Not a centrifuge, but a lab quality stirplate! Use it for making yeast starters for beer brewing, but now I'm wondering if there isn't some way to use coffee with it...
@@Neojhun When a centrifuge would get stuck while spinning at high speed, the whole thing would start flying. (All the energy needed to get to the high RPMs would be released at once. The whole centrifuge would end up on the other site of your kitchen top, if you were lucky).
Something to contemplate: I am a biologist and I play with centrifuges almost everyday. For particles with the size of coffee ground, which have diameters in high µm I believe, you really just need something like 300g for 5 minutes to pellet all the solid. And I suspect at this speed and time your organic phase (oil) will not have separated yet. This could easily be achieved by a manual centrifuge (think manual egg beater, just bigger). These are easily affordable, and though will fatigue your arms if you do multiple shots, you can always have your guests swing their own coffee. Also for a closed tube with limited air, like the 50ml falcon tubes in the video, the best way to mix the solid with the liquid without introducing too much air into the liquid, is to invert the tube several times, each time after the air bubble travels to the top of the tube. That air bubble does a lot of things.
TheBusyJane Err the frothers i’ve seen don’t do centrifugation. They vibrate very very quickly to introduce tiny air bubbles into the milk. Also you cannot centrifuge something from the inside, that’s not how it works.
@@StrikingCrayon Yes of course you can do that. Find a container that seals tight enough, a rope long enough to generate enough angular momentum, swing hard enough, and hope that your wife doesn't castrate you when you smash the container on the antique clock and spill coffee all over the Turkish carpet
I laughed even more because I also tasted that oi (not as concentrated though) l and remember my feelings very well :) Sometimes, there are things you just have to try to know what it is like, and seeing someone else who is just about to go through that experience too, knowing what will most probably follow ... well .. the path to knowledge can be a lot of fun too :D :D
@@DovidM I mean i imagine that transparent coffee wouldn't be as marketable of a name as clear coffee; I also imagine it would be pretty hard to make coffee 100% clear without losing more coffee flavor and turning it into water of questionable origin.
@@DovidM you can get slightly yellow coffee flavoured water in quite a few places. They sell it as 'coffee', mind ... ;) (one of my friends called it 'aigua de castanyes' which I suppose translates as 'brown water.)
One of the things I'd like to see if the taste/solubility changes throughout the centrifuged liquid. Put another espresso through and use a micropipette to take samples from the bottom, middle, and top. Taste each one separately. They might have different flavor profiles.
Test Idea: dilute the oils Why: Various flavor compounds have different threshold concentrations for our tongues to perceive them (e.g. Sugar has a high threshold which makes us seek more whereas a potentially poisonous compound has a low threshold to make us acutely sensitive). Overstimulation of taste receptors tends to produce a negative reaction that can mask other flavors (e.g. An overly salty steak doesn't really taste like steak). Diluting the oils may allow for other flavors to be perceived and may make it more pleasant. Possible execution: You could try emulsifying the oil water by shaking shaking it in water and then tasting.
I work in a lab, I do tests on blood and urine so watching you spin something down in a centrifuge and then eating the supernate just feels so wrong haha
James Hoffmann would me too. Reminds me of a video where I saw Gordon Ramsey have someone clean a toilet and then told them to do the bread test. If you won’t eat a piece of bread after wiping it on the toilet, then you didn’t clean it enough. But it’s like regardless of how well I cleaned it, it’s still a toilet!
Same here. Worked 30+ years in the clinical lab, and we used to use humongous old floor centrifuges to separate plasma from fresh whole blood units for neonates. And centrifuge urine specimens to microscopically study sediment in bottom of tube. So eating from a centrifuge tube seems so - YUCK!
Centrifuged coffee. Sounds geeky cool. Let’s launch a cafe here in Silicon Valley, CA. I think there would be a load of folks who would pay $5 per cup... er... beaker.
James looking at the spoon and saying he will have to eat it, with a grimace. Me shouting at my screen “EAT IT! EAT IT! JUST DO IT! DO IT DOIT DOOOITTT!!”
I stubbled across your channel last week when trying to find myself a hand grinder for when i'm at work that i can combine with my aeropress. you deserve alot more accreditation than what you get your videos are 100's of times nicer to watch than alot of videos on youtube and i think this is down to the fact that you speak so calmly and your videos are laid back.
I'd love to see four (all post brew). one shot of espresso, and the equivalent brew of a V60, Chemex (because of their "special filters", french press. Just to see how things with different filtration methods effect the oils vs solids vs particulate left in the cup. Or some variation on this kind of experiment with different brew types
I heard that a company has made a cold brew machine using a method of cold brewing where they centrifuge the coffee so that you can get cold brew taste in a few minutes instead of several hours. I know you aren't a fan of cold brew coffee, but it would be interesting to see how the coffee will taste with room temp water and coffee grounds spinning for a few minutes. The company's device doesn't spin as fast as the centrifuge, so that could be another test: how fast can you get cold brew coffee taste with a device that spins much faster? Love your videos!
