DavecUK Senior Member Joined: 21 Sep 2005 Posts: 145 Location: UK Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Izzo Alex, Fracino Heavenly,... Grinder: Mazzer Mini E Roaster: Toper 1kg (sold) Gene Cafe
Posted Wed Mar 26, 2008, 8:13am Subject: Re: Green Coffee Mold
The link below to the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations shows a nice picture of mouldy coffee and discusses the issue a little. simply reduce the url to the org bit for a more detailed discussion of the problem.
Posted Thu Mar 27, 2008, 8:23pm Subject: Re: Green Coffee Mold
Hi,
Actually moldy beans can be much more subtle that that. The color of the mold that I've seen is often blue greenish and can only be visually identified if you use a magnifying glass or dissecting microscope. The issue is that rather than growing on the surface like bread mold (much like the picture), I think the more common coffee bean mold grows through the bean and just under the surface cuticle making it very hard to observe against the normal color of the bean.
Recently I purchased five pounds of Monsooned Malabar which was nothing but rubbish. Interestingly, the light color of the beans emphasized the blue green mold which had contaminated almost every bean in the bag. Just a pin point or two of blue green color on a cream colored bean, and the defect could not be scraped or rubbed away.
Just for kicks I roasted it and the smell during the first part of the roast was a dead giveaway - much like sour milk and a mildewed washcloth. Interestingly the strong smell "burned off" quickly giving the impression of a decent roast. But in the cup - pure mildew.
Smell and taste will surely be a dead giveaway probably long before visual observation. The human nose is very sensitive to the compounds that we generally call "must" or "mildew". The detection of these smells in the low parts per trillion level - approximately equivalent to a tiny drop of water in an olympic size swimming pool!
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