[Shop-talk] Removing moisture from coffee beans (yes, it is shop related.)

[Jeff Scarbrough]

On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 8:30 PM <eric at megageek.com> wrote:
>

> Now, I get why the temp should be over the boiling point of water, but I don't understand why it would need to be that long of a time.  Wouldn't the moisture boil off within an hour or two? (we are talking less than a cup of coffee beans.)

The only thing I can figure is that it takes that long for the
moisture to migrate from the innermost part of the bean to the
outside.  The heat accelerates the process, but what you are doing is
creating a moisture gradient between the low humidity in the oven and
the high moisture content in the bean.

If you had a sensitive scale (fractions of a gram, maybe?) you could
heat the beans until subsequent weighing shows no change.  That would
indicate you've driven off what moisture you can.  I have no idea of
the moisture content of the average coffee bean is, so I can't guess
what sort of difference you are trying to detect.  I'm a tea drinker
myself...

Jeff Scarbrough
Corrosion Acres, Ga.