Just joined...1st post, thanks for having me!
This may be posted elsewhere, but I'm a newbie... so will ask anyway.
I've got 2 Arabica coffee trees which I've lovingly nurtured since seedling for the last 3 years (I live in Port Macquarie, NSW - nice sub-tropical climate). My largest tree has produced somewhere in the vicinity of about 1kg of beans since about June last year. Initially, I was getting a couple of handfuls ripe at a time, and life was good. I'd pop the beans out, soak them for a day or two, dry them, then shell them by hand....dry them some more. But at the start of November the tree went nuts and I had over 500gm of beans all ripe at once. All good I thought. However getting 1/2 a kilo of semi dry beans out of their jackets is painstakingly slow & labour intensive . After paying my 8 yr old $5 an hour and doing it myself for what must have been all up easily 6+ hours, I think I need to somehow get the shells hulled somewhere mechanically.
What I'm wondering and hoping is that somewhere, someone has a hulling machine that i can send my beans to and get them sent back to me.....all green and shell free. I don't think I can handle doing the whole thing manually, especially since my 2nd tree will produce in quantity next year too. Alternatively has anyone concocted up any sort of device that does this easier? I know there's a lot of people out there growing their own beans, so I couldn't be the first one to come across this problem. I know I can buy green beans, but I like the idea of my own coffee from start to finish.
I've read about roasting in the shell....but it doesn't look and sound all that successful, and appears to be difficult to grind.
Incidentally, with a El-cheapo pop corn maker I've sampled a couple of roasts. 1st one was awesome....but I only put a couple of tablespoons of beans in. 2nd one I loaded up and murdered by over roasting. 3rd lot was better, but I had a bit too much variation in roasted bean colour - some really dark, others quite light : Moral of the story= small batches in future (plus do this outside, because at 11.30pm wife gets angry when all the fire alarms in the house go off and kids all get woken up). Will need to experiment with how long to leave roasted beans to sit for next. So far I've given them a bit over 24 hours, but I'm told this may not be long enough for all the CO2 to get out and the flavours develop properly.
The good people at PEAK COFFEE in Port Macquarie (great coffee - had a Kenyan Pea Berry latte from them this morning) have said they have a sample roaster that they're happy to roast up my next decent batch in. They put me onto this forum in the hope of solving my hulling issues.
Anyway, look forward to seeing what people can come up with.
Great site.... I'm going to have a look around now.
Cheers
Link.
This may be posted elsewhere, but I'm a newbie... so will ask anyway.
I've got 2 Arabica coffee trees which I've lovingly nurtured since seedling for the last 3 years (I live in Port Macquarie, NSW - nice sub-tropical climate). My largest tree has produced somewhere in the vicinity of about 1kg of beans since about June last year. Initially, I was getting a couple of handfuls ripe at a time, and life was good. I'd pop the beans out, soak them for a day or two, dry them, then shell them by hand....dry them some more. But at the start of November the tree went nuts and I had over 500gm of beans all ripe at once. All good I thought. However getting 1/2 a kilo of semi dry beans out of their jackets is painstakingly slow & labour intensive . After paying my 8 yr old $5 an hour and doing it myself for what must have been all up easily 6+ hours, I think I need to somehow get the shells hulled somewhere mechanically.
What I'm wondering and hoping is that somewhere, someone has a hulling machine that i can send my beans to and get them sent back to me.....all green and shell free. I don't think I can handle doing the whole thing manually, especially since my 2nd tree will produce in quantity next year too. Alternatively has anyone concocted up any sort of device that does this easier? I know there's a lot of people out there growing their own beans, so I couldn't be the first one to come across this problem. I know I can buy green beans, but I like the idea of my own coffee from start to finish.
I've read about roasting in the shell....but it doesn't look and sound all that successful, and appears to be difficult to grind.
Incidentally, with a El-cheapo pop corn maker I've sampled a couple of roasts. 1st one was awesome....but I only put a couple of tablespoons of beans in. 2nd one I loaded up and murdered by over roasting. 3rd lot was better, but I had a bit too much variation in roasted bean colour - some really dark, others quite light : Moral of the story= small batches in future (plus do this outside, because at 11.30pm wife gets angry when all the fire alarms in the house go off and kids all get woken up). Will need to experiment with how long to leave roasted beans to sit for next. So far I've given them a bit over 24 hours, but I'm told this may not be long enough for all the CO2 to get out and the flavours develop properly.
The good people at PEAK COFFEE in Port Macquarie (great coffee - had a Kenyan Pea Berry latte from them this morning) have said they have a sample roaster that they're happy to roast up my next decent batch in. They put me onto this forum in the hope of solving my hulling issues.
Anyway, look forward to seeing what people can come up with.
Great site.... I'm going to have a look around now.
Cheers
Link.

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