Would be interested to see you review the SPINN centrifugal based espresso machine. It’s actually on Kickerstar and just started shipping after 4 years in development.
Apparently we are thinking on a similar path because I was contemplating this last week, and low and behold, you have done it. Glad to see the final product worked the way I thought it would.
I work in a lab so seeing you drink/eat anything out of a 50mL conical tube feels wrong. Next stop is a bigger centrifuge so you can make an actual cup in one go.
What, you don’t mouth pipette anymore either? Lol. I love the carefully weighted conical tubes, maybe I’ve worked in a lab too long, I just eyeball blood samples and drop them in.
Idea for a test using centrifuge: "How effective at filtration are different filtration methods/devices and filtration based brew styles (eg. paper filter coffee)" (Imho each time you should use grind size appropriate for brew type, not one type for all) The test would look like this: Brew coffee using v60/hario/metal filter/straight up brew in a cup then pour through a mesh sieve/mokapot/espresso/? When coffee is brewed, let's take mokapot, pour X amount into the tubes and spin, and see how much particulate and oils made it through. Taste test. (each time same time and speed and possibly nearly identical amount of coffee into the tubes) Then brew another coffee, let's say using a paper filter, when brewed pour as close to X amount of the previous test into the tubes and spin at the same settings. Compare how much/less particulate/oil made it through into the product, taste test. Which method filters most particulate? Which one let's most of it through? Which stops the oils best? Which let's the oils through? Is any of the coffees noticeably different in flavour after separation? Did any of the coffees need more time to separate fully? etc. Edit: youtube garbage comment system can't keep formatting correctly...
This centrifuge idea of separating grounds seems like it has potential. You could produce multiple drinks at a time and have good control over variables with spin time and speed. I like it!
There's a centrifuge made for food sold on Modernist Pantry. It looks sort of like a food processor. Kenji has a video with the inventor and they make various herb steeped oils etc. It costs a cool $700 but would probably be easier to use for separating grounds from coffee if that were to become a new popular method. I tried to do what you did in college but the professor (understandably) didn't want me using the centrifuges that cost upwards of $15k on something that wasn't actually research. Something something "trying to cure cancer over here."
That "oh no!" reminded me very much of the video in which belowed Katie Puckrick tested Secretions Magnifique, a perfume released by Etat Libre D'Orange. Had me rolling 🤣 Bless you, James!
Dear Professor Hoffman, as your coffee colleagues and students of science, we risttretto respectfully request your use of a pipette to isolate the centrifuged fractions and thus preserve the elegance of your experiment and preserve the function of your taste buds.... Love It!!
@@ianhu7755 What are you talking about? High Polymer Liquid Chromatography something? I think I need to enroll a master degree for computational chemistry or something
@@dwikafebrianto3016 bah high performance LC, just a bigger pump and compatible piping with higher pressure tolerance with higher resolution. computational chemistry? is that a thing now? are we there already?
I think the immersion-brewed coffee clarification could be made more practical with something like a Spinzall that can process fluids continuously using a pump. You'd probably be able to process product faster especially since you don't have to balance tubes or anything. It's still limited to 1L per 20 minutes though so it's still gonna be a bit of a hassle. On the other hand it's probably 10x cheaper than a lab centrifuge and there's (I think) much less of a risk of catastrophic failure, so there's that.
Hi James, If I want to separate the solids from the coffee (liquid) I have a simplified French Press way! I grind the beans, but them in a pot / cup, pour over the hot water (all) and steer, after a couple of minutes steer gently the crema on top, wait for few more minutes. Solids will fall slowly down to the bottom. To accelerate the process I hit the pot /cup on the table like the frothed milk. Finally you will enjoy a clean coffee with rich crema on top. Cheers
Would love to see some of that cocktail stuff in action, also it would be pretty cool if you got your hands on a more powerful solvent than water, ethanol maybe and then evaporated it off of the brew to make an instant coffee
Love your videos I'm from South Africa im a beginner batista and love videography just bought a hario set for making pour overs at home 😎😎😎 and your method in your book is my favorite
This should be a TV show on a regular basis! i love those simple science ideas behind a "for the most people" simple thing like coffee, its all about curiosity :)
Working in a lab and seeing you hold 50mL falcon tubes (conical tubes) and use a centrifuge made my day. The centrifuge will allow several grams of error typically especially since you're not using an ulatrcentrifuge btw. 4.1k rpm probably only made about 5-6k rcf.
Thank you for videos, James Hoffmann! Could you please also make a video talking about different type of Coffee machines with 2 groups? About differences advantages and disadvantages. I'd truly appreciate it!
