Previously we talked about the Carbonic Maceration coffee process which involves additional gas compound carbon dioxide in the fermentation process.

We will remind what fermentation definition is, based on the expert opinion fermentation is a biological process produced by yeast (both additional yeast and resident yeast). This phenomenon could happen in every organic material, we usually recognize this typical fermentation in alcoholic beverage-making such as rice spirit, whisky, and wine. And of course, the method in coffee fermentation is not similar to those alcoholic beverages mentioned above since we are here expecting no alcohol solution created here. But many of us consider referring wine-making process as also applicable to the coffee process. The final result of both alcoholic beverages and coffee is the same, extracted liquid. But we have to pay attention that the wine, spirit, and similar drinks will need shorter steps after fermentation before we can consume it after, bottling, for instance, meanwhile the coffee bean is still green after the fermentation and drying process, we can not define the taste for sure but roast it in advance and rest it for few days. Shortly, the name of coffee making is still referred to as wine-making process it just to simplify a complex term into a simple word that could be understood easily by us as coffee producers.

Furthermore, we will describe what maceration is and how to differ it from the fermentation we’ve talked about earlier. The experts reveal maceration is a physicochemical process that requires the extraction of anthocyanins and tannins to obtain the color and structure typical of the object, common in red wine-making, so that’s why the beverage has red color. Then, we can conclude that one of the benefits of the maceration process is color and structure. In natural coffee processing, we may observe that the wet parchment will have a reddish color and the texture of the roast bean will be bolder than the wash process.

Maceration in commonly used primarily in making red wine involves steeping grape skins and solids in a wine after fermentation when alcohol acts as a solvent to extract color, tannins, and aroma from the skins (aided by heat, the amount of skin contact, and time), We apply almost the same pattern to the coffee process here to extract the anthocyanin from coffee cherry skin into mucilage.

Observe pH level fermentation wash coffee using Ceritech.id

Thermal Maceration in wine-making processing is different from the protocol in coffee-processing where thermal or thermo is an addition “heat” injected to the object as a variable to create another spectrum taste in wine-making at the middle of processing, also some winery applies this ‘thermal’ as mandatory, while in coffee processing we apply it at a very beginning of a processing step.

In our opinion, ‘thermal’ or ‘thermo’ is the heat from natural sources which obtain by sunlight in the morning till evening to become one of the variables that could make an impact on the ongoing maceration process as we know that the maceration process always starts with fermentation and formation of ethanol.

So why choose a natural sun source instead of using the mechanical or artificial heater/drier equipment? Aceh gayo has a distinctive product named Gayo Wine and is popular among us here in Indonesia and the Asia Pacific countries. So this process will be a kind of improvement adopted process of “wine coffee” in a good way. Also, we pay full attention to sustainability environment central processing activity by reducing any carbon emission. Responsible for almost all of the increase of human activities from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation. Shortly, this process involves parchment fermentation under natural sun source heat with vacuum bags for several hours and then follows normal wash processing protocol.

So the question is whether this process is easy and replicable to do?. The answer is yes, but some terms and conditions must be obeyed. Sun heat is one of the inconsistent natural sources here on earth due to microclimate change day by day, using this source is likely to result in an inconsistent product as well. Here if we found a problem like this one, we’re presented with the troubleshooting options on our manuals. One of the effective options is reducing production quantities of the selected product, for instance, 60 kg per batch, usually called as nano lot process. To replicate the same batch, we just follow the recorded protocol on previous also with weather forecast ahead. By applying this we can produce the same quality green bean product in the next crop season.

We can conclude that the benefit of the environment micro-climate has another good potential to reveal another spectrum taste of the coffee parchment. By initiating the maceration metabolic with one of the adopted wine-making processes without any additional yeast.
After several trials and error, we finally find the best way to find the sweet spot of the processing, resulting in distinguished tastes such as mild, floral, reminiscent of blossoms, dried fruit, malic acidity. Now you can get the coffee easily by contacting our team at inquiry@blancocoffee.id