Just a quick note to fix an error: While the Sonic Dutch kicked off this whole video, it isn't actually an ultrasonic brewer itself. It seems like a subsonic brewer, to get those kind of waves in the brew. Apologies!
since you're an expert could you please explain difference between african coffee and brasilian coffee and how to brew the best of african if at all possible
Hi James! Great video as always :) How about combining this with last years centrifuge technique? Thereby getting rid of the tiny particles/mudiness in your ultrasonic coffee but retaining the high extraction this "accident" created 🤔
Chemist here: There are some unique things going on in sonication. 1) You degas whatever your solvent is, IE removing air from water. Not sure how relevant here 2) You will break up / destroy small particles. Sonication is often used to dissolve insolube components. 3) you can homogenise oil/water mixes. It may be you are extracting more of the "non-water" soluble components. Would be interesting to see what these brews look like left overnight. End of video edit: Brew a 200ML batch, then sonicate to see if cloudiness occurs to test the above.
If you remove air from the liquid, wouldn't that in a way reduce it's taste since when you taste test liquids you want to bring in a lot of air together with it?
As I was watching the video I too thought about the homogenization (except called it an emulsion due to cooking background), but didn't know if that is what would be happening scientifically. Thanks for clearing that up.
@@bigblue6917 but don't you find, that the more you "fake it", you're actually doing it? I mean, like with everything, it depends on experience. I do see your point, though.
After the "centrifuging espresso" one I got caught using the centrifuge in the bio lab at uni.... Long story short it doesn't matter how much the lab tech likes coffee he can't be bought 😂
Thank god those machines are very different wavelengths or they would shred your organs lol. Ultrasound machines operate at around 2-20 megahertz, ultrasonic cleaners operate at around 40 to 60 kilohertz
the ultrasonic probably forced the oils into an emulsion along with any fines into a suspension. It sorta makes sense that it wouldnt pass through the filters easily, think trying to pass mayonnaise through a filter.
I think the cavitation against the surface of the coffee particles probably blasted bits off of them, making more fines. You can get micropitting on the surface of metals if you clean them too aggressively in an ultrasonic bath. I think there's a good chance that the same mechanism was at work here.
manatoa1 This is exactly right. More fines in suspension because the cleaner breaks up the smaller coffee grains into increasingly small sizes. If we’re right James could take the density of the ultrasonic coffee and it should be measurably higher because of the introduction of more dissolved solids. Only way to filter it safely would be a centrifuge too.
@@LadyTigerLily Jajaja. I think, for that matter, and in terms of ease would be great to add a water extract of the oak per se but I wouldn't bother with every time I have a coffee using an ultrasonic machine. wh... what was that?
James, I have to say you have introduced me to one of the nicest hobbies I have picked up in at least a decade. I sleep less and I spend tons of money on weird toys and I watch hours on end how you're experimenting with roasted beans, but it's given me such a great joy and I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being one of the calmest, nicest people on youtube. I wish you would do voice overs or read books on audible. That calm voice of yours is very pleasant :-D Thanks!
The ultrasonic bath will break apart the grinds quite a bit, which is why it is extra cloudy, leave it long enough it may micronise all the grounds. The performance verification check we do in the lab is to fill the bath to the fill line and place a piece of aluminium foil on top; it is so powerful it breaks holes in the foil. If no holes form, it isn’t working right. Also, the act of agitation heats up the water, slowly but it does.
Up next, James shoots a cup of coffee into an orbit. Makes careful observation how 3g launch and time in 0g affected brewing. Ends asking community, "have you shoot your coffee into an orbit? How does it taste? Let me know in the comments."
Ultrasonic waves, depending on the intensity, can cause cavitation. That's what generating the ultrafine particles. It has also been shown that ultrasonic waves will improve mass transfer. The pressure waves generate a form of stirring. There needs to be some talk about the intensity and whether cavitation ocurred. Given the hot water temperature cavitation is more likely to occur regardless of the intensity, and the fines really conclusively point to it. On a cold brew, with low intensity ultrasoud, you could improve mass transfer without cavitation occuring. That would be someting completely different of what James Hoffman showed here, and these results cannot be extrapolated to cold brew as easily.
@@sas3dx cavitation is usually the point of using ultrasonic. The stress induced by ultrasonic waves is highest at sharp angles (like particulates in jewelry). The stress becomes so high at that point that it essentially blows up the particulate, causing cavitation (a vacuum bubble) in the solvent (water). Once the particles are blown up or off of the surface, they're more easily suspended by the water. Basically cavitation allows the solvent to dissolve the solute more quickly. So in essence, the coffee is being blown apart into incredibly small particles.
Despite the ultrasound causing cavitation, I believe it wouldn't be strong enough to break solids, or at least not to the point of making it cloudy. What I think happened is that the ultrasound emulsified something. Fats aren't soluble in water, even in high temperatures. However, the fact that coffee can form crema indicates it has some limited emulsifying capacity, so the cloudy aspect could be an oil-in-water emulsion.
@@NothingXemnas it isn't that hard to belive that the ultrasonic sound could break off solids, as its point as a jewelry cleaner is to break micro solids off of jewelry. The ultrasonic waves are probably smoothing the coffee grinds and breaking off tiny particles.
