Growing coffee

[chokkidog]

Not as big as it looks Graham. Gathering your materials is the (not very) harder part.

I've seen a frame of 6 arches go up in less than half an hour, covering a veggie patch and

where you could stand up under the net.

But it would be good to find the culprit! If it's a possum maybe a trap and relocation might help??

Cheers.

[herbie]

We are currently processing the 3rd pick from our 2 small Arabica coffee trees. We have just finished drinking delicious mild flavored espressos from our 1st 250g roast of our own grown beans. The photo of the pour was 5 days post roast but the flavor improved after another 4 days.
The beans we picked 5 days ago from 1 tree are now drying for a week or so until really brittle (have to be only 12% moisture). The beans picked only 4 days ago from our other tree are fermenting in rain water in a plastic bucket until tomorrow after which they will be washed in small batches in a kitchen sieve with a pressure hose and wash gun and then placed on a mesh drying rack.
Parchment removal after this is now easier with my home made wooden "propeller" (see "removing the parchment" thread).
Cheers Herbie

[Elvis3577]

Looking good Herbie !

Do you find that fermenting in rainwater makes a difference ? ( Opposed to tapwater ? )

I've just picked a handful of cherries this morning to see how it's going. And even though the colour is fine etc ; half of them are floaters !
Can they be used for planting or anything or just chuck them ?

And how do you work out the moisture content ?

Can't wait to drink my very first cup of homegrown coffee !!

Cheers.

[herbie]

Hi Elvis 3577,
It does give one a real buzz to do your first roast of your own home grown beans and even more to taste the results.
The reasoning to use rain water for fermenting is that chlorine interferes with the process.
Before fermenting the cherries the flesh has to be removed. In my case one at a time by hand-very time consuming when there is about 3 liters of cherries per tree per pick. I have purchased a hand food mincer to try removing the flesh on the next picking.
I had very few floaters but you could try to germinate them- I just put mine on the garden.
I dried my parchment covered beans in the sun until the internal green beans were really hard and brittle and that took about a week. I have now ended up with about 900 grams for each 1 metre tall tree with still a few more to ripen.
Enjoy the journey.
Cheers Herbie.

[Luke_G]

If you have no choice but to use tap water, leave it in open containers over night so the chlorine evaporates off it before use.

Floater WILL sprout!
I found this out a few years ago after dumping them on the compost heap. 6 months later, my compost heap had an army of coffee seedling soldiers standing at the ready

If you only want the strongest of coffee trees, only use seed stock from your strongest and heaviest producing trees.

[Divey]

I have just started, well, two weeks ago picking the cherries of my two little trees. I will definitely get enough to roast this year. I find it interesting when removing the mucilage that you can discover one bean instead of the normal two beans side by side and you can also take the mucilage off a large cherry and find three beans.

I'm not worry about fermenting in the water, I'm simply letting them dry in the sun with their gooey mass on the outside. I'm not too familiar with the terminology but I think this method is called honey processed... could be wrong though.

[herbie]

Hi Divey,
I must admit I hadn't thought of using the honey process, which, from what I have now read gives sweeter and fruitier coffee.
I will definitely try it next year with the only stipulation being that the cherries must be really red and ripe.
My last 150 grams of beans are currently on the drying rack and I get cherries with 1,2 and 3 beans in them.
Enjoy the journey.
Herbie

[GrahamK]

My first 2 years I washed/fermented, but used a honey style for the last 2 years. With manageable batches I think its easier to prevent them getting mouldy etc.

Still not sure how much of a difference it is making taste wise. Honey processing a bit of a pain when its during a wet rainy period and stays sticky. The ants also like it that way. But found a good drying rack makes a big difference.