What a great video!! It takes a certain level of craziness and passion to do this! Its kinda funny when he is contemplating on drinking the coffee oil 😂
Thanks James, we finally the is a SPINN Coffee Machine that has taken your experimental inventiveness and manufactured a centrifugal coffee extraction machine for the consumer market producing some exceptional characteristics in some coffee profiles.
For the sake of science!! Thank you so much for this, it's brilliant ! On another note, fat and oils may not taste good on their own, but if properly homogenized and kept add an emulsion, they give that my smoothness and richness to eg soups or other beverages like milk. Definitely not surprised by how the coffee oil taste when isolated.
Interesting vid - FYI with most newer, higher grade centrifuges you don't have to worry about the weights being off by even a few grams at the sort of speeds you're spinning at. You can also get temp controlled centrifuges so you could maintain some heat or even cool the coffee during the spin for a quick iced coffee! (Source - work in a molecular biology lab)
Maybe making a coffee centrifuge brewer out of household materials can be a project for you? I would want to see two versions, one is just how to rig a container with strings you just pull and release, the other a larger base you set a jar in while a basic motor and belt setup spins it for larger quantities.
9:14 Any parent would be so proud. 😁 Well done James. 👍 Those bitter elements trapped in the oil probably contribute in the same way that marmalade jam works, taken with coffee of course. 😎
I laughed so hard I cried. I swear I'm dead inside and almost no humor works on me anymore, but my god watching james hoffman come to terms with the flavors of that espresso fat had me trying not to wake up my girlfriend. I know I'm late, but thank you for taking one for the team. Also, fwiw, definitely looks like James was up late enjoying some cocktails the night before this video was taken, which somehow really works for this video? I don't know, it felt more intimate somehow.
James: These need to be balanced to point one of a gram. Me: Wow, that's a very, very small amount of water. Also me: *works with literally these kinds of centrifuges in the lab, where we measure things by the microlitre*
i only discovered you recently (during quarantine 2020), but i'm glad i did because it's videos like this that inspired me to support you on patreon. :)
This is soooo cool (and you're so cool). It's probably hard to believe but I've been dreaming about centrifuge coffee for years. Strictly out of curiosity. I've had no reason to think it would be delicious. Having one of those machines would be so fun for making different types of cocktails or working with advanced types of fat washing techniques.
Curiously, Nespresso Vertuo machines use centrifugal force for extraction, though, because it feeds from the centre of the capsule, it would never have the power of your lab grade centrifuge, merely 'enough' pressure to get the job done - Absolutely loving your videos and your obvious passion for coffee you Coffee Maven you :)
Milk based beverages in a centrifuge would be interesting. Tasting the individual components of a latte from before mixing them, tasting them together as a latte, and then tasting the results of separation from a centrifuge could be a fun comparison.
Very interesting outcomes! I would think that for water and coffee grounds would extract initially, but in the centrifuge would reverse extraction as any dissolved solids would be inverse with time in the centrifuge.
As someone who works a lot lot lot with centrifuges, I'd love to see what ramp-up and final speed do to extraction. I feel like a slow ramp, higher final speed (12k?) pouring off the solubles and re-mixing them would be a really good recipe.
Cowboy’s used to do this (sans centrifuge). When camping you put hot water and coffee in a billy then spin it in circles (vertically) with a straight arm. Sounds crazy, but it works!
Hey James! Could we get a video about pressurized and non-pressurized baskets in espresso? Not sure if this is in the vein of weird coffee science you intended out of this series but I think it's an interesting topic. How coarser beans extract at pressure vs. how finer bean extract when they create the pressure. Scott Rao's use of paper filters in his espresso and how this affects the pressure in the basket. Stuff along this line of pressure being created by the fineness of the grind vs. pressure being created by other sources.
There are "thru" centrifuges that don't hit quite as high G forces (usually used for brewery applications such as beer clarification, etc rather than lab work) that might be more practically built in to some type of coffee device.
I've been using an Italmax brand "moca pot" for quite awhile without starting with hot water and ending with cooling it down after the brewing process. My taste buds must not be as discerning as yours, as I do not detect a noticeable difference in the results. I do however enjoy the coffee whichever way it is brewed. Also, your videos have been very inspiring. I've watched most all, some more than once, and look forward to the next. Thank you.
Great channel James, really good reviews and experiments, thanks for sharing! You could try to centrifuge some coffee with milk or a cold brew and see if the absence of heat does something different to the oils.
It definitely confirmed my preference for paper over metal filters. Espresso is an odd one though since the coffee got too bright when I tried a paper filter on it.
It would interesting to see a typical filter grind coffee filtered (v60 or even an aeropress) and then spun , how much still comes down and what the taste difference is 50 % spun 50% left. Also would be interesting to see if you could see any oil floating (maybe too little to see easily). If the centrifuge is cooled it'd probably help with separating the coffee oils, or you could cool the samples prior to centrifugation.
