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TUESDAY 6, JANUARY 2009
Wet Milling or Washing and Drying
One of Mountain Thunder's (2) 40 bag per hour ecosystem pulper
Washing coffee is a way to stop fermentation of the slippery mucilage coating once the cherry skin has been removed. This dry fermentation by natural yeasts causes the bean temperature to rise and turns the coffee towards a bitter flavor. Wet milling and water-washing stop this process from happening, which smooths out the flavor of the coffee. In Kona, all coffee has traditionally been wet milled and Mountain Thunder continues this tradition, and takes the processing to the next level.
Mountain Thunder's wash basin where the floating cherries are separated from the good cherries that float.
Cherries are sent through a soaking pool, where some of the beans will float and the rest of the beans will sink. Then the heavy, sinkers will be sent to the pulper to be pulped. The cherries that float will make a "C" grade coffee, which will be separated from the rest of the incoming cherries. Then, the cherry skins are removed using the pulper pictured above
at a rate of 4,000 Lbs per hour. The pulped coffee beans are sent into the Criba, a pice of perforated sheet metal wrapped around a drum.
Mountain Thunder's Criba. This item sorts away over-ripe and under-ripe beans from good beans.
The beans are sent through the center of the Criba and the good beans fall through to a trough below the cylendar. This coffee that falls through the Criba will be classified as the "A" grade parchment coffee. This coffee will be very clean and have an even color, which helps during the drying process. The un-pulped beans or beans which have not fully been pulped, make their way as they are agitated toward the end of the cylendar where they are collected to make a "B" Grade of parchment coffee. The next step, once we have created an "A" grade parchment coffee is to wash this wonderful coffee. At Mountain Thunder we do a washing and a fermentation process to take away the slimy musilige coating. We do a washing by fermenting the beans
Mountain Thunder's Fermentation Tank--holds 12,000 pounds of coffee
When we ferment, the beans are soaked in their own juices and extra water overnight. In the morning the beans, are agitated and washed and shaken over a mechanical shaker. After shaking the beans, they are ready to be dried to 11% moisture on the drying decks.
Mountain Thunder sun-dries all parchment coffee for at least one day.
Mountain Thunder uses mechanical dryers for large harvest days
Coffee is dried on the drying decks, and when there is sufficient parchment to be dried, we load the mechanical dryers for an overnight drying session. Our goal is to dry the parchment near 11% moisture. To be exact, we use scientific agricultural machines to test the moisture level to be exactly within (+-.5%) of 11% moisture. This scientific measurement and level of accuracy ensures that the coffee beans will be a nice coffee green color in our next process called Dry Milling.
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