Electrical Current Might Be the Key To a Better Cup of Coffee (arstechnica.com) 54
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:3, Troll)
"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 electrical characteristic does not tell you how to make a cup of coffee, it's only tells you a trivial, and probably useless, tidbit about a cup already made.
""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."
It's funny, then, how well known these parameters are. Almost as if people have known this all along, but here we have one guy claiming to have discovered something unknown and inventing a way to measure it that almost certainly doesn't work AND doesn't tell anyone how to make coffee that they already know how to make.
"The solution: adding a small squirt of water to beans before grinding (known as the Ross droplet technique)..."
LOLOL! Funny how all these newly discovered insights had previously existing names! If only static charge could be dealt with after the fact, perhaps more discovery for this genius!
Truly SuperKendellian, the stupidity of this article.
Re:a moron contest, you win Beau (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're a bit harsh and miss the point of the primary research being done while getting upset over perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic musings of the popular publication that also doesn't do a great job at understanding the practical uses of primary research.
First and foremost, yes, in practical world, baristas don't test coffee. Roasters do. Roasters need to know what the supply they're considering getting behaves like to know if they want to buy it, and to know how exactly they want to roast it, to produce whatever product they hope to sell. Even more so than for the selection process, it's important to try achieve batch to batch consistency. Slightly wetter beans need to roast a bit longer (or to be pre-dried) to reach the intended level of "roast", and rather than try figure out exact water content of the beans, you can just roast a sample and see how it behaves. The "see how it behaves" bit is where objective testing comes in, because taste is super subjective and as a good roaster, you know a simple test to calibrate something as basic as acidity to an objective degree will help you with more reproducible take on how that particular test is going flavor wise. Not every cup of coffee ever brewed is a mystery of cosmos. Sometimes you just want to know how long to roast the 50 kilo batch for so it tastes about the same as the last months shipment from the same place, and for instance, measuring the acidity is not a comprehensive evaluation of your coffee, but still a very useful benchmark that's super easy to test for and use as the foundation of the evaluation.
As the article and primary research state, though, the current main benchmark used is refractive index, but that's sensitive to both the roast level, but also the original content of the stuff in your beans, so you can't easily use it to compare different sources of coffee if you don't roast them the exact same, or different roasts if they aren't from the exact same batch of beans.
The minimal practical application the research proposes is that they can measure differences in the coffee more or less regardless (or with ability to adjust for) the roast level, in way that refractive index alone cannot. This means to you, as the roaster, that when you receive a batch of coffee, you don't have to make a whole array of tests at different specific roast levels to figure out what you got. You do a single roast to whatever level you happen to roast for, you measure it with with electrodes instead of a refractometer, and you get more specific results with less work.
Even if it didn't have that specific use case (which is very real, and if I were trying to make a living, I'd be super excited about this paper and building a test setup myself), even if it didn't tell us something brand new about the coffee; researching and publishing new ways to measure things we already had ways to measure before is still, super duper important, because someone else down the line can use that research to further develop a new methods that will get further information we still aren't getting here, and secondly, because someone engineering processes could have use cases where one measurement method isn't as practical as different way of measuring the same thing. Maybe someone gonna figure out a way better better cheap-garbage-coffee roasting production line that will produce much better coffee at lower cost. Maybe someone gonna DIY their home coffee roastery process with this because they didn't have a refractometer but do happen to have a multimeter and bunch of electrodes.
You can't always foresee the worth of things you learn until you have obtained the knowledge. That's why learning, both on personal and social level, is one of the few objective virtues. It is very sad to see people arguing against learning new things, perhaps from some sort of point of view of sage knowledge that they possess that makes them think others are fools for seemingly coming up with answers to questions they find unimportant. If you're disinterested in learning, that's your choice, but please, understand you're only making yourself a very sad clown by putting others down for being interested in learning things you don't think have merit.
Re: a moron contest, you win Beau (Score:2)
Baristas often test the beans they get from the roasters and adjust grind time, grind size and extraction time to get the desired flavour profile.
Even the same roast from the same roaster can vary from batch to batch. Our regular roaster is pretty consistent, but recently we got a new batch from them and we've been having trouble dialing in the taste. It's close, but it's not the quite the same.
Don't (Score:3)
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.
Caffeines 21st Century Death Grip (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.
We live in the era of Death Wish coffee. Much like the craft weed industry, that ain’t Grandpas cuppa tame-ass Joe anymore.
Those jitters are called “wings” now, according to the marketing targeting toddlers tweaking on teacups of twinkle sauce tuning attention spans like a supersized squirrel farm at an ADHD convention.
