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If you have gone to the trouble of spending a reasonable amount of money on decent coffee beans, you will undoubtedly want to get your money’s worth and get to grips with making the best cup of coffee possible. Every great cup of coffee starts with great preparation and the first step towards a perfect cup of coffee is measuring the right amount of coffee beans.

There is a lot of debate, you won’t be shocked to hear if you have read any of our other posts or conducted your own research on coffee beans and how many you need. In the following post we are going to try and break it down a little and discuss two options for measuring the amount of coffee beans you are going to use to make the coffee.

To really get the best out of your coffee beans it is best to use filtered water. This does not the flavours you often can taste from water that has been poured from your taps. Anyway, back to measuring coffee beans.

The Best Ways To Measure Coffee Beans Accurately

Although there are some people who turn their nose up at this method, the best and most accurate way to measure coffee beans and coffee grounds to make the most delicious cup of coffee is using a scale. The reason for this is because there is a wide selection of coffee beans varieties from all over the world.

Each individual coffee bean has its own unique set of personality traits and attributes. Most importantly, when it comes to measuring, they tend to all have different densities. That means the method of using volume can be flawed and won’t necessarily produce the most accurate results or the fullest cup of coffee.

It is best to weigh your coffee beans before you grind them and brew them.

With the Use of a Scale

On most coffee makers when you see a reference to coffee cups, it normally means 6-ounces. For a larger variety, it would be 9-ounces.

For just one cup of coffee, in a 6-ouncer, you will need to use 10.6 grams (0.38-ounces) of coffee beans. If you are interested, that works out as about 2 tablespoons of coffee that has been grounded.

Without the Use of a Scale

Although it is generally less accurate, you can measure coffee beans out without the use of a scale. For this method, you need to start by adding 4 tablespoons of beans to your coffee bean grinder.

Once you have grinded them down, you then need to add another two tablespoons for every cup you intend on making. Basically, add more beans until you’ve reached the required amount.

By keeping a close track or even written record of how many coffee beans you used in total, you will be able to cut to the chase and have a clearer idea of how many coffee beans you need to grind each time.

Summary

The ideal grams of coffee beans you need for that perfect cup of coffee falls somewhere between 7 grams and 10 grams, depending on who you speak to.

However, with the help of our guide above, you should be able to make some rather tasty cups of coffee with no hassle or worry about getting the weight right.

Whether you have exclusively been drinking instant coffee or are very stuck in your ways when it comes to the coffee beans and ground coffee you use, it may be time for a change. However, you may hit a major obstacle when looking for a fresh and different coffee bean to try, as there are so many out there.

There are actually more than 4 different coffee bean species. However, for the basis of this post we are only going to look at the 4 most commonly used and the ones most people are familiar with, even if it is by name. They are:

Arabica

These are the most popular and account for an incredibly 60% of the coffee consumed around the world. Most of the industry, experts and aficionados alike, agree that it is one of the higher quality types of coffee beans and you will find it is mostly grown in Latin America.

They are often called mountain coffee beans because they are generally grown at high altitudes and require steady rainfall, but also plenty of shade.

Compared to the others, Arabica coffee beans are known to be less hardy and very delicate. This is important to note because if they are grown in the wrong climate and conditions the beans could be affected. Another major issues with Arabica beans, in stark contrast to other bean varieties, is that they commonly develop diseases.

Arabica beans are also known for having a lighter body than others. IT is best to use Arabica for hot brewing. Particularly pour over coffee and other manual methods of brewing.

Robusta

This is a much strong and notably bitter flavoured coffee bean that is often used for espressos and anyone who wants an especially strong cup of coffee. They are also noted as having almost twice the recommended daily allowance of caffeine, compared to Arabica Beans.

Its caffeine content, alongside its hardiness are what has helped put Robusta coffee beans on the map. Robusta are perfect for frequently inconsistent rainfall patterns and hot climates and will survive just about anywhere. They also have another clear advantage when compared to Arabica beans because they don’t contract diseases as frequently as Arabica.

High quality Robusta coffee beans tend to have a heavier body with a lower acidity level. If you are interested in making a coffee drink that relies on the use of sugar and cream, you could try Robusta beans for A dish known as Vietnamese Coffee.

Liberica and Excelsa

The final two types of beans we want to highlight for you are the two you may not have heard of. Excelsa is technically a sub variety/form of Liberica. They have been kept separate because they have two personality profiles. As a result, they could (and often are) considered to be two separate entities.

It was in the 1890s that Liberica beans were at their most popular when around 90% of Arabica crops were destroyed by coffee rust.

Liberica beans have a very smoky, woody, but nonetheless distinctive flavour with a fruity/floral aroma and a fully body.

The Excelsa coffee bean has a more fruity and tart flavour but is much easier to locate. There are local 20 to 30 feet high coffee bean plants where Excelsa are grown from. Rather than using them on their own for a cup of coffee, most people and companies tend to use Excelsa for giving additional depth and complexity to blended coffees.