@@NothingXemnas if an ultrasonic can pit metals, it can also create pits on coffee particles. Probably much more effectively since the coffee particles have actually absorbed water and the cavitation can happen inside the particle as well as on its surface.
I have been putting about 5-10 grams of oak chips in a large mason jar of cold brew and a little maple syrup and let it sit in the fridge for a week or two and I love it! its just enough oak and syrup to make it a little complex and not too sweet.
Charring the oak converts the cellulose fibers to sugars providing sweetness as well as the vanilla flavor (wood is the source of artificial vanilla or vanillin). Confirm charcoal also does filter. I suspect you have a weak emulsion in the ultrasonic brew (that would likely break overnight since there is no emulsifier present). I would be interested in revisiting this technology plus a centrifuge, with a focus on the different flavors in the oils versus other solids extracted in the brewing process. With thanks for this and all your episodes.
I think I may have to retract my +1 on the kickstarter vote.... 1. this was not so weird, but SO interesting! 2. Barrel aging is SUCH a thing with Beer, as well as whiskeys. 3. James, you are informing, and entertaining my family and I during these crazy days, THANK YOU!
Brew a chemex with the whole thing dunked in a giant one of these, to see how it effects draw-down and extraction. Hook an ultrasonic exciter directly to the group-head of an espresso machine... that's all I can think of for now.
Tried this also already, you can't filter ultrasonic brew, unless you want your coffee done in about half an hour for one cup. I just put my coffe in a teabag when brewing with ultrasonic which helps a lot. Also what I'm going to try next is doing this with mircrowaved whole beans. Will keep you updated on my findings, probably next time you drop a video/1week
I think it would be really interesting to try centrifuging the immersion coffees after heating/sonication! It would help to separate out the suspended particles or potentially any emulsions, and you could get a better sense of whether the sonication actually impacts the extraction.
Hey James, Awesome video as always. Every single video I notice the production quality increase bit by bit, and I think your progress is really evident in this video. The intro, the layout, the lighting, some of the close-ups. All great stuff. I believe Elixir is using this same process without heat to extract whole bean coffee. So I ordered an ultrasonic cleaner of my own and will be trying it to test out my theory. Will be making a video about it in the next month and reporting back with the results! I'm glad you made this video as it gives me more of a jumping off point, so thank you!
Hey James! I just finished barrel aging a washed Colombian coffee for 8 months. I will roast it next week, let me know if you want a sample of either green or roasted.
I have a flat bottom drip coffee machine. One trick I learned was to put a second filter on top of the coffee grounds as a sort of water spreading plate and slow down the brew. I'm a chemical engineer so it sort of made sense to me that you would want to have some type of plate to make water flow more evenly through your bed.
Yeah, James, weird enough!! The weird science was subtle enough to not take away from it the classic JH Coffee love. What fun! Always fun to be watching the weird science series :D
I have been really enjoying your posts. I do not have lots of $ but am currently saving for a Bonavita brewer(Sage too much money) I, sadly, use a Black and Decker. However after watching your, and others, videos I have been able to brew better coffee with it. Pulled my blade grinder back out, keep the old B&D clean and descaled. I also weigh everything and "bloom" the grounds. I get correct temps (long probe instant read thermometer) by boiling half/750 mls of the h2o in my tea kettle, wait 30sec and pour some over grnd coffee and the rest in the tank... consistent 198-203F(was 185). When done into a prewarmed thermo carafe it goes. HUGE difference! I guess my point is no matter what junk equipment you are stuck with you can always improve your coffee game🤪 Oh, I also have a Moka-pot, a Cezve and a French press...yep a geek I am. I have well water--7.4ph slightly hard water, no big spikes in any minerals, tastes and smells good--lucky.
This is very interesting. Up until now, I've only used my ultrasonic bath for periodically cleaning metal filters. Now I'm inspired to get experimenting!
Well now I think the obvious next step would be to try different wood chips and see if any are preferable to the oak! I could see cherry, for one, being interesting, but there are a variety of woods used in drink making. Birch, Sassafras, etc. And I would also be curious to see if soaking the wood in spirits instead of water made a noticeable difference on the final product!
You could try brewing the coffee with oak water. Water you made in the ultrasonic bath, with the oak tree. and then warmed to make the coffee. Then you could make your coffee as usual in the morning, just with pre-made oak water.
Getting more and more Socratic Coffee madness by the upload, Jim. Honestly, though, absolutely fascinating stuff! I'm glad we have so many cool experimental approaches to coffee from so many different people tinkering about in the industry.
My wife is very sceptical that there can be such a different between coffee types, I hope by nerding out on your videos i can make her see the light :) Love your work and this machine sounds really bizzare, love it!
You can also barrel age green coffee. I cant speak to the efficacy of it because ive never had it, but it is sold by Coopers Cask Coffee if youre interested. The idea is that green coffee is very porous and easily adsorbs aromas, so by sticking it in a oaken barrel, the beans adsorb some of the aroma from the barrel.
After I experimented with new beans and grind this morning... and having pulled the best and sweetest espresso shot of my life in.... 37sec. - I think... everything seems to be possible now. Ultrasonic brewing/aging? Sure! Going new ways is always exciting!
