Growing coffee

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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

[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.

[GrahamK]

Thanks for info CD. Sounds like a biggish job to set up netting properly. Need to try and find out exactly what has started to take a liking to the cherries. Its interesting but definitely not very cost effective to GYO, to be honest.

GrahamK

[chokkidog]

Coming from a viticulture background the best way to keep pests off your fruit is nets.

They can be unsightly, need anchoring against wind and have to be kept off the fruit.

Animals aren't dumb and if you just drape nets over the coffee trees, cherry eating pests will learn to jump up and

down on the nets until they can get to their next meal. A frame of curved poly pipe over the coffee trees is the easiest and cheapest method

that won't snag and rip the netting.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=p...w=1546&bih=889

If you construct a tunnel type, then a straight piece of pvc pipe used as a ridge will keep the arches straight.

Chemicals..... well, they're chemicals and you need to keep re-spraying as fruit/trees develop and rain happens.

[Barry_Duncan]

There are some bird and animal repellents with the active ingredient of Aluminium Ammonium Sulphate. Two of these are De-ter and Scat. Has anyone tried these to see if they work on possums? I have used Scat to try to keep wombats away.

These do not kill or dammage the animals. the odour repells them.

Barry

[GrahamK]

Possum Training:

I was wondering if anyone had successfully dealt with having possums nick your coffee cherries off the trees. Do devices such as nets work, or do they just sneak underneath. ( I am assuming its possums, as not yet caught them in the act, but not enough mess to be bats I reckon, and hopefully not rats).

They are actually great little pulpers, so there is a possible market there if I could just train them to leave the seeds (beans) in a neat pile on my doorstep rather than scatter all over and/or under the trees. (They do not eat the seeds like Civets apparently). I've now got a great number of new trees popping up under the more mature ones, but have already have about 20 odd sitting in pots looking for a spot to plant them.

Any ideas or experience out there?

GrahamK

[shortblackman]

Okay. Thanks everyone. You'll hear from me again!!!

(When I've procured some beans/ plants that is, not when I've drunk my first SBM SO. That'll probably be a while..)

[GrahamK]

You mean like normal nurseries and , say, big hardware chains?

Hardware chains do NOT tend to sell them, but here in Brisbane for instance, some of the nurseries do have them. They are normally the K7 Dwarfs. (DWARF COFFEE - CATUI Coffea Arabica) - Do a search on "Daleysfruit.com.au" as an example.

They can take a few years to start bearing fruit, so the bigger you can get them the better.

GrahamK

[Vinitasse]

You mean like normal nurseries and , say, big hardware chains?

Vinitasse. Does your self seeded plant get a lot of sun? It's pretty limited at my place.

My coffee tree decided to grow right next to the western wall of my roastery and only gets the late afternoon sun and doesn't seem to mind its "shade grown" status at all.

[Elvis3577]

Hi Shortblackman !

I bought my green beans ( about 30 ...? ) through ebay , And I think this guy resides in Melbourne.
So I was a bit sceptical at first but I had a 90% striking rate !
Have a look , otherwise let me know and I'll look it up for you .

But yes. give them as much sun as possible !

Good luck !

E P