Let’s Play Humpday Giveaway – May 8th Edition

Another week has come and gone, so that can only mean one thing: It’s time to play another round of BMag’s Humpday Giveaway!

It’s been a warmer than average week here in Portland, and we’ve already taken out our summertime standby, our Toddy Cold Brewer. It makes a great, clean, cold brew cup, and it’s this week’s awesome prize thanks to the good folks at Toddy!

This week's prize, a Toddy Brewer! Summertime or anytime, WOOT!
This week’s prize, a Toddy Brewer! Summertime or anytime, WOOT!

As the Toddy website says,

For nearly 50 years, Toddy has delighted baristas, food critics, and regular folks alike for its smooth, delicious flavor. By extracting the bitter acids and oils that other brewing methods leave behind, the Toddy Cold Brew System produces a smooth, low acid concentrate ideal for hot or iced coffee or tea.

During the cold-brew process, time replaces heat. Todd Simpson, a chemical engineering graduate of Cornell, and who developed the Toddy cold brew system, discovered that high temperature facilitates the release of undesirable flavor elements.

A roasted coffee bean contains many compounds that are extracted during the brewing process. Some of those compounds, including certain oils and fatty acids, are soluble only at a high temperature. During the cold brew process, coffee beans are never exposed to high temperature (this only occurs after a rich liquid coffee concentrate has been produced).

Deceptively simple,  cold water brewing extracts the delicious flavor compounds (and some of the caffeine) from coffee beans, but  leaves behind myriad bitter oils and biting fatty acids, including undesirable elements such as ketons, esters and amids.

So, if that’s the prize, we’re also going to need a question. So if you’ve got it handy, you may want to turn to the pages of the April + May 2013 issue of BMag (you can even read it online here).

Darrin Daniel wrote a Field Report about his recent trip to Ethiopia and Kenya. Specifically, he was interested in learning more about the “Kenya Process.” Part of the Kenya Process that he identifies is “skin drying.” In this stage a lot of moisture and water are wicked off of the beans.

So here’s this week’s question: What percentage of moisture is removed from the coffee in the skin drying stage?

If you know the answer, leave it as a comment, along with your first and last name, below. The Humpday Giveaway contest is open for 24 hours, so at 7 AM PDT May 9 we will put all of the correct answers (from people who’ve also provided first and last names!) in a mug, cup, or maybe even a Toddy and draw one winner at random. We’ll announce the winner by 10AM PDT.

Good luck and happy brewing to everyone!

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Barista Magazine is the leading trade magazine in the world for the professional coffee community.

39 Comments

  1. During the œskin drying  process about 45-55% of moisture and water are wicked off of the beans.

  2. 45-55% of the moisture is removed in the skin drying stage of Kenya process

  3. Anywhere from 55-45% of moisture is lost during the skin dying stage.

  4. 10% moisture content is lost during skin drying, the beans will end with 45% moisture content.

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