I would suggest the soaking in water is primarily relevant for using them as a smoking wood, which is the most common use of those chipped oak barrels here. I would suggest perhaps leaving them dry, but giving them an exterior char using a blow torch.
Please try doing sous vide coffee brewing! Two years ago, I was experimenting with brewing coffee using sous vide, and I got some very interesting results. I was NOT grinding the coffee at all, and was letting the beans brew in sealed mason jars for 24 hours or longer at 195*F - 90*C. My coffee to water ratio was, on average: 25g of coffee to 450 mL water (I am not certain if this could be improved.. if I may have been overdoing it with the amount of coffee.. I am not certain). This method does require you to off-gas the jars once the beans have saturated in the water (about 15-30 minutes in). After brewing, I would run it through a metal kitchen colander to remove the beans from the extracted liquid. Then it was back into the mason jars and into the water bath for 10 to 15 minutes at a lower temperature (150*F - 65*C). I used industrial strength brewers sanitizer to clean all my tools and containers throughout the entire process. In some varieties of coffee, I found that the entire bean would almost unfurl itself, which was very interesting! The longest that I had let a batch run in the sous vide was for 80 hours, but I think that 12-24 hours is more than enough. I still have some jars from my sous vide coffee experiments, and they seem to be quite stable.. even after two years.
just gave me a good reason to go fishing in the storage closet for my ultrasonic jeweler cleaning thingy to do some tests when i get my hands on some coffee
Have been enjoying your videos very much, especially the moka pot one, since I stumbled upon your channel while searching for a “how to make coffee in a moka pot” video. In general, you have a very pleasant diction and speaking tone. I would very much like to see your take and opinion on Turkish coffee.
If you want ideas along the lines of rapid oak aging, currently moonshiners are using vacuum. There are two methods. Microwave your liquid with oak ships until 150F, then quickly place the lid on and wait for the cooling to produce a vacuum. This tends to produce results that are similar to sonic methods. Personally, I use a food bag vacuum sealer with jar lid attachment and just pull a vacuum, but I'm letting it rest for months that way.
I did the exact same thing after I heard about the KS, using my spectacle sonic washer. I think the "cold brew" is breaking the coffee into the fines, and using those fines to flavor the water.
This reminded me of my first trip to Hawaii. When flying from Ohau to Hawaii on Hawaiian Airline we were served Kona coffee that had been roasted with Macadamia nuts. The smell in the cabin when the brewing started was amazing and the actual taste of the coffee was incredible. I found the Kona Coffee company once in Kona and bought some of the coffee to take home. Several times after that I purchased what was supposed to be Kona Macadamia Nut coffee and it was never even close. I wonder if similar results to my original experience could be obtained with this method. Good video, very interesting indeed.
I would think different materials would be more or less conducive to ultrasonic waves. Might be interesting to compare the coffee prepared in a plastic bag or stainless container vs glass.
Another coffee-related use for my ultrasound! (Nothing beats ultrasonic cleaner - with appropriate chemicals - for cleaning shower screens and portafilter baskets, roaster burners ...)
Another great video. Thanks James! For the next video: why not go the other direction and make it as simple as possible and focus on two things only: 1) What do we want to extract from the coffee-plant and 2) how can we do that as pure-ly (and therefore probably as simple) as possible? Maybe we‘d like the juice of the fruit? And for the beans: would it maybe be better to slow-cook them at low temperatures instead of roasting them at high temperatures for a short time in order not to burn the etheric oils that we want to extract? Is there a fine line where you can do it quickly enough to avoid chemical reactions we do not want and do it slowly enough to avoid burning the beans too much?
Hi, this video is so interesting to me. As a pastry maker, I suppose to make some sort of infusing some herbs or coffee in the cream with this machine, and to whip this infusion 😂 Some day I wanna use this amazing ultrasonic cleaner to experiment! Thank for inspiring me
I use an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner for motorcycle carbs, rifle action, anything you can fill with water. If I recall correctly, The ultrasonic waves are matched in frequency to the 1 atmosphere pressure and activity required to break water into droplets and then they recombine as the wave passes. This break and cavitation causes a cleaning/breaking action.
I agree with preferring a lesser presence of oak in wine however when it comes to whiskey I absolutely love a heavy presence of oak and smoke. I would love to try barrell aged coffee.
Hi James! I'm a weird coffee person since a couple of years ago. I'm the only one at my workplace, and now we are going to sign up for a new coffee machine. Looking at the local alternatives, I'm a bit confused. It's very hard to get a grasp on how modern the technologies really are. I would love a video where you dig into the office coffee world a bit and showcase the best third-wave machines suitable for an office with 20+ people. I'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation. Thanks!
The most interesting thing ive done with barrel aging is throwing in green beans into a freshly emptied whiskey barrel closing it back up. Rotating the barrel daily for 6 weeks and then roasting the beans. The intense alcohol aroma made it hard to determine when to drop. But it was one of the most delicious I've ever made
Interesting video! I'm one of those who voted "Yes" for supporting the Kickstarter you mentioned, but I'm happy there are smarter people out there who suggested this cheaper alternative. We also got a video about it quicker! You did this with coffee, but I'm wondering if there's a way to do this with coffee beans. I vaguely remember seeing a video about a Japanese coffee shop barrel-aging their coffee beans, making the coffee very expensive. I'm assuming this equipment requires the ingredients to be submerged in water for the ultrasonic waves to have an effect, but would there be a way to apply this to whole coffee beans? Maybe vacuum packing them?