There was a "Spin Espress" coffee maker from Portland Oregon in 1985. I found a link from a guy who bought one of these for $3 at a thrift store. He did not try it out though. It seems to be a blender with specially shaped plastic baskets which spin the coffee through the grounds and yield brewed coffee. It probably would make you dizzy tho..
Great experiments! I'd like to a deeper dive into the coffee oils. You tasted the oils by themselves, but how about doing a side-by-side comparison of the same espresso shot, one with the oils and one without? You could run only half of the espresso shot through the centrifuge while keeping the other half out to compare with. Just balance the other centrifuge vial with an equal mass of water.
"Let me know, in the comments below: do *you* own a centrifuge? What are your favorite recipes?" ;)
Not a centrifuge, but a lab quality stirplate! Use it for making yeast starters for beer brewing, but now I'm wondering if there isn't some way to use coffee with it...
Hahahaha, I laughed so hard when seeing this comment XD
What's bonkers is, now years later, there IS a centrifugal coffee brewer on the market! DID THEY GET THE IDEA FROM JAMES?
James Hoffmann "never swirl your espresso"
Also James Hoffmann "spin espresso in a centrifuge"
Context is a bitch ain't it lol.
Lewis Ransom „oh no“ 😪
Lmaoooo 😂
You get a "license to swirl" when you purchase Kruve Propel :) which I will do asap actually, because I like them a lot.
@Lewis Ransom, Lol
Some people are down the rabbit hole.
James Hoffman is just a couple meters away from the earth's core.
You got the hots for James? ;)
Nah, he still has ways to go.
He isn't even hitting the HPLCs or GC/MS yet.
Honestly, after watching 10 of these and not being a coffee drinker, I need an intervention.
Wait until you find Trenton and heath... now I’m also way to into shoe cobbling. Both channels are my go to now for late night relaxation before bed.
Next we need to know what happens when you smash coffee particles together in the Hadron Collider
The series can't die just cause the intro is so good.
Yeah I thought it was really well done as well. Interesting, retro, and modern all at the same time.
@@linam97 is there a name or genre for this kind of music?
@@tinypanther27 pretty sure james makes it!
Its been said before, and ill say it again. The amount of effort and quality in your videos is insane!
Imagine going to his house for coffee and being asked, "Pour-over or Centrifuge?"
Exactly!
Spinn Cofee, someone actually built a Consumer Electronic machine that does that.
@@Neojhun When a centrifuge would get stuck while spinning at high speed, the whole thing would start flying.
(All the energy needed to get to the high RPMs would be released at once. The whole centrifuge would end up on the other site of your kitchen top, if you were lucky).
Something to contemplate: I am a biologist and I play with centrifuges almost everyday. For particles with the size of coffee ground, which have diameters in high µm I believe, you really just need something like 300g for 5 minutes to pellet all the solid. And I suspect at this speed and time your organic phase (oil) will not have separated yet. This could easily be achieved by a manual centrifuge (think manual egg beater, just bigger). These are easily affordable, and though will fatigue your arms if you do multiple shots, you can always have your guests swing their own coffee.
Also for a closed tube with limited air, like the 50ml falcon tubes in the video, the best way to mix the solid with the liquid without introducing too much air into the liquid, is to invert the tube several times, each time after the air bubble travels to the top of the tube. That air bubble does a lot of things.
Wow. That's literally coffee science. Very nice.
What if you used one of those stand-alone electric milk frothers to centrifuge it from the inside?
TheBusyJane Err the frothers i’ve seen don’t do centrifugation. They vibrate very very quickly to introduce tiny air bubbles into the milk. Also you cannot centrifuge something from the inside, that’s not how it works.
What about a sealed container on a string? Spin to win?
@@StrikingCrayon Yes of course you can do that. Find a container that seals tight enough, a rope long enough to generate enough angular momentum, swing hard enough, and hope that your wife doesn't castrate you when you smash the container on the antique clock and spill coffee all over the Turkish carpet
James' face after eating/drinking weird stuff is one of the best things on RUclips.
"Oh no!"
And, he's so calm about it. If it was me it would...well I won't write it out but will initialize it. J F C. W T F I T S.
I don’t want to laugh at someone else’s pain pain but... “Oh no. That’s very bad... that might actually make me cry.”
Sorry James.
His clear coffee series is all about us enjoying his pain.
I laughed even more because I also tasted that oi (not as concentrated though) l and remember my feelings very well :) Sometimes, there are things you just have to try to know what it is like, and seeing someone else who is just about to go through that experience too, knowing what will most probably follow ... well .. the path to knowledge can be a lot of fun too :D :D
This is stuf for a gif 😂😂😂😂
Oh no
I'm a complicated man. I see James Hoffman centrifuging espresso, I click like.
