Coffee Roasting - education and resources

Here are some great videos. Good sound, well organized, clear speech -- and above all, good information.

• Captains Coffee
• Photos of roast levels

• Captains Coffee - SR800 beginners guide
• Captains Coffee - dark roasting Indonesian on the SR800
• Captains Coffee - Natural coffees and the SR800
• Captains Coffee - Extension tube guide
• Captains Coffee - Full Medium roast for washed coffee

• Virtual Coffee Lab
• VCL: finding great green coffee beans

Processes

• Dry Process (natural coffee) - the fruit is left on the bean and the intact cherries are left in the sun to dry for days or weeks. The dried fruit is removed later, yielding the beans. This transfers fruity flavors into the bean. This is a simpler and less "industrial" way to process coffee, but only works given a dry climate at the time the beans are being processed
• Wet Process (washed coffee) - the idea here is to get the fruit off the bean as quickly as possible. The cherries get mashed and the mashed pulp gets washed off the beans which are then dried.
• Honey Process - this is a middle ground. Most of the fruit is removed, but a residue (mucilage) is left on the bean to dry, giving them a glossy look.

So, I lied and there are actually three ways. Some people say there are four. There are probably a multitude depending how you want to split hairs.

What is sometimes called a "semi-washed" or wet hulled process is commonly used in Indonesia. A first washing removes most of the fruit, but the beans with mucilage are let rest for a day, then washed a second time to remove the mucilage, then dried.

People talk about "pulped" or "pulped natural" coffees. As near as I can tell, this is the same as the semi-washed or wet-hulled process or the "Giling Basah" process used in Indonesia. In Giling Basah, machines remove the skins from the cherries, then the beans with mucilage are stored for a day (being raked several times an hour). Fermentation breaks down the sticky residue which is then more easily removed. This yields beans with a blue-green color and gives the charactereistic Indonesion taste and profile. After the second washing, the beans must be dried to 10-12 percent water to be suitable for sale and export.

The Honey process is becoming popular in Costa Rica. A big part of it is managing fermentation and taking care that bad things don't happen if the weather doesn't cooperate. There are yellow, read, and black honey process beans with increasing amounts of residual pulp.

• Coffee processing methods
• Red Rooster Coffee - the Processing of Coffee

Lingo

SHB - strictly hard bean
SHG - strictly high grown (both indicate grown over 1350 meters (4400 feet))

• Coffee glossary