The coffee/caffeine recommendations from Gen RedBull doctors a decade from now is going to look a lot like the 1950s when smoking doctors were prescribing sponsored cigaret
Re: (Score:2)
We live in the era of Death Wish coffee. Much like the craft weed industry, that ain’t Grandpas cuppa tame-ass Joe anymore.
Those jitters are called “wings” now, according to the marketing targeting toddlers tweaking on teacups of twinkle sauce tuning attention spans like a supersized squirrel farm at an ADHD convention.
The coffee/caffeine recommendations from Gen RedBull doctors a decade from now is going to look a lot like the 1950s when smoking doctors were prescribing sponsored cigarettes to their patients, because not even the one in the room with a medical degree is gonna agree that cutting back is the answer ever again.
And the ever increasing demands to get more and more buzzed on caffeine have a fairly standard end situation. The Panic attack. I've seen it in several cases, including my own. What started out as a way to get a little amped up, and to have good energy for the workday, ends up as a moment when you don't know what is happening, but you know you are going to die in a few seconds. This isn't the psychological panic attack, but very similar.
The fix is simple, stop drinking so damn much coffee. As long as
I can explain - we've got nothing else to live for (Score:3)
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.
I'm a coffee enthusiast, home roaster, etc. At some point, your hobby goes from a practical endeavor to the only thing that gives you meaning and makes you special and your crutch for conversations in social settings. Yes, if I tell you about my hobby, there's a really good chance I am experiencing social anxiety and have run out of relevant things to talk about. I spend time in those FUCKING NUTTY forums and subreddits.
I make amazing coffee. I've mastered the process. But....now what?...it was so
That guy sounds like he enjoys life more than I do (Score:2)
You sound like a foot-fetishist who savors the various aromas of different women's shoes and has a connoisseur's preference for age, weight and ethnicity of the wearer.
I wish I was...that guy sounds like he enjoys life more than I do
Re: (Score:2)
The article does definitely bury the lede by getting baristas involved in the writeup but consistency is super important for roasters. You'd have a very hard time making your "good" cup of coffee if the roaster wasn't able to produce a relatively consistent roasted coffee product from stuff they get from different suppliers, harvested at in varied weather, shipped by varied ways, etcetera. You need to know the material you got before you decide how exactly to treat it and process it, or even which of what y
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
If it lowers costs or reduces waste, it could be a good thing.
I don't really care if they are using "inferior" beans as long as they taste the same and deliver the same dose of caffeine.
Random aside, I've been playing UBOAT lately and when your crew are tired you can give them "coffee" so they can carry on working. The same is sanitized, they removed swastikas... And methamphetamine. The German navy (and other military divisions) used to give their people meth to help them stay alert and get through tiredne
Re: (Score:2)
Then again, in Rimworld (space colony survival game) you can get your team messed up on all manner of stimulants, or even just wire an electrode into their brain's pleasure center. Maybe the difference is that a U-boat crew is a little too close to home.
Re: (Score:2)
The same is sanitized, they removed swastikas... And methamphetamine. The German navy (and other military divisions) used to give their people meth to help them stay alert and get through tiredness.
Yes. On the allies' side it was Benzedrine [woub.org].
Re: (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.
God damn it. You found the capitalist angle. Here I was thinking this is just some coffee nerd having a good time for the hell of it, but some douchebag sitting in an office somewhere is thinking exactly what you are proposing here, and trying to figure out how to make a coffee-like substitute that's cheaper to produce, yet they can charge a premium for by selling it as "better than the real thing."
I'm with you. Let coffee be analog. It's been with us for centuries, and mostly unchanged aside from various n
Re: (Score:1)
It is not that hard to make good coffee. Leave it alone.
Coffee has approximately the same natural flavor profile as the stuff that comes out of my dog's ass. As I tell my coffee-drinking wife: "Anything can be made to taste good with enough honey -- even dog shit and coffee." Coffee needs a honey or sugar to coffee ratio of about 1:3 to overcome the shit-taste inertia inherent to coffee.
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!
Re: There is no need (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, true. But that makes this tech even less useful.
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
Ross droplet technique (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 surface of something. Did you have something else in mind?
it's a solved problem. You spray with water and it goes way down. Also, some grinders do just produce more static than others. I am not sure the reason, nor if that's something you can reliably predict. There are all sorts of tricks that make it manageable. That said, static is much more an espresso problem and I think a nice pourover can't be beat, so I am less concerned. To me, a pourover is like a steak, more natural and flavorful, and espresso is like a hamburger...more processed and cheaper. Es
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Suggestion: Instead of spraying your beans, freeze them!