"this is crystal CLEAR" - James Hoffmann
*a CLEAR coffee beverage company enters the chat*
Instant multi million dollar company if they released clear bottled coffee drinks.
“Clear Coffee” is touted as colorless cold brew. It is slightly yellow in color, and is described as a coffee flavored water.
Japan. They have already made a clear, “coffee flavored” drink-mistake.
@@DovidM I mean i imagine that transparent coffee wouldn't be as marketable of a name as clear coffee; I also imagine it would be pretty hard to make coffee 100% clear without losing more coffee flavor and turning it into water of questionable origin.
@@DovidM you can get slightly yellow coffee flavoured water in quite a few places. They sell it as 'coffee', mind ... ;) (one of my friends called it 'aigua de castanyes' which I suppose translates as 'brown water.)
Perfect hair for wierd scientist
Alexey Stepashkin yes the hair is working good today! 🤠
God, I really love the hair. I really wanna copy his hairstyle.
and accent!
One of the things I'd like to see if the taste/solubility changes throughout the centrifuged liquid. Put another espresso through and use a micropipette to take samples from the bottom, middle, and top. Taste each one separately. They might have different flavor profiles.
In principle a centrifuge cannot change the composition of a continuous phase, it can merely separate discontinuous phases by density.
I just loved the reaction after eating it, I knew it was coming. It never disappoints me when James tastes some terrible stuff
Test Idea: dilute the oils
Why: Various flavor compounds have different threshold concentrations for our tongues to perceive them (e.g. Sugar has a high threshold which makes us seek more whereas a potentially poisonous compound has a low threshold to make us acutely sensitive). Overstimulation of taste receptors tends to produce a negative reaction that can mask other flavors (e.g. An overly salty steak doesn't really taste like steak). Diluting the oils may allow for other flavors to be perceived and may make it more pleasant.
Possible execution: You could try emulsifying the oil water by shaking shaking it in water and then tasting.
“There’s only one thing left to do.”
This gonna be good.
For science...
"Oh no."
James, a full video in a lab coat & you couldn't use my favourite British word?
Boffin!
Haha -- he found the source of the evil in those clear coffee drinks.
"One thing" - I'm a scientist and my first thought was "chromatography".
can we get a mug that says "oh no"
Ha! (I can look into that...)
Yesss and it needs the face you did when saying it!
James Hoffmann I need that
" Oh no"........sage words indeed.....actually giggled out loud! Mug is a great idea.
Just the eyebrows, frown, and glasses with "oh" and "no" in each lens
I work in a lab, I do tests on blood and urine so watching you spin something down in a centrifuge and then eating the supernate just feels so wrong haha
This has been deeply cleaned, had a new rotor and these were brand new tubes to boot. Centrifuges generally freak me out.
James Hoffmann would me too. Reminds me of a video where I saw Gordon Ramsey have someone clean a toilet and then told them to do the bread test. If you won’t eat a piece of bread after wiping it on the toilet, then you didn’t clean it enough. But it’s like regardless of how well I cleaned it, it’s still a toilet!
@@MrTwins95 any youtube link of that Gordon Ramsay's toilet bread? I probably eat a slice of bread after wiping it out on my butt but, toilet....
Same here. Worked 30+ years in the clinical lab, and we used to use humongous old floor centrifuges to separate plasma from fresh whole blood units for neonates. And centrifuge urine specimens to microscopically study sediment in bottom of tube. So eating from a centrifuge tube seems so - YUCK!
James Bond Hoffmann: "One espresso, please."
Barista: "Shaken or stirred?"
James Bond Hoffmann: "Centrifuged!"
The "Look around you" vibe is incredible :)
Can you see what we are looking for? That's right, it's bitter oils.
This man is absolutely insane. And it is definitely what I like about him. Thank you for the effort you put in these videos, James!
Centrifuged coffee. Sounds geeky cool. Let’s launch a cafe here in Silicon Valley, CA. I think there would be a load of folks who would pay $5 per cup... er... beaker.
Be ready to wait for 15 minutes a cup. XD
And noisy.
This “weird coffee science” is getting to be a favorite series of mine
Lmao Same.
@@TheSamuelBauter I think it is second best to soda coffee/clear coffee stuff! But he is already defeated to the soda coffee series
James looking at the spoon and saying he will have to eat it, with a grimace.
Me shouting at my screen “EAT IT! EAT IT! JUST DO IT! DO IT DOIT DOOOITTT!!”
I stubbled across your channel last week when trying to find myself a hand grinder for when i'm at work that i can combine with my aeropress. you deserve alot more accreditation than what you get your videos are 100's of times nicer to watch than alot of videos on youtube and i think this is down to the fact that you speak so calmly and your videos are laid back.