Hi James. Polyscience sell something like that as well. Also something like the oak bottle or the oak tumbler could work, maybe brew a batch stick it either in the bottle or the tumbler then stick that in the ultrasonic? *just checked the polyscience website, it is the sonicprep, but the original version was sold with the idea that it could be used for rapid barrel aging, not the design has changed and it is a homogeniser.
i left a comment on patreon talking about how blasting the coffee with ultrasonics could physically break down the coffee further, and make really muddy silty coffee, i'm not sure if this is a direct confirmation or coincidence though. Doing it in a bath is an interesting comparison from the kickstarter project, which does it directly through a vibrating plate. Changing from transducer>plate>carafe>brew water to transducer>possible medium/plate>water>carafe>brew water could possibly adjust the direction/amount of disruption in the brew water. Obviously, the bath increases the surface area with a vibrating substance, but a lot more of the energy is going into vibrating the entire body of water in the bath, while the plate for the coldbrewer is more direct, but with much lower contact. The secondary consideration is that the bath has ultrasonics hitting the carafe from all sides, so constructive/destructive interference along opposing axes could have interesting effects, however the plate has a singular axis of motion, and no opposing vibration to interfere with. Maybe this is why the sonic bath generated so much debris in the coffee. I'm surprised the crust survived the bath, but this may also depend on the level of the bath water compared to the height of the crust, maybe if they were similar you'd see the crust being over-agitated/destroyed? I kinda went on a rant and got lostt, but still, there's a lot of interesting considerations to take comparing it to the cold brewer.
I often use a nitrous whipper to do rapid infusions with spirits, I’ve been planning to use it to try to rapid infuse with wood to simulate barrel aging. I’ll try it with coffee and see how it goes!
Just a quick note to fix an error: While the Sonic Dutch kicked off this whole video, it isn't actually an ultrasonic brewer itself. It seems like a subsonic brewer, to get those kind of waves in the brew. Apologies!
Hi James, can you make a video about putting turmeric in coffee?
what do you think about matcha and espresso fusion?
since you're an expert could you please explain difference between african coffee and brasilian coffee and how to brew the best of african if at all possible
Hola James; could you make please a video about making a Turkish coffee? Saludos desde Madrid!
Hi James! Great video as always :)
How about combining this with last years centrifuge technique? Thereby getting rid of the tiny particles/mudiness in your ultrasonic coffee but retaining the high extraction this "accident" created 🤔
James, I’d honestly love to see Weird Coffee Science as a Netflix show!
There are (good) shows on Netflix that are nowhere near as good as this.
nooo, I dont want to pay for it
Totally.... James needs to go famous
This would be pretty awesome. Coffee experimenting!
Either that or make it like Mind Field - a free TH-cam original
Chemist here: There are some unique things going on in sonication.
1) You degas whatever your solvent is, IE removing air from water. Not sure how relevant here
2) You will break up / destroy small particles. Sonication is often used to dissolve insolube components.
3) you can homogenise oil/water mixes. It may be you are extracting more of the "non-water" soluble components. Would be interesting to see what these brews look like left overnight.
End of video edit:
Brew a 200ML batch, then sonicate to see if cloudiness occurs to test the above.
Thanks, that cleared up a bit of my suspicion/conclusion, did the experiment the day that KS came out.
If you remove air from the liquid, wouldn't that in a way reduce it's taste since when you taste test liquids you want to bring in a lot of air together with it?
Was literally about to write this comment myself 😂
Next up, Ultrasonic Vinaigrette.
As I was watching the video I too thought about the homogenization (except called it an emulsion due to cooking background), but didn't know if that is what would be happening scientifically. Thanks for clearing that up.
"dress up like an adult and pretend to know what I'm doing" isn't that just life though?
As they say Fake It Until You Make it. Then just keep faking it and hope no one notices.
Yep. Pretty much what I do every weekday 😄
@@bigblue6917 but don't you find, that the more you "fake it", you're actually doing it? I mean, like with everything, it depends on experience. I do see your point, though.
That's my dating technique
My hospital colleagues aren't going to be happy when they find out why the ultrasound probe is warm and smells of yirgacheffe, and also broken.
After the "centrifuging espresso" one I got caught using the centrifuge in the bio lab at uni.... Long story short it doesn't matter how much the lab tech likes coffee he can't be bought 😂
Did you bring enough for the whole class?
Thank god those machines are very different wavelengths or they would shred your organs lol. Ultrasound machines operate at around 2-20 megahertz, ultrasonic cleaners operate at around 40 to 60 kilohertz
Did you know i'am the lyrical veteran
the ultrasonic probably forced the oils into an emulsion along with any fines into a suspension. It sorta makes sense that it wouldnt pass through the filters easily, think trying to pass mayonnaise through a filter.
This is what I thought too. In Noma (Copenhagen) they use ultrasonic wands to make long lasting emulsions.
