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Quakers (especially in Harrar)

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  • amberale
    replied
    Bump!
    So good to get the info in this thread.
    As a roasting neophyte I have been concerned that the patchy results on some of my roasts(Shakisso,Guji) haven’t just been due to my ineptitude but something wrong with my KL Nano7 and or my power supply.

    I’ve been getting nice consitency with the likes of Ceja de Selva and Brazilian beans (still dialling in the perfect roast) so I’ll either go all OCD and pull the light ones out or squint and ignore them.
    Thanks to everyones inputs.

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  • Andy
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    Andy! its a shame you deleted post #27, it was very informative
    It's back, but only because I thought I deleted it fast enough for no one to see it. You were speedy.

    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    As a matter of interest, this roast turned out to be very good, regardless of the lighter beans, in fact I suspect they added to the complexity of the brew.
    BINGO, glad you "get it". We select coffees not on appearance but how they taste. At the end of the day that should be everyone's goal, not how pretty a roast it is.

    The Golden Bean is a great coffee competition because the judges only get the wet coffee, they don't see the beans or the grinds which can add a level of opinion prior to tasting. I don't care how ugly, I care how good.

    Click image for larger version

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    Took a snap of the cooling tray today. Lucky if there are 1:100 or 1:200 (someone else can count them) light coloured beans and again, they don't hurt the overall flavour (as blindly judged last month in a 1600+ entry competition).

    I suspect that if someone is getting different results with the Bensa then their roast profile might need to be modified, most likely stretched out. A fast roast of anything with varying densities will result in a very patchy roast.

    ...don't blame the bean!

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  • Dimal
    replied
    Well said Leroy...

    Mal.

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  • LeroyC
    replied
    Quakers (especially in Harrar)

    What you guys are seeing are NOT quakers. A natural processed Ethiopian is a good place to find a quaker, but if there were any present it may be at the level of 1-2 beans per kilo, not 5% of the roast. I know Andy buys a variety of different types and grades of coffee, but if he’d ever ended up with a coffee that contained 5% quakers he wouldn’t sell it and he would never buy that coffee again. I have no doubt that you are getting different colouration of roasted coffee, this is part and parcel of roasting a natural processed coffee, but let me repeat - they are NOT quakers. There are two things that could be causing the unevenness you see in the roasted coffee. The first and most likely is coffee that hasn’t fermented evenly due to the processing method. No matter how much attention a natural process coffee gets its almost impossible to generate perfectly even fermentation due to the very nature of how it’s done. The second is different ripeness levels. The lighter beans could be less ripe than the rest. This doesn’t necessarily make them un-ripe and it definitely doesn’t mean they’re quakers. The Royal Coffee article that was linked above contains some good info but assumes a level of knowledge. In saying that it does give some of this detail and it contains a big clue in this photo that they posted -



    If you want to know what content of quakers the Harrar you have contains (if any) then roast a small test batch past second crack. Any quakers present will still be light and orange-yellow while everything else will be very dark and oily. I’m not saying you won’t find one, but it won’t be 5% of the roast.

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  • Lyrebird
    replied
    Echoes of a debate that comes and goes in the wine industry. Some think that picking at a range of ripeness levels gives a range of flavours that increases complexity. Some think that getting the fruit evenly and optimally ripe will allow the vineyard to show its best and a good vineyard will give a complex wine. I am firmly in the second camp but there are winemakers I respect who are in the first.

    Similarly, I prefer my Ethiopians with the Quakers removed but you may prefer the coffee with them included.

    A chacun son goût.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    The plot thickens!

    My latest roast, 750 grams of Ethiopian Gambella Sundried is very uneven, certainly not Quakers, however a good percentage were much lighter than I'm accustomed to.

    My roasts are normally very even, was quite surprised at the way this batch turned out.
    As a matter of interest, this roast turned out to be very good, regardless of the lighter beans, in fact I suspect they added to the complexity of the brew.

    No more grumbles from me about Ethiopian naturally processed beans.