I'd love to see four (all post brew). one shot of espresso, and the equivalent brew of a V60, Chemex (because of their "special filters", french press. Just to see how things with different filtration methods effect the oils vs solids vs particulate left in the cup. Or some variation on this kind of experiment with different brew types
I heard that a company has made a cold brew machine using a method of cold brewing where they centrifuge the coffee so that you can get cold brew taste in a few minutes instead of several hours. I know you aren't a fan of cold brew coffee, but it would be interesting to see how the coffee will taste with room temp water and coffee grounds spinning for a few minutes. The company's device doesn't spin as fast as the centrifuge, so that could be another test: how fast can you get cold brew coffee taste with a device that spins much faster? Love your videos!
"oh no" XD
Would be interested to see you review the SPINN centrifugal based espresso machine. It’s actually on Kickerstar and just started shipping after 4 years in development.
Going in the lab equipment direction, could doing pour over on a vacuum filtration setup be able to do a higher extraction faster?
Now I want to see coffee made with a Soxhlet extractor.
Oil eating moment FTW! "Oh no...". Great as always!
It still haunts me...
This is true of so many endeavours: If you're not going too far, you're not going far enough.
Apparently we are thinking on a similar path because I was contemplating this last week, and low and behold, you have done it. Glad to see the final product worked the way I thought it would.
Have you heard of the Spinn coffee maker? It spins the bed in order to extract the coffee. Would love to see you get your hands on one.
we can now add centrifuge coffee to the list of extravagant coffee brewing techniques.
Exctraction method using centrifuged coffee has been launch by Nespresso and their Vertuo system. Look it up
@@wks99 I didn't know that. I think James should do something about that Nespresso thingy in his future videos
4:30
Haha! I just love how politely he can express the utmost disgust xD
I work in a lab so seeing you drink/eat anything out of a 50mL conical tube feels wrong. Next stop is a bigger centrifuge so you can make an actual cup in one go.
What do you mean we biologists drink from falcon tubes all the time!
Just imagine drink all those tubed blood and weird solution 😷
What, you don’t mouth pipette anymore either? Lol. I love the carefully weighted conical tubes, maybe I’ve worked in a lab too long, I just eyeball blood samples and drop them in.
Idea for a test using centrifuge:
"How effective at filtration are different filtration methods/devices and filtration based brew styles (eg. paper filter coffee)"
(Imho each time you should use grind size appropriate for brew type, not one type for all)
The test would look like this:
Brew coffee using v60/hario/metal filter/straight up brew in a cup then pour through a mesh sieve/mokapot/espresso/?
When coffee is brewed, let's take mokapot, pour X amount into the tubes and spin, and see how much particulate and oils made it through. Taste test.
(each time same time and speed and possibly nearly identical amount of coffee into the tubes)
Then brew another coffee, let's say using a paper filter, when brewed pour as close to X amount of the previous test into the tubes and spin at the same settings.
Compare how much/less particulate/oil made it through into the product, taste test.
Which method filters most particulate?
Which one let's most of it through?
Which stops the oils best?
Which let's the oils through?
Is any of the coffees noticeably different in flavour after separation?
Did any of the coffees need more time to separate fully?
etc.
Edit: youtube garbage comment system can't keep formatting correctly...
Yes. I'd be very interested in seeing the different paper filter compared to each other also (v60, chemex, kalita)
TL;DR I don't have a university degree or something to read your comment. Too complicated bruh. Please simplify
@@dwikafebrianto3016 spin stuff fast to see things ;D
This centrifuge idea of separating grounds seems like it has potential. You could produce multiple drinks at a time and have good control over variables with spin time and speed. I like it!
There's a centrifuge made for food sold on Modernist Pantry. It looks sort of like a food processor. Kenji has a video with the inventor and they make various herb steeped oils etc. It costs a cool $700 but would probably be easier to use for separating grounds from coffee if that were to become a new popular method.
I tried to do what you did in college but the professor (understandably) didn't want me using the centrifuges that cost upwards of $15k on something that wasn't actually research. Something something "trying to cure cancer over here."
That "oh no!" reminded me very much of the video in which belowed Katie Puckrick tested Secretions Magnifique, a perfume released by Etat Libre D'Orange. Had me rolling 🤣
Bless you, James!
Dear Professor Hoffman, as your coffee colleagues and students of science, we risttretto respectfully request your use of a pipette to isolate the centrifuged fractions and thus preserve the elegance of your experiment and preserve the function of your taste buds.... Love It!!
The moment you realize you need a mass spectrometer ...
I realised this some time ago...
Often thought a GC MS would be interesting.
@@dlewis5431 With that organic gunk you really need HPLC-MS-MS
@@ianhu7755 What are you talking about? High Polymer Liquid Chromatography something? I think I need to enroll a master degree for computational chemistry or something
@@dwikafebrianto3016 bah high performance LC, just a bigger pump and compatible piping with higher pressure tolerance with higher resolution.
computational chemistry? is that a thing now? are we there already?
