Electrical Current Might Be the Key To a Better Cup of Coffee (arstechnica.com) 6
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: University of Oregon chemist Christopher Hendon loves his coffee -- so much so that studying all the factors that go into creating the perfect cuppa constitutes a significant area of research for him. His latest project: discovering a novel means of measuring the flavor profile of coffee simply by sending an electrical current through a sample beverage. The results appear in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
[...] The coffee industry typically uses a method for measuring the refractive index of coffee -- i.e., how light bends as it travels through the liquid -- to determine strength, but it doesn't capture the contribution of roast color to the overall flavor profile. So for this latest study, Hendon decided to focus on roast color and beverage strength, the two variables most likely to affect the sensory profile of the final cuppa. His solution turned out to be quite simple. Hendon repurposed an electrochemical tool called a potentiostat, typically used to test battery and fuel cell performance. Hendon used the tool to measure how electricity interacted with the liquid. He found that this provided a better measurement of the flavor profile. He even tested it on four different samples of coffee beans and successfully identified the distinctive signature of a batch that had failed the roaster's quality-control process.
Granted, one's taste in coffee is fairly subjective, so Hendon's goal was not to achieve a "perfect" cup but to give baristas a simple tool to consistently reproduce flavor profiles more tailored to a given customer's taste. "It's an objective way to make a statement about what people like in a cup of coffee," said Hendon. "The reason you have an enjoyable cup of coffee is almost certainly that you have selected a coffee of a particular roast color and extracted it to a desired strength. Until now, we haven't been able to separate those variables. Now we can diagnose what gives rise to that delicious cup." Outside of his latest electrical-current experiment, Christopher Hendon's coffee research has shown that espresso can be made more consistently by modeling extraction yield -- how much coffee dissolves into the final drink -- and controlling water flow and pressure.
He also found that static electricity from grinding causes fine coffee particles to clump, which disrupts brewing. The solution: adding a small squirt of water to beans before grinding (known as the Ross droplet technique) to reduce that static, cut clumping and waste, and lead to a stronger, more consistent espresso.
[...] The coffee industry typically uses a method for measuring the refractive index of coffee -- i.e., how light bends as it travels through the liquid -- to determine strength, but it doesn't capture the contribution of roast color to the overall flavor profile. So for this latest study, Hendon decided to focus on roast color and beverage strength, the two variables most likely to affect the sensory profile of the final cuppa. His solution turned out to be quite simple. Hendon repurposed an electrochemical tool called a potentiostat, typically used to test battery and fuel cell performance. Hendon used the tool to measure how electricity interacted with the liquid. He found that this provided a better measurement of the flavor profile. He even tested it on four different samples of coffee beans and successfully identified the distinctive signature of a batch that had failed the roaster's quality-control process.
Granted, one's taste in coffee is fairly subjective, so Hendon's goal was not to achieve a "perfect" cup but to give baristas a simple tool to consistently reproduce flavor profiles more tailored to a given customer's taste. "It's an objective way to make a statement about what people like in a cup of coffee," said Hendon. "The reason you have an enjoyable cup of coffee is almost certainly that you have selected a coffee of a particular roast color and extracted it to a desired strength. Until now, we haven't been able to separate those variables. Now we can diagnose what gives rise to that delicious cup." Outside of his latest electrical-current experiment, Christopher Hendon's coffee research has shown that espresso can be made more consistently by modeling extraction yield -- how much coffee dissolves into the final drink -- and controlling water flow and pressure.
He also found that static electricity from grinding causes fine coffee particles to clump, which disrupts brewing. The solution: adding a small squirt of water to beans before grinding (known as the Ross droplet technique) to reduce that static, cut clumping and waste, and lead to a stronger, more consistent espresso.
a moron contest, you win Beau (Score:1)
"Hendon used the tool to measure how electricity interacted with the liquid. He found that this provided a better measurement of the flavor profile. "
I doubt this very seriously, but more than that, this would not characterize "roast color and beverage strength".
"...so Hendon's goal was not to achieve a "perfect" cup but to give baristas a simple tool to consistently reproduce flavor profiles more tailored to a given customer's taste. "
A task for which this technique is totally useless. Measuring some elec
Don't (Score:2)
This is one of those “you scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should” kind of deals.
I am not looking for a more perfectly consistent coffee -according to some invented metric. I just want good coffee. It is not that hard to make good coffee. Leave it alone.
This sounds like an attempt to qualify what makes coffee coffee-like so that an artificial coffee substitute can be produced that meets minimum standards.
Let coffee be analog.
Re: (Score:2)
I just want good coffee. It is not that hard to make good coffee.
The older I've gotten, the less tolerance I seem to have for caffeine. Even a single cup of strong coffee keeps me up all night, so I tend to indulge very sparingly these days.
There is no need (Score:2)
Good coffee is out there and, you know, most people can just use the thing "sense of taste" that they come equipped with to identify it!
Audiophiles to the rescue (Score:2)
Wetting your coffee beans seems like it would make a mess of the grinder. From my brief time lurking in audiophile forums, I've discovered static charges tend to be the bane of their existence too, and there's various gadgets that can be used to de-static a vinyl record. I bet they'd also work on coffee beans, or at least have the same placebo effect.
Re: (Score:2)
Wetting your coffee beans seems like it would make a mess of the grinder. From my brief time lurking in audiophile forums, I've discovered static charges tend to be the bane of their existence too, and there's various gadgets that can be used to de-static a vinyl record. I bet they'd also work on coffee beans, or at least have the same placebo effect.
The static is introduced while you're grinding the beans, due to friction in the grinding process. So any de-static treatment of the beans before grinding would be pointless.
Treatments for removing static from vinyl records don't seem feasible for already-ground coffee. Carbon-fiber brushes would just make a mess, and anti-static fluid would render the coffee undrinkable. A zerostat gun might be an option, but I think you'd need to spread out the coffee very thinly, as it just removes static from the surfac