So the real take away from this is that I can make ultrasonic mayonnaise, cool!
Juan de Mucha That was my immediate thought as well.
I think the cavitation against the surface of the coffee particles probably blasted bits off of them, making more fines. You can get micropitting on the surface of metals if you clean them too aggressively in an ultrasonic bath. I think there's a good chance that the same mechanism was at work here.
manatoa1 This is exactly right. More fines in suspension because the cleaner breaks up the smaller coffee grains into increasingly small sizes. If we’re right James could take the density of the ultrasonic coffee and it should be measurably higher because of the introduction of more dissolved solids. Only way to filter it safely would be a centrifuge too.
The intro is so flipping good
"Sorry for the slurps" - Moments before slurping the sound of a thousand baby birds screaming for food.
I wanted to die.
Read this comment before it happened, you are correct on that description
My ears!
Maybe some audio editing can take place?
I don't mind the sound per se, but my ears hurt!
I laughed so hard, then he slurped again and I died.
Ultrasonic coffee needed some ultrasonic slurps
“Ultrasonic barrel ageing” aka scream into a barrel of your favourite coffee
I think you need to work on that. Not sure you could keep it up long enough to get it to work.
Send James Hoffmann an Aldi Espresso machine and place the barrel in front of him.
aka my morning routine.
Honestly, who hasn't had the coffee screams now and again...
@@LadyTigerLily Jajaja. I think, for that matter, and in terms of ease would be great to add a water extract of the oak per se but I wouldn't bother with every time I have a coffee using an ultrasonic machine.
wh... what was that?
That intro was frickin' dope!
James, I have to say you have introduced me to one of the nicest hobbies I have picked up in at least a decade. I sleep less and I spend tons of money on weird toys and I watch hours on end how you're experimenting with roasted beans, but it's given me such a great joy and I'd like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being one of the calmest, nicest people on youtube. I wish you would do voice overs or read books on audible. That calm voice of yours is very pleasant :-D Thanks!
This comment might be 1 year old, but i have all his audiobooks on audible. Very very relaxing especially on a long road trip in the car/motorcycle
This man's editing and comedic timing is orders of magnitude greater than actual comedy youtubers/comedians
The ultrasonic bath will break apart the grinds quite a bit, which is why it is extra cloudy, leave it long enough it may micronise all the grounds. The performance verification check we do in the lab is to fill the bath to the fill line and place a piece of aluminium foil on top; it is so powerful it breaks holes in the foil. If no holes form, it isn’t working right. Also, the act of agitation heats up the water, slowly but it does.
You're dangerously tempting me to use our lab equipment to brew weird coffees
the only thing that went ultrasonic in this video was James' slurping.
No, that was supersonic.
I feel like James has some of the best intros not only in the coffee space, but on the platform in general. Well done.
Will Tennyson has the best of all in my opinion.
Time to get the centrifuge out to clarify that ultrasonic brewed coffee
possibly one of the nerdiest sentences ever said
just found this video and wanted to suggest this so that we can check the pellet size
@@theecat3689 damn it’s been a year since I commented this!
What an intro. Holy moses. I just finished reading your book and loved every page of it. Took me two days. Love your channel. Thank you
Up next, James shoots a cup of coffee into an orbit. Makes careful observation how 3g launch and time in 0g affected brewing.
Ends asking community, "have you shoot your coffee into an orbit? How does it taste? Let me know in the comments."
Ultrasonic waves, depending on the intensity, can cause cavitation. That's what generating the ultrafine particles. It has also been shown that ultrasonic waves will improve mass transfer. The pressure waves generate a form of stirring. There needs to be some talk about the intensity and whether cavitation ocurred. Given the hot water temperature cavitation is more likely to occur regardless of the intensity, and the fines really conclusively point to it. On a cold brew, with low intensity ultrasoud, you could improve mass transfer without cavitation occuring. That would be someting completely different of what James Hoffman showed here, and these results cannot be extrapolated to cold brew as easily.
What's bad about cavitation?
@@sas3dx cavitation is usually the point of using ultrasonic. The stress induced by ultrasonic waves is highest at sharp angles (like particulates in jewelry). The stress becomes so high at that point that it essentially blows up the particulate, causing cavitation (a vacuum bubble) in the solvent (water). Once the particles are blown up or off of the surface, they're more easily suspended by the water. Basically cavitation allows the solvent to dissolve the solute more quickly. So in essence, the coffee is being blown apart into incredibly small particles.
Despite the ultrasound causing cavitation, I believe it wouldn't be strong enough to break solids, or at least not to the point of making it cloudy. What I think happened is that the ultrasound emulsified something. Fats aren't soluble in water, even in high temperatures. However, the fact that coffee can form crema indicates it has some limited emulsifying capacity, so the cloudy aspect could be an oil-in-water emulsion.
@@NothingXemnas it isn't that hard to belive that the ultrasonic sound could break off solids, as its point as a jewelry cleaner is to break micro solids off of jewelry. The ultrasonic waves are probably smoothing the coffee grinds and breaking off tiny particles.
@@NothingXemnas if an ultrasonic can pit metals, it can also create pits on coffee particles. Probably much more effectively since the coffee particles have actually absorbed water and the cavitation can happen inside the particle as well as on its surface.