With you pushing the coffee boundaries like that, I know for sure we're having a better future. Thank you James and keep experimenting!
I think the immersion-brewed coffee clarification could be made more practical with something like a Spinzall that can process fluids continuously using a pump. You'd probably be able to process product faster especially since you don't have to balance tubes or anything. It's still limited to 1L per 20 minutes though so it's still gonna be a bit of a hassle. On the other hand it's probably 10x cheaper than a lab centrifuge and there's (I think) much less of a risk of catastrophic failure, so there's that.
I’ve wanted a good excuse for a Spinzall for a while...
Hi James,
If I want to separate the solids from the coffee (liquid) I have a simplified French Press way! I grind the beans, but them in a pot / cup, pour over the hot water (all) and steer, after a couple of minutes steer gently the crema on top, wait for few more minutes. Solids will fall slowly down to the bottom. To accelerate the process I hit the pot /cup on the table like the frothed milk. Finally you will enjoy a clean coffee with rich crema on top. Cheers
Would love to see some of that cocktail stuff in action, also it would be pretty cool if you got your hands on a more powerful solvent than water, ethanol maybe and then evaporated it off of the brew to make an instant coffee
Love your videos I'm from South Africa im a beginner batista and love videography just bought a hario set for making pour overs at home 😎😎😎 and your method in your book is my favorite
This should be a TV show on a regular basis! i love those simple science ideas behind a "for the most people" simple thing like coffee, its all about curiosity :)
Working in a lab and seeing you hold 50mL falcon tubes (conical tubes) and use a centrifuge made my day. The centrifuge will allow several grams of error typically especially since you're not using an ulatrcentrifuge btw. 4.1k rpm probably only made about 5-6k rcf.
Thank you Dr Hoffman. This was a great video 😀
Thank you for videos, James Hoffmann! Could you please also make a video talking about different type of Coffee machines with 2 groups? About differences advantages and disadvantages. I'd truly appreciate it!
Next year at HOST: Coffee Centrifuge Robots
Try making “french press” coffee with it
Mohamed Zolfakkar thats what I thought for me French press is a very dirty cup ...
What about a comparison with Turkish coffee to see how much sediment is left in it?
@@vinnyv9187 Yeah James should have an Ultimate Ibrik Technique he hasn't shared yet
What a great video!! It takes a certain level of craziness and passion to do this! Its kinda funny when he is contemplating on drinking the coffee oil 😂
Thanks James, we finally the is a SPINN Coffee Machine that has taken your experimental inventiveness and manufactured a centrifugal coffee extraction machine for the consumer market producing some exceptional characteristics in some coffee profiles.
Im not gonna skip the ads section, cuz this is science, need support for it.
Love this series. More ideas for the centrifuge? a nice dark beer? There should be some interesting layers.
As a Chemist and a Coffee lover I really enjoyed that!
For the sake of science!! Thank you so much for this, it's brilliant !
On another note, fat and oils may not taste good on their own, but if properly homogenized and kept add an emulsion, they give that my smoothness and richness to eg soups or other beverages like milk. Definitely not surprised by how the coffee oil taste when isolated.
This is great stuff, James expression when he is about to swallow the oils 😄. Coffee and comedy together is clearly under rated.
This is it! It's the zero waste solution we all have been looking for! It's glorious, we should all get a centrifuge.
4:24 I envy and pity you at the same time. Your sacrifices for science are enormous.
Interesting vid - FYI with most newer, higher grade centrifuges you don't have to worry about the weights being off by even a few grams at the sort of speeds you're spinning at. You can also get temp controlled centrifuges so you could maintain some heat or even cool the coffee during the spin for a quick iced coffee! (Source - work in a molecular biology lab)
Another awesome video Mr Hoffman. Thanks again for the laughter
This is, hands down, one of your best videos
I’ve been looking forward to this the entire day. Finally!
Maybe making a coffee centrifuge brewer out of household materials can be a project for you? I would want to see two versions, one is just how to rig a container with strings you just pull and release, the other a larger base you set a jar in while a basic motor and belt setup spins it for larger quantities.
these are the most interesting and high quality videos about coffee on youtube, thanks man
I love science. I love coffee. Naturally I love these videos!
9:14 Any parent would be so proud. 😁 Well done James. 👍
Those bitter elements trapped in the oil probably contribute in the same way that marmalade jam works, taken with coffee of course. 😎
YES! A new mini serie: Will it centrifuge?
Put on some safety glasses, don 't drink it, but please do for us.
I hit “like” at about 1:20 into the video when I realized what you were going to do. Amazing video!!!
5:01 "What is wrong with me?" 😂
I laughed so hard I cried. I swear I'm dead inside and almost no humor works on me anymore, but my god watching james hoffman come to terms with the flavors of that espresso fat had me trying not to wake up my girlfriend.
