<Snip>
(I was writing this last night and felt like I am being a real 
curmudgeon on this topic - I wasn't going to send it, because 
basically I really appreciate the spirit of inventiveness, and my 
arguement about the fact that "prof. roasters don't do it" rings a 
bit hollow. Nonetheless, there are some points here about how water 
has been used in roasting to increase salable product, and my own 
tests so far so ...)
Some random thoughts and 2 bit opinions in concurrence with the above....
I don't want to rain on the parade hear (or the coffee) but I am 
still convinced that this wetting thing is a bad idea, even as I 
carry out some experiments of my own. I have only worked with a 
Yirgacheffe on it, and did some roasts with various soak times and 
roast times yesterday and cupped them today. In line with other 
peoples findings, the cup was flattened in all cases, and I noticed 
some off notes - but the main loss was in acidity. I know people are 
going at this with the low acid coffees with more success that the 
bright ones (the coffees I mean) and I havent tried that yet. But you 
have to believe that if there was ANY way in the world that you could 
add water to coffee before or during the roast process, it would be 
done in commercial coffee roasting. Indeed it is, in cooling on large 
roasters and the results are quick cool times but a greater surface 
porousity in the roasted coffee and quicker oxidation/ lack of 
freshness over time. Everyone in the commercial end knows this. 
Another highly unscrupulous use of water quenching in big roasters is 
to add moisture content back to the coffee. Coffee is sold by weight 
right? You are making some pretty good money by any method of 
increasing the weight of the product. I even stumbled across a real 
weasel in the coffee trade who is making a digital device to automate 
the reintroduction of water to coffee in the cooling process that 
tells you how much you need to cool it, and how much you can get away 
with in terms of increasing the weight. Ugh.... (This effort to 
increase coffee weight also includes adding chaff back to roasted 
coffee if it is ultimately going to be ground. There are machines 
that specifically add water to chaff and regrind it so it is 
indistinguishable in the final R&G product.)
  All this is done by the bottom-feeders in the coffee trade. But I 
would say that if you could add water to green and end up with less 
weight loss overall you would be doing the same thing. But of course 
this experimentation is done not to "clean" the coffee like that 
yahoo commercial roaster I mentioned before (hey- he's a yahoo, 
there's no other way to put it) or to increase our yield. Rather it 
is to shape our roast profiles and extend roast times. But why? I 
would never put a coffee in my Probat that took 12 minutes to acheive 
a good roast, and choose to roast it 20. I wnat to achieve a sound 
roast while exposing coffee to heat for the shortest amount of time 
necessary, not the longest. Drum roasters take longer because you 
would scorch coffee in the warmup phase by transferring heat to it 
too quickly - air roasters reduce this warmup phase greatly by a more 
efficient heat transfer dynamic. If you could warmup coffee quickly 
and evenly in a drum roaster without fear of scorching or tipping, 
you would ... and in fact that is why the Lilla is a great roaster - 
basically an air roaster / drum roaster hybrid. I think what an air 
roast profile needs is a throrough and even warmup with good 
agitation through the air stream and a slower finish, with an 
extension of the time between 1st and 2nd crack - the Freshroast 
finishes hot and fast, the i-Roast has a nice long pause between 
cracks - the folks using Variacs on Rostos and poppers I think are, 
for the most part, going for this "slower-finish" technique. ALl of 
my wet roasts have had very poor initial agitation because the coffee 
is heavy and sticky, meaning I had to shake the roaster to get 
movement with even a reduced batch - so I am basically getting more 
unevenness in the roasting. I prepared a quick sample of the Yirg at 
City+ in the cupping brew method and actually was a little impressed 
- this was right after roasting. But I noticed the head on the cup, 
foam that is largely due to CO2 degassing, which would normally be 
huge right after roasting, was reduced. (Could be from long roast 
times that more CO2 is lost, or could be from the soak). SO maybe 
what we are seeing in rapidly diminishing cup quality is similar to 
over-quench cooled roasts, but in a more extreme way. I will say 
this, I expected some of my Yirg. cups to be a lot worse than they 
were - especially the one I soaked for an hour! Considering what it 
went through, it wasn't THAT bad... but I would say there was an odd 
sort of rubbery taint in the cup.
OK - sorry if all this seems grouchy. I can be wrong about this whole 
thing and I certainly have been wrong about a lot of things in 
coffee. Who knows, maybe in 5 years every coffee roaster in the 
country will be soaking roasts!
Tom
-- 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                   "Great coffee comes from tiny roasters"
            Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting  -  Tom & Maria
                      http://www.sweetmarias.com                Thompson Owen george