GrahamK

[Elvis3577]

Hi everyone.
I picked a few hundred grams of red cherries just over a week ago now. Had one batch on rain water for three days and the mucilage was still there... So took it off anyway. The other batch that I picked a bit later was on rain water for a day and drained it. Still with the mucilage on , and visibly different from each other . The first batch looks more washed out, paler. The second a bit more yellowy. Probably explains the name honey ....
I got them on a home made drying rack ( a portable timber frame with a net nailed/stapled over it, and a second smaller one ; a Chinese take-away container with an old nylon from my wife ) So I can move them around with the sun , or even bring them in overnight.
Still unsure on when and how to make the call on when it's okay to stop the drying and take the parchment off.
I've got some more beans on the tree ( as well as lots of green ones ) that are nearly ready to be picked and will do the 'dry-fermenting' with those ones.

Coincidentally , we were at Big W on Saturday and they have a 700W domed popcorn maker about a foot square with a built in wire-agitator for 40 bucks. Bought that, thinking and hoping that's almost perfect. Although I might have to tinker with the agitator a bit. Hoping I could be ready to roast the first batch this week.... ?
I'll let you know how it all went.

Cheers.

[Divey]

Hmmmm, after that last post I'm a little concerned that I may have my terminology of the makeup of a Coffee Cherry arse up. I thought the mucilage was the red thick covering that is on the outside of a cherry. I have no idea what the slippery stuff is called that is on the outside of the beans, and, I thought washed coffee was beans that had the 'red outer skin' removed and then placed in water.

Can someone with more experience clear this up for me?

[Elvis3577]

Oh ... just thought of this as well....
With the floaters I have found that there's physically something wrong with them.
Hence the fact that most often there is an air-pocket in the bean that makes it float. Even when taking the red skin of I noticed that the floaters have an almost yellowy colour to them and sometimes semi translucent , where the good ones are a bit darker and at least feint greenish looking. So I wouldn't use to plant or grow new stock from either.
However, as someone mentioned on the phone last week, it's still a coffee bean. I've kept the ones from the last pick and will treat them the same way and see if it makes any difference.
At the end of the day you'll grind it anyway and in theory you can't tell the difference anymore....
Wether that thesis holds , I don't know yet.
So, let's try and find out !

E.P.

[Elvis3577]

Hi Divey.

Maybe I've got it wrong...and that wouldn't surprise me...;-)
So I just got this link quickly : Anatomy of the Coffee Fruit and Bean | Casa Brasil Coffees
Hopefully that explains it.

Ta

[GrahamK]

However, as someone mentioned on the phone last week, it's still a coffee bean. I've kept the ones from the last pick and will treat them the same way and see if it makes any difference.
At the end of the day you'll grind it anyway and in theory you can't tell the difference anymore....
Wether that thesis holds , I don't know yet.
So, let's try and find out ! E.P.

There is a risk is that if you get bad beans, or what are sometimes called "stinkers" they can actually ruin the whole roast batch, so I don't think its worth taking the risk personally.

Divey - The mucilage is the slimy covering after you have pulped the bean (i.e. removed the fruit layer skin etc). The fermenting process uses the natural yeasts found in the mucilage to ferment off the mucilage. The fermenting takes a day or two, and are ready when they stop being slimy, (fermenting for too long also not a good thing), after which you rinse them (creating the "washed" beans), before drying. Washing can help prevent defects as well.

Once dried you then remove the hull to get to the bean itself. I have read that it benefits from some quiet time (a few months), before hulling, but not sure how true that is.

See: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/flavor.htm

GrahamK

[chokkidog]

Hmmmm, after that last post I'm a little concerned that I may have my terminology of the makeup of a Coffee Cherry arse up. I thought the mucilage was the red thick covering that is on the outside of a cherry. I have no idea what the slippery stuff is called that is on the outside of the beans, and, I thought washed coffee was beans that had the 'red outer skin' removed and then placed in water.

Can someone with more experience clear this up for me?

Hi Divey,

Wiki has plenty of information under 'Coffee Production', including bean cross - section diagrams.

Google has a squillion references too, under 'Coffee Processing'.

Have a read and if you still have any questions, post them up.

Although it's Vietnam specific there is pretty comprehensive info on coffee growing here:

http://www.defoundation.org/assets/K...BookFinal1.pdf

Also some info on your query re honey process....

http://cqcoffeeroasters.com/pages/processing

[Divey]

Thanks Chokkidog, I sure have some reading on my hands now.