I have been putting about 5-10 grams of oak chips in a large mason jar of cold brew and a little maple syrup and let it sit in the fridge for a week or two and I love it! its just enough oak and syrup to make it a little complex and not too sweet.
that sound at 5:13 tho
друг
I dont hear anything :(
Charring the oak converts the cellulose fibers to sugars providing sweetness as well as the vanilla flavor (wood is the source of artificial vanilla or vanillin). Confirm charcoal also does filter. I suspect you have a weak emulsion in the ultrasonic brew (that would likely break overnight since there is no emulsifier present). I would be interested in revisiting this technology plus a centrifuge, with a focus on the different flavors in the oils versus other solids extracted in the brewing process. With thanks for this and all your episodes.
I think I may have to retract my +1 on the kickstarter vote....
1. this was not so weird, but SO interesting!
2. Barrel aging is SUCH a thing with Beer, as well as whiskeys.
3. James, you are informing, and entertaining my family and I during these crazy days, THANK YOU!
Brew a chemex with the whole thing dunked in a giant one of these, to see how it effects draw-down and extraction. Hook an ultrasonic exciter directly to the group-head of an espresso machine... that's all I can think of for now.
I'm a simple man. I see notification, I stop everything I do. Get a cup of coffee, and start listening to Mr. Hoffmann
Snap 👍😊 Though I came prepared as I already had the coffee. just in case. As you do
Tried this also already, you can't filter ultrasonic brew, unless you want your coffee done in about half an hour for one cup. I just put my coffe in a teabag when brewing with ultrasonic which helps a lot.
Also what I'm going to try next is doing this with mircrowaved whole beans.
Will keep you updated on my findings, probably next time you drop a video/1week
Retrowave and Coffee on a Sunday morning? Winning.
I love these intros, and then how he explains it is amazing
I’ve been binging this channel for days now. This is content.
Im always surprised that James doesn't have way more subscribers, his videos are top tier.
“I dress up like a grown up and pretend to know what I’m doing.” Every day, James. Every. Damn. Day.
I think it would be really interesting to try centrifuging the immersion coffees after heating/sonication! It would help to separate out the suspended particles or potentially any emulsions, and you could get a better sense of whether the sonication actually impacts the extraction.
Hey James,
Awesome video as always. Every single video I notice the production quality increase bit by bit, and I think your progress is really evident in this video. The intro, the layout, the lighting, some of the close-ups. All great stuff.
I believe Elixir is using this same process without heat to extract whole bean coffee. So I ordered an ultrasonic cleaner of my own and will be trying it to test out my theory. Will be making a video about it in the next month and reporting back with the results! I'm glad you made this video as it gives me more of a jumping off point, so thank you!
These intros are honestly so dope. My mans an artist as well as a coffee expert!
This channel takes coffee to places I never would have thought it would go, and I love it.
"Everyone says this is supposed to be for cold brew, so I'm going to work as hard as possible to do everything EXCEPT cold brew".
Hey James! I just finished barrel aging a washed Colombian coffee for 8 months. I will roast it next week, let me know if you want a sample of either green or roasted.
I have a flat bottom drip coffee machine. One trick I learned was to put a second filter on top of the coffee grounds as a sort of water spreading plate and slow down the brew. I'm a chemical engineer so it sort of made sense to me that you would want to have some type of plate to make water flow more evenly through your bed.
Yeah, James, weird enough!! The weird science was subtle enough to not take away from it the classic JH Coffee love. What fun! Always fun to be watching the weird science series :D
I have been really enjoying your posts.
I do not have lots of $ but am currently saving for a Bonavita brewer(Sage too much money)
I, sadly, use a Black and Decker. However after watching your, and others, videos I have been able to brew better coffee with it.
Pulled my blade grinder back out, keep the old B&D clean and descaled. I also weigh everything and "bloom" the grounds. I get correct temps (long probe instant read thermometer) by boiling half/750 mls of the h2o in my tea kettle, wait 30sec and pour some over grnd coffee and the rest in the tank... consistent 198-203F(was 185). When done into a prewarmed thermo carafe it goes. HUGE difference!
I guess my point is no matter what junk equipment you are stuck with you can always improve your coffee game🤪
Oh, I also have a Moka-pot, a Cezve and a French press...yep a geek I am.
I have well water--7.4ph slightly hard water, no big spikes in any minerals, tastes and smells good--lucky.
This is very interesting. Up until now, I've only used my ultrasonic bath for periodically cleaning metal filters. Now I'm inspired to get experimenting!
James: Sorry for the slurps.
James's mouth: demon noises
Well now I think the obvious next step would be to try different wood chips and see if any are preferable to the oak! I could see cherry, for one, being interesting, but there are a variety of woods used in drink making. Birch, Sassafras, etc. And I would also be curious to see if soaking the wood in spirits instead of water made a noticeable difference on the final product!
Thoroughly entertaining AND it sparks my curiosity about the flavour. I can actually see this as a thing in a bespoke café.
Saturday morning drinking coffee while watching James dressed as a scientist doing Weird Coffee Science. Is there a better way to start your weekend
Any day in general
There is a distillery Copper & Kings in Kentucky that primarily makes brandy and they play loud music to agitate their barrels.