I know I'm late, but thank you for taking one for the team.
Also, fwiw, definitely looks like James was up late enjoying some cocktails the night before this video was taken, which somehow really works for this video? I don't know, it felt more intimate somehow.
James: These need to be balanced to point one of a gram.
Me: Wow, that's a very, very small amount of water.
Also me: *works with literally these kinds of centrifuges in the lab, where we measure things by the microlitre*
i only discovered you recently (during quarantine 2020), but i'm glad i did because it's videos like this that inspired me to support you on patreon. :)
Love that subtle dolly zoom.
This is soooo cool (and you're so cool). It's probably hard to believe but I've been dreaming about centrifuge coffee for years. Strictly out of curiosity. I've had no reason to think it would be delicious. Having one of those machines would be so fun for making different types of cocktails or working with advanced types of fat washing techniques.
Curiously, Nespresso Vertuo machines use centrifugal force for extraction, though, because it feeds from the centre of the capsule, it would never have the power of your lab grade centrifuge, merely 'enough' pressure to get the job done - Absolutely loving your videos and your obvious passion for coffee you Coffee Maven you :)
Milk based beverages in a centrifuge would be interesting. Tasting the individual components of a latte from before mixing them, tasting them together as a latte, and then tasting the results of separation from a centrifuge could be a fun comparison.
Very interesting outcomes! I would think that for water and coffee grounds would extract initially, but in the centrifuge would reverse extraction as any dissolved solids would be inverse with time in the centrifuge.
“Oh no...” That was the best. Okay: oil = bitter = bad.
As someone who works a lot lot lot with centrifuges, I'd love to see what ramp-up and final speed do to extraction. I feel like a slow ramp, higher final speed (12k?) pouring off the solubles and re-mixing them would be a really good recipe.
Cowboy’s used to do this (sans centrifuge). When camping you put hot water and coffee in a billy then spin it in circles (vertically) with a straight arm. Sounds crazy, but it works!
This seems like a good way to clear particulate matter from coffee extracted using ultrasonic waves.
James you are a gem
Hey James! Could we get a video about pressurized and non-pressurized baskets in espresso? Not sure if this is in the vein of weird coffee science you intended out of this series but I think it's an interesting topic. How coarser beans extract at pressure vs. how finer bean extract when they create the pressure. Scott Rao's use of paper filters in his espresso and how this affects the pressure in the basket. Stuff along this line of pressure being created by the fineness of the grind vs. pressure being created by other sources.
this came out on my birthday last year! Cheers!
There are "thru" centrifuges that don't hit quite as high G forces (usually used for brewery applications such as beer clarification, etc rather than lab work) that might be more practically built in to some type of coffee device.
I've been using an Italmax brand "moca pot" for quite awhile without starting with hot water and ending with cooling it down after the brewing process. My taste buds must not be as discerning as yours, as I do not detect a noticeable difference in the results. I do however enjoy the coffee whichever way it is brewed. Also, your videos have been very inspiring. I've watched most all, some more than once, and look forward to the next. Thank you.
James, you really didn't have to put the coffee in an X-ray.
Now there's an idea...
@@jameshoffmann I don't know about x-ray, but I know that Light Scattering is used to determine particle size distribution in ground coffee
@@jameshoffmann You should borrow the X-ray gun from Cody from Cody's lab
Great channel James, really good reviews and experiments, thanks for sharing! You could try to centrifuge some coffee with milk or a cold brew and see if the absence of heat does something different to the oils.
It definitely confirmed my preference for paper over metal filters. Espresso is an odd one though since the coffee got too bright when I tried a paper filter on it.
It would interesting to see a typical filter grind coffee filtered (v60 or even an aeropress) and then spun , how much still comes down and what the taste difference is 50 % spun 50% left. Also would be interesting to see if you could see any oil floating (maybe too little to see easily). If the centrifuge is cooled it'd probably help with separating the coffee oils, or you could cool the samples prior to centrifugation.
Try this. If the oil absorbes the bitterness. Can you put vegetable oil in you expresso, spin in, remove the oil and try a bitterness free expresso?
Oh the look on your face, after eating the coffee oil...priceless
There was a "Spin Espress" coffee maker from Portland Oregon in 1985. I found a link from a guy who bought one of these for $3 at a thrift store. He did not try it out though. It seems to be a blender with specially shaped plastic baskets which spin the coffee through the grounds and yield brewed coffee. It probably would make you dizzy tho..
This was very unique and interesting! would love to hear more about coffee oils. I'm not sure that them tasting bad on their own tells the whole story
Great experiments! I'd like to a deeper dive into the coffee oils. You tasted the oils by themselves, but how about doing a side-by-side comparison of the same espresso shot, one with the oils and one without?
You could run only half of the espresso shot through the centrifuge while keeping the other half out to compare with. Just balance the other centrifuge vial with an equal mass of water.