y-axis and the smoothing is the default 30 sec. I've had a discussion with @Geronimo in another thread about the smoothing and I think it could be of value to have less smoothing maybe below 15 sec or even lower to more easily see changes in the ROR curve. This roast is modified by me to suit beans for more normal moisture beans (10-12%) and I think it looks rather ok.
This is the roast today with the rehydrated beans: This is a bit different. The important developing phase after 1st crack looks very nice with the rehydrated beans but the ROR is dipping a bit before 1st crack and I can see the need for some modifications. The profile used has a second +2 zone but it needs to be extended to between 5-6 minutes and the third -3 zone should start directly after that. I think this could make the ROR curve even better even if it's already nice after 1st crack.
EDIT 4th of Jan: Both roasts were 100g. The drier beans lost 14.5g in weight. The rehydrated beans lost 21.3g. They had got 8g water 9 hours before the roast. If I subtract the water did the rehydrated beans loose about 1g less in weight. The end temp for the dry beans were around 219 C and for the rehydrated around 217 C. This difference can explain the difference in weight loss. Both roasts were stopped around DTR 21%. The rehydrated got a lower L=1.4 and the dry beans L=1.7 (mean of two roasts). The two roasts look very similar Light/Med Light. They are both evenly roasted inside maybe the rehydrated a little more even but its difficult to see any differencies. The rehydrated beans seems to be a little bigger in size after the roast. I tasted the dry beans today 9 days after the roast and they had a nice acidity, rather nice sweetness, some fruit and the taste hold together after the coffee had cooled. Actually the coffee (drip coffee) tasted better than expected. End EDIT
Anyway it will be interesting to taste and compare the two roasts. I will taste the first roast and in about a week the rehydrated roast from today and take notes. It's not possible to make a blind taste. I have no more of this bean but I have other beans that are becoming out of date. If I want to take this further I may need a moisture meter. I will see if I can find a not so expensive one. Any tips?
This has been up before in a couple of threads. I didn't take it seriously as I thought I had fresh beans. With a roast a week ago I noticed that the roast didn't work as expected. The beans were "left overs" from 2019. They didn't develop so well inside. I have more beans that are becoming "old" as the pandemic made me buy more than I needed as I thought there may become a shortage of coffee.
@benjaminfleon mentioned rehydrating coffee when he introduced his Raost profile. He gave a link: https://christopherferan.com/2021/03/15 ... -protocol/ . In this link the author recommends to rehydrate coffee to about 16% humidity to get better taste. In the trade it isn't it recommended that green coffee should have more than 12% humidity. In the article he gives an example howto humidify beans from 9% to 16%. I have no moisture meter (yet!) so I supposed what was left of my beans had that humidity so I added the water needed in a container with the beans and waited 9 hours before roast. I used the same amount by weight of the beans as 10 days before but in reality there were less beans and more water of course. I used the same D-Light profile that I had modified with a different fan profile to lessen the power demands as I'm on 230V (not 240V). https://kaffelogic.com/community/viewto ... =318#p2320
The screenshot of the roast with this 2019 bean is with a washed Peru Tropical Mountains that was roasted 7 days ago. The ROR curve is X5 on the Y-axis and the smoothing is the default 30 sec. I've had a discussion with @Geronimo in another thread about the smoothing and I think it could be of value to have less smoothing maybe below 15 sec or even lower to more easily see changes in the ROR curve. This roast is modified by me to suit beans for more normal moisture beans (10-12%) and I think it looks rather ok.
This is the roast today with the rehydrated beans: This is a bit different. The important developing phase after 1st crack looks very nice with the rehydrated beans but the ROR is dipping a bit before 1st crack and I can see the need for some modifications. The profile used has a second +2 zone but it needs to be extended to between 5-6 minutes and the third -3 zone should start directly after that. I think this could make the ROR curve even better even if it's already nice after 1st crack.
EDIT 4th of Jan: Both roasts were 100g. The drier beans lost 14.5g in weight. The rehydrated beans lost 21.3g. They had got 8g water 9 hours before the roast. If I subtract the water did the rehydrated beans loose about 1g less in weight. The end temp for the dry beans were around 219 C and for the rehydrated around 217 C. This difference can explain the difference in weight loss. Both roasts were stopped around DTR 21%. The rehydrated got a lower L=1.4 and the dry beans L=1.7 (mean of two roasts). The two roasts look very similar Light/Med Light. They are both evenly roasted inside maybe the rehydrated a little more even but its difficult to see any differencies. The rehydrated beans seems to be a little bigger in size after the roast. I tasted the dry beans today 9 days after the roast and they had a nice acidity, rather nice sweetness, some fruit and the taste hold together after the coffee had cooled. Actually the coffee (drip coffee) tasted better than expected. End EDIT
Anyway it will be interesting to taste and compare the two roasts. I will taste the first roast and in about a week the rehydrated roast from today and take notes. It's not possible to make a blind taste. I have no more of this bean but I have other beans that are becoming out of date. If I want to take this further I may need a moisture meter. I will see if I can find a not so expensive one. Any tips?