    Andy! its a shame you deleted post #27, it was very informative.

    Leave a comment:


  • Andy
    replied
    Happy Birthday to a 12 month old thread.

    Originally posted by Lyrebird View Post
    I've just done my first batch of the Bensa Sagara
    That's the very same Bensa Sagara that just won a Bronze medal milk based and Silver medal in espresso in Australia's biggest roasting competition and I didn't remove any of those light beans before or after roasting.

    Again, the light colour beans you are seeing will most likely not add any bad flavours taints to a coffee. Pull one out, chew on it, tastes like cornflakes or at worst like the bran in sultana bran.

    The gotcha with internet regurgitated misinformation is that it keep perpetuating, some might call quakers cereal flavoured beans, others rancid peanut flavours the difference is vast and the term annoyingly ambiguous.

    If light coloured beans give you an OCD twitch then sit there rocking back and forth while removing them or better still don't buy any of the wonderful natural or dry processed beans as without density sorting in water tanks during processing you will always get density variation in the roaster.

    It's possible to remove the higher density beans with a finely tuned destoner but as mentioned, it's a fairly pointless exercise if drinking coffee was your goal.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    The plot thickens!

    My latest roast, 750 grams of Ethiopian Gambella Sundried is very uneven, certainly not Quakers, however a good percentage were much lighter than I'm accustomed to.

    My roasts are normally very even, was quite surprised at the way this batch turned out.

    Leave a comment:


  • Lyrebird
    replied
    Update to this: I've just done my first batch of the Bensa Sagara and they're almost as bad as were the Harrar.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Interesting! over the years the Ethiopian beans I've roasted are Sidamo naturals Ardi, Gambella sundried, Biftu Gesha sundried, Gambella naturals, I imagine sun dried qualify as naturals, have never experienced a problem with quakers, being a naturally frugal person I would certainly have noticed if there had been, to be fair, have never roasted Harrar.

    This AM I roasted 750 grams of Ethiopian yirg special prep with 10% Robusta, (I know not natural processed) the slight unevenness is down to the Robusta, regardless turned out pretty much as I wanted.

    Will make a point of including some Harrar with my next order and give them a go.
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  • flynnaus
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    I .... see very few quakers, most roasts none, every now and again I find the odd one or two, though its a rare occurrence.
    In my experience, Ethiopian beans, especially naturals, do contain a higher number of quakers than other origins.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    I roast a fairly wide variety in my Coretto, 750 grams of green about every 10 days and see very few quakers, most roasts none, every now and again I find the odd one or two, though its a rare occurrence.

    I've been home roasting for about 11 years.

    Leave a comment:


  • Lyrebird
    replied
    Whatever we are going to call these little buggers, the batch of Harrar I roasted today is the worst yet: 21 g of the pale-beans-that-I-think-answer-the-description-of-Quakers-but-Andy-doesn't out of 500g green weight, so more than 5% of the yield of usable beans*. One good thing is that this is enough to run a direct single batch comparison which I'll do once the good beans outgas later in the week.

    And no, I don't think it's my process, a batch of Limmu done immediately afterwards yielded ~2g of pale beans, so about 1/10th the quantity from the Harrar. I use similar roast profiles on these two beans. On the other side of the equation, when I bought Harrar as roasted beans from Andy they also had a high proportion of pale beans.



    * With 16% (80g) roasting loss the 21g of pale beans means the final weight of usable beans was ~399g.
    Last edited by Lyrebird; 28 January 2019, 11:45 AM.

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  • Lyrebird
    replied
    John Cadbury started as a tea, coffee and chocolate merchant, so it's possible.

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  • Barry O'Speedwagon
    replied
    Originally posted by woodhouse View Post
    ...in a 'home roasting - tips, tricks, and ideas' forum?
    Well, despite being teetotallers, the Quakers got heavily involved in brewing and selling beer...figuring that it helped reduce consumption of hard liquor. Maybe they thought coffee was an even better option?

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