Just when I thought ive seen pretty much all there is about coffee and James comes up with this!
Thanks for crediting the music! I love that sound so much. Reminded me of Moderat's 'A New Error'.
Really cool glitch/8-bit editing and great video as always. Love your channel and your presentations!
I would love to see this man wearing a hoodie
The quality of your content is just brilliant man... One of my favourite channels... Thank you
You could try brewing the coffee with oak water.
Water you made in the ultrasonic bath, with the oak tree.
and then warmed to make the coffee.
Then you could make your coffee as usual in the morning, just with pre-made oak water.
Getting more and more Socratic Coffee madness by the upload, Jim. Honestly, though, absolutely fascinating stuff! I'm glad we have so many cool experimental approaches to coffee from so many different people tinkering about in the industry.
I would love to see more of this.
My wife is very sceptical that there can be such a different between coffee types, I hope by nerding out on your videos i can make her see the light :) Love your work and this machine sounds really bizzare, love it!
OMG, that music in the into... James, did you create it yourself? You should totally start your EDM producer career!
"I'm not gonna talk about coldbrew today"
Me: *screams ultrasonically at my screen*
I've only just started the video and this is a strong 10/10 for the intro James! Love it!
I am seriously tempted to buy a bath and try this. This is top-quality content creation right here.
Dude, this type of experimentation video format is intriguing and I love it. Do more crazy stuff like this please.
Really loving your intros for these. And they keep getting better
I just watched through the episodes.
These Intros are just phenomenal.
Awesome content. Love it.
"Sorry for the slurps." That's when I knew I was in for a treat.
You can also barrel age green coffee. I cant speak to the efficacy of it because ive never had it, but it is sold by Coopers Cask Coffee if youre interested.
The idea is that green coffee is very porous and easily adsorbs aromas, so by sticking it in a oaken barrel, the beans adsorb some of the aroma from the barrel.
2 words: ultrasound centrifuge - All the extraction of the ultrasound paired with the filtering capabilities of a centrifuge.
After I experimented with new beans and grind this morning... and having pulled the best and sweetest espresso shot of my life in.... 37sec. - I think... everything seems to be possible now. Ultrasonic brewing/aging? Sure! Going new ways is always exciting!
I would suggest the soaking in water is primarily relevant for using them as a smoking wood, which is the most common use of those chipped oak barrels here. I would suggest perhaps leaving them dry, but giving them an exterior char using a blow torch.
this is so infomative! ive never touched on aging! thx james!!
Please try doing sous vide coffee brewing! Two years ago, I was experimenting with brewing coffee using sous vide, and I got some very interesting results. I was NOT grinding the coffee at all, and was letting the beans brew in sealed mason jars for 24 hours or longer at 195*F - 90*C. My coffee to water ratio was, on average: 25g of coffee to 450 mL water (I am not certain if this could be improved.. if I may have been overdoing it with the amount of coffee.. I am not certain). This method does require you to off-gas the jars once the beans have saturated in the water (about 15-30 minutes in). After brewing, I would run it through a metal kitchen colander to remove the beans from the extracted liquid. Then it was back into the mason jars and into the water bath for 10 to 15 minutes at a lower temperature (150*F - 65*C). I used industrial strength brewers sanitizer to clean all my tools and containers throughout the entire process. In some varieties of coffee, I found that the entire bean would almost unfurl itself, which was very interesting! The longest that I had let a batch run in the sous vide was for 80 hours, but I think that 12-24 hours is more than enough. I still have some jars from my sous vide coffee experiments, and they seem to be quite stable.. even after two years.
just gave me a good reason to go fishing in the storage closet for my ultrasonic jeweler cleaning thingy to do some tests when i get my hands on some coffee
Have been enjoying your videos very much, especially the moka pot one, since I stumbled upon your channel while searching for a “how to make coffee in a moka pot” video. In general, you have a very pleasant diction and speaking tone. I would very much like to see your take and opinion on Turkish coffee.
If you want ideas along the lines of rapid oak aging, currently moonshiners are using vacuum. There are two methods. Microwave your liquid with oak ships until 150F, then quickly place the lid on and wait for the cooling to produce a vacuum. This tends to produce results that are similar to sonic methods. Personally, I use a food bag vacuum sealer with jar lid attachment and just pull a vacuum, but I'm letting it rest for months that way.
I did the exact same thing after I heard about the KS, using my spectacle sonic washer. I think the "cold brew" is breaking the coffee into the fines, and using those fines to flavor the water.
Ngl, Ultrasonic Rapid Barrel-Aging Coffee sounds like a good title for an EDM song.
Wow, fantastic intro, I love the retro setup, amazing and I am happy to be apart of your community.
This reminded me of my first trip to Hawaii. When flying from Ohau to Hawaii on Hawaiian Airline we were served Kona coffee that had been roasted with Macadamia nuts. The smell in the cabin when the brewing started was amazing and the actual taste of the coffee was incredible. I found the Kona Coffee company once in Kona and bought some of the coffee to take home. Several times after that I purchased what was supposed to be Kona Macadamia Nut coffee and it was never even close. I wonder if similar results to my original experience could be obtained with this method. Good video, very interesting indeed.
