Freshly Roasted Coffee & Solubles

It is accepted that Freshly Roasted Coffee Beans are essential to a great coffee experience.

This is a preliminary exploration of two brewing methods; modified Turkish and espresso.  The hypothesis is that it is possible to increase the G forces on the brew for accelerated sedimentation of the coffee fines.  The accumulation of solids in the bottom would support the idea that it is possible to quantify the coffee strength for various brewing methods.  For now, it is assumed that the amount of solubles is directly related to the strength of the coffee.

At the top is a modified Turkish brew without the addition of Cardamon and Cinnamon.  Essentially it is coffee made with a very fine grind which remains in the cup.  Of course if the drinker insists on consuming the proverbial last drop he/she will also have a 10 g breakfast.  For this comparison the water to coffee ground ratio of 10:1 was used.  The brew decanted for approximately 2 minutes before 14 ml were removed and placed into the vial or tube.

 The espresso was made with 15 g of coffee which was pulled in 29 seconds to yield two ounces or 60 ml.  Again, 14 ml was transferred to a tube for further processing or accelerated decantation.

The espresso grind is tamped in the porta-filter which only allows smaller particles to pass through with the water.

The fine grind, brew in a cup on the other hand is initially separated by gravity alone.  Since it is not filtered it is possible that the larger grounds are decanted in the first 2 minutes.  The larger the grind the longer it takes to decant but since this is an extra fine grind it is possible that the 2 minutes was sufficient to decant even the largest particles.  Smaller particles may be held in suspension in the liquid whether by turbulence, Brownian forces, or magic.

Both brews were initially opaque when held in front of a light.

The results above are open to interpretation until further experiments are done.  All three vials show signs of sedimentation but the Turkish Grind had significantly more grinds in the bottom.  It may be possible to conclude that the particles were larger than those in the espresso.  The increased transparency does support the premise that the previous opaqueness was due to the larger particles.

The espresso remained largely unchanged.  It is difficult to establish with precision that .25 ml of fines were decanted.  The opaqueness of the processed espresso does support the idea that extremely fine particles are held in suspension.

The experiment did not support the hoped for conclusion where the amount of solubles could be measured and even categorized.  It appears that a greater G force will be required to compare drip coffee, to say, a brew done in a French Press.  Or to compare the brew of large chains to that of a K cup.

Hopefully, another iteration of this test will allow the measurement of a solubles so that  brewing can be optimized.  Without measurement it is difficult to optimize so many variables.

Now, a cup of coffee is needed to start the process.