Not only does it preserve them better, it makes them easier to grind, gives a more consistent grind, and solves the static problem!
Wins all round, without the risk of getting moisture into your expensive grinder.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, some grinders do just produce more static than others. I am not sure the reason, nor if that's something you can reliably predict.
Electrical make up, materials, internal layout, all those impact the static build-up. Something as simple as a metal burr carrier instead of plastic makes a difference, internal earthing cables, etc. Lots of variables.
Oh and high end grinders have plasma generators these days to remove static. But I still spray with water in mine since the plasma generator only affects the coffee that makes it out of the grind chamber, spraying with water still reduces retention in the chamber itself.
Re: (Score:2)
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 surface of something. Did you have something else in mind?
Staticmaster, with delicious polonium, makes a fine Russian espresso.
Re: (Score:2)
Treatments for removing static from vinyl records don't seem feasible for already-ground coffee.
Not only is it feasible it actually is done in high end grinders. Spend more than about $500 (Chinese) or $1000 (US / Europe made) and your grinder is very likely to include a plasma generator right at the grinding burr outlet for this very reason. It's similar to the zerostat gun in what it does.
But wetting the beans is still a good idea to stop static coffee getting stuck in the grind chamber itself (before the plasma).
Re: (Score:2)
I do love my coffee, but not enough to pay that kind of cash for a grinder. If static is a problem, I'd rather get my coffee pre-ground by someone properly equipped, or made right in front of me by a barista. Or just add a bit of water, as so many are saying here.
[raising cup] "Black as the devil, strong as death, sweet as love, and hot as hell!"
Re: (Score:2)
If you love coffee you'd have a barista do it for you and never use the term "pre-grind" again. Ground beans begin to stale in a matter of hours rather than weeks for full beans. Also if you're into espressos or espresso based milky drinks, then you probably need to adjust your grinder to suit the time of day as well to get a perfect shot as temperature and humidity will all affect extraction and flavour (note: the reason why some cafes produce inconsistent results and some produce always great coffee is be
Re:Audiophiles to the rescue (Score:5, Interesting)
We replaced the worn-out impeller in our grinder with a 3d-printed part, and while re-installing I lost a wool felt washer that sat around the motor spindle below the grinding teeth. We suddenly had a huge problem with static; grounds flying all over the place. Eventually it occured to me that the felt washer was serving to dissipate the static charges, and after I installed a replacement, all the static problems went away.
Re: (Score:2)
Wetting your coffee beans seems like it would make a mess of the grinder.
It does not. In fact quite the opposite. The dissipation of static causes less crap to be left in the grinder and the grinder to be cleaner. We're talking about a slight moisture increase, not turning it into a slushie. Wetting coffee beans is often done with a perfume spray bottle giving a single small squirt. For those who don't have that they put a single drop of water on a spoon and stir that through the beans first.
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.
The difference is that for coffee their is a real measurable resulting difference. Much
Re: (Score:1)
D E T E R G E N T (Score:2)
To cut surface tension, I spray my compressed puck with dilute 1% detergent (dishwashing) and compress again after it soaks in. Espresso comes out stronger and with more crema. I cannot detect the detergent (lemon).
Re: (Score:2)
Hey Bro, (Score:2)
A prime candidate for teh IgNoble Price. (Score:2)
Perhaps this guy can then send his medal to donold and save the world.
It'S aLiVe! (Score:2)
Also... (Score:2)
Coffee (Score:2)
Sounds legit. Fucking starbucks certainly charges more than enough.
Extinction (Score:2)
Humans exist thanks to coffee. If it were not for coffee, we would be extinct right now.
Finally we can consistently create the perfect cup (Score:2)
All we need is:
The right sourced beans, treated in the right way, picked at the right time, stored under the right conditions, roasted at the correct temperature profile, for the correct time, to the correct darkness, shipped in the correct timeframe, stored sealed for the correct duration, used unsealed within the correct time-window, ground to the correct grinder setting for the current temperature and humidity of the environment, using the correct style of burr, which creates the correct particle size pr
Is this how bad companies make ... (Score:2)
... their dirty coffee taste better?
Sirius Cybernetics Corporation says... (Score:2)
Nutrition and pleasurable sense data. Share and enjoy!
Not being a coffee snob is the key (Score:2)
He should win (Score:2)
I nominate him for the Ig Nobel Prize.
Took long enough (Score:2)
Glad someone finally broke Gale Bedeker's record
https://hips.hearstapps.com/digitalspyuk.cdnds.net/18/34/1534855323-gale-boetticher.jpg?resize=480:* [hearstapps.com]
Interesting discovery (Score:2)