I would think different materials would be more or less conducive to ultrasonic waves. Might be interesting to compare the coffee prepared in a plastic bag or stainless container vs glass.
My favorite WCS episode yet. Thank you!
Another coffee-related use for my ultrasound! (Nothing beats ultrasonic cleaner - with appropriate chemicals - for cleaning shower screens and portafilter baskets, roaster burners ...)
I've been hoping you'd cover this technique! Thanks!
James.. thank you! We (my household) argued last night for what the device was on your wall.. we all got it wrong.. but the issue is settled.
Another great video. Thanks James! For the next video: why not go the other direction and make it as simple as possible and focus on two things only: 1) What do we want to extract from the coffee-plant and 2) how can we do that as pure-ly (and therefore probably as simple) as possible? Maybe we‘d like the juice of the fruit? And for the beans: would it maybe be better to slow-cook them at low temperatures instead of roasting them at high temperatures for a short time in order not to burn the etheric oils that we want to extract? Is there a fine line where you can do it quickly enough to avoid chemical reactions we do not want and do it slowly enough to avoid burning the beans too much?
Dude. The editing on the opening was iconic
Hi, this video is so interesting to me. As a pastry maker, I suppose to make some sort of infusing some herbs or coffee in the cream with this machine, and to whip this infusion 😂 Some day I wanna use this amazing ultrasonic cleaner to experiment! Thank for inspiring me
I use an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner for motorcycle carbs, rifle action, anything you can fill with water.
If I recall correctly, The ultrasonic waves are matched in frequency to the 1 atmosphere pressure and activity required to break water into droplets and then they recombine as the wave passes. This break and cavitation causes a cleaning/breaking action.
“sorry for the slurps!” oh James how bad can it OH MY GOD WHAT OUCH???
thank you for ALL the videos you make.
I agree with preferring a lesser presence of oak in wine however when it comes to whiskey I absolutely love a heavy presence of oak and smoke. I would love to try barrell aged coffee.
Hi James!
I'm a weird coffee person since a couple of years ago. I'm the only one at my workplace, and now we are going to sign up for a new coffee machine. Looking at the local alternatives, I'm a bit confused. It's very hard to get a grasp on how modern the technologies really are. I would love a video where you dig into the office coffee world a bit and showcase the best third-wave machines suitable for an office with 20+ people. I'm sure i'm not the only one in this situation. Thanks!
That intro deserves a freaking oscar
This video is really really Helpful for me.
Thanks for great video!
I just love this Intro so much. It's so epic!
12:13 james: “and that’s okay”. me while listening to it “and that’s oakay”
The most interesting thing ive done with barrel aging is throwing in green beans into a freshly emptied whiskey barrel closing it back up. Rotating the barrel daily for 6 weeks and then roasting the beans. The intense alcohol aroma made it hard to determine when to drop. But it was one of the most delicious I've ever made
Interesting video! I'm one of those who voted "Yes" for supporting the Kickstarter you mentioned, but I'm happy there are smarter people out there who suggested this cheaper alternative. We also got a video about it quicker!
You did this with coffee, but I'm wondering if there's a way to do this with coffee beans. I vaguely remember seeing a video about a Japanese coffee shop barrel-aging their coffee beans, making the coffee very expensive. I'm assuming this equipment requires the ingredients to be submerged in water for the ultrasonic waves to have an effect, but would there be a way to apply this to whole coffee beans? Maybe vacuum packing them?
I always love the Weird Coffee Science intros
Hi James. Polyscience sell something like that as well. Also something like the oak bottle or the oak tumbler could work, maybe brew a batch stick it either in the bottle or the tumbler then stick that in the ultrasonic?
*just checked the polyscience website, it is the sonicprep, but the original version was sold with the idea that it could be used for rapid barrel aging, not the design has changed and it is a homogeniser.
i left a comment on patreon talking about how blasting the coffee with ultrasonics could physically break down the coffee further, and make really muddy silty coffee, i'm not sure if this is a direct confirmation or coincidence though.
Doing it in a bath is an interesting comparison from the kickstarter project, which does it directly through a vibrating plate. Changing from transducer>plate>carafe>brew water to transducer>possible medium/plate>water>carafe>brew water could possibly adjust the direction/amount of disruption in the brew water. Obviously, the bath increases the surface area with a vibrating substance, but a lot more of the energy is going into vibrating the entire body of water in the bath, while the plate for the coldbrewer is more direct, but with much lower contact.
The secondary consideration is that the bath has ultrasonics hitting the carafe from all sides, so constructive/destructive interference along opposing axes could have interesting effects, however the plate has a singular axis of motion, and no opposing vibration to interfere with. Maybe this is why the sonic bath generated so much debris in the coffee. I'm surprised the crust survived the bath, but this may also depend on the level of the bath water compared to the height of the crust, maybe if they were similar you'd see the crust being over-agitated/destroyed?
I kinda went on a rant and got lostt, but still, there's a lot of interesting considerations to take comparing it to the cold brewer.
I often use a nitrous whipper to do rapid infusions with spirits, I’ve been planning to use it to try to rapid infuse with wood to simulate barrel aging. I’ll try it with coffee and see how it goes!