[snip]
<Snip>
above....
<Snip>
[snip]
Tom,
Thanks for weighing in on this. After some trials on my own beans, I'm
more certain than before that this process kills acidity. Personally,
even if it enhances low acidity coffee, even temporarily, it's not of
much interest to me because I don't enjoy those kinds of coffees as SO
drinks. When I do use them, I prefer to combine them with other
coffees to achieve balance. So I'm glad not to be soaking beans and I
guess I'll just go the non-soaked-bean route for the time being.
But...I'm not, in any way, being critical or trying to discourage
anyone else in this regard and I love trying new ideas; and then
deciding for myself.
Bob Yellin

<Snip>
Les called us nay-sayers, but now since Tom has joined in I feel I am in
good company.
<Snip>
It is bad from the standpoint of why should it be needed for well prepped
fresh beans. Ignoring taste preference (which is dangerous), fresh green
from a quality source can not be improved by adding water, unless your roast
profile is wrong to start with. Soaking in excess water for an extended time
(at least 30 minutes IMO) will leach some solubles. This is definitely bad
unless you prefer near zero brightness in your coffee.
<Snip>
Maybe cleaning is needed for decafs? I rinsed some Harar decaf and even
after 3 rinses, the water was still a stinking turbid brown. The beans
roasted normally after air drying for several hours. The taste was
excellent. Rinsing was done by placing the beans in a jar with netting on
the top, filling the jar with water, shaking for 5 seconds and dumping the
water. After 3 rinses, the beans are spilled out on a paper towel and
blotted, then transferred to a metal tray to dry in air. This same lot of
coffee was used unrinsed in my 1.9 minute roast and also tasted excellent.
From your previous post of July 27:
<Snip>
The water most likely slowed the roast at the time that trigonelline is most
easily decomposed and interfered with the reaction. This also occurs in
non-wetted beans if the profile before first crack is too slow. My thinking
on this is that water is a catalyst for the decomposition, provided the
temperature is also correct. Driving off the water at too low a temperature
IMO prevents the trigonelline decomposition and results in sour flavors that
persist even in dark roasts. There may be a critical difference in where the
water of soaking ends up. If it merely wets the pores of the bean, it may
just evaporate during the roast and only serve to lower the temperature. If
the water does not penetrate the cells where the trigonelline occurs, it
cannot participate in the reaction.
--

<Snip>
On a related point, I didn't try soaking a Robusta and as we have 
discussed before, the steaming of Robusta to remove typical rubbery 
character and bitterness is being done by the "big 4". It is being 
done mostly in Germany and Italy, and of course in the US. (You know, 
I am trying to remember who the 4th of the big 4 is and I can't - 
Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Kraft ... and who??? oh - Sara Lee I 
think...)
<Snip>
temperature is also correct.
Very interesting thought on this Ken, and thanks for correcting my 
spelling! I was too lazy to go look it up and it is NOT one of those 
words that rolls of the tongue...
-- 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
                   "Great coffee comes from tiny roasters"
            Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting  -  Tom & Maria
                      http://www.sweetmarias.com                Thompson Owen george

On 30 Jul 2004 at 9:56, Tom & Maria - Sweet Maria's Coffee wrote:
<Snip>
With respect, I think there's a slight fallacy here: 
Airroasters that blow the same temperature air throughout get to 
the first crack too fast, and produce grassy, undeveloped light 
roasts (it makes less difference for roasts to the 2nd crack or 
beyond). One doesn't need as long a warm up as a drum (that 
actually flattens the taste a bit), but about 6 to 8 minutes to 
the first crack, rather than the usual 2 to 5, significantly 
improves the taste.
This is just about the only conclusion all us roast 
experimenters (except ofcourse the formidable Ken Mary, who 
advocates fast roasts) have come to -- it pays to ramp the 
temperature of the air blown into an airroaster up from about 
300-350 to about 450-500 (design dependent) so the beans stay 
even as they warm to the first crack. This could be done a lot 
more inexpensively than using a PID (a simple stove style 
control on a spring timer would do it).
So my feeling is one should roast as fast as possible with the 
"speed limit" of keeping the beans being roasted evenly colored 
throughout the roast. Most airroasters get a speeding ticket 
early in the roast
Jim