Summary

Although we’ve tried to keep things simple, you should have enough information at your disposal now to make decisions about which type of coffee bean is right for you and your intended use of it.

Coffee beans that are oily are another part of the coffee community that causes a lot of dispute among drinkers and roasters. There are some differing opinions about oily coffee beans, what causes them and what it means for your hot beverages.

As you’ve probably clicked through to this post because you are looking for an answer to the question posed in the title or because you’ve been browsing the site and thought this post looked interesting, let’s not disappoint you on either count.

What Causes Coffee Beans to Be Oily?

Oils occur naturally in coffee beans. When they are in their coffee cherry state, the oils have a consistency closer to solids. It is once you roast coffee cherries that they fully turn into coffee beans and a lot of major changes happen.

CO2 that has formed on the inside of the bean often starts to seep out if beans have been roasted for too long. When the CO2 starts to escape the bean, it reacts with the atmosphere, more specifically the oxygen which produces the intriguing shiny and oily finish on the outside of the beans.

There are two different opinions worth noting:

• One suggests that coffee beans that are particularly oily are bad or poorly roasted
• The other thought is that darker roasted beans are far oilier due to the longer heating times.

The second opinion is more plausible as it falls inline with coffee roasting science. As greater amounts of heat will cause the oils and gases on the inside of coffee beans to escape and react with the oxygen in the air, it makes sense that darker roasts are likely to be oilier.

Are Coffee Beans That Are Oily, Stale?

This is something else that there seems to be a degree of misunderstanding about. It is not necessarily the case that oily beans are stale. However, lighter roasts that are not oily tend to keep their freshness for longer than their darker counterparts.

Whereas darker roast coffee beans will tend to have a lifespan of approximately seven days, light roast and medium roast coffee beans will often last anything from 10 to 14 days.

Is Bold and Strong Coffee Only Produced by Oily Coffee Beans?

Well, that really depends on what you mean by strong. If you mean they have a strong coffee flavour that is also bitter and acidic, then the answer is yes. The truth is that only happens because the beans are darker roasts and therefore more of the flavours and oils have come out or have been burnt off.

What if you have a dark roast coffee bean that is not oily in the least bit at all? Well, unfortunately, this means it is most definitely stale as there is no presence of oil whatsoever. Making a cup of coffee or two with beans in that condition would only produce a very tasteless and fairly bitter cup of coffee (if you really want to use that word to describe it)

On the subject of bold coffees. There is another misunderstanding that oily and dark coffee bean are the only kind that can produce bolder coffee. Although there is some truth in it, there is more than one way to make a very bold cup of coffee.

Medium and even light roast beans make great coffees with big, bold flavours. After all, roasting is just one part of the coffee making process that you can control. You are also able to control the brewing time, amount of beans used and the grind size of the beans.

For instance, for bolder flavours you could try the following:

• Grind your coffee beans into a much finer grind to give them a greater surface area that will allow more water to interact with more coffee, meaning that more flavours are extracted.
• Using twice as much coffee in the same volume of water will make your normal cup taste a lot stronger
• An intense and stronger flavour is also possible by brewing the coffee around 1.5 times longer than the time recommended.

Important Notes About Espresso Machines and Oily Coffee Beans

We couldn’t possibly cover the subject of oily coffee beans without drawing your attention to the fact that oily beans should not be used with the super-automatic-style espresso machines. The brewing mechanism and grinder in those kinds of machines can get damaged by the oily residue on the beans. Even if it doesn’t have a noticeably dramatic effect immediately, it will eventually.

Those oils can clog up the gears and burrs and really jam up all the pipework inside the espresso machines. Therefore, we would highly recommend that you avoid using oily coffee beans in one of those machines.

If you are determined to drink an espresso that have been created using darker roasted beans, you should grind them down separately. That way you are able to clean the grinder once you finish.

Summary

There you go, folks, you now know how oily coffee beans are caused, and how you can still make use of them. Not, though, if you intend on making a nice dark roast espresso with oily beans in one of those special machines.

Whatever you do, keep in mind the tips, recommendations and advice outlined in the above post to ensure you always brew the best and tastiest cups of coffee, even when using oil-covered beans.

One of the best ways to enjoy coffee is undoubtedly by roasting the beans yourself. When you take the time and put the effort in to roasting coffee in the comfort of your own home, you will be able to guarantee that every single cup you make will be the freshest and tastiest (once you’ve mastered the skills) you have ever tasted.

Therefore, rather than always heading out to your favourite coffee shop or purchasing pre-roasted beans or coffee grounds, why not take the dive and try roasting your beans yourself. We will warn you though, that once you start, you are likely to become addicted to it pretty quickly and won’t ever want to get pre-roasted beans again.

Before we go any further into explaining how long it takes to roast coffee beans, how you can use your oven and other appliances to do the job so you don’t need to invest in a purpose-made coffee bean roaster, we are going to discuss why you need to roast coffee beans in the first place.

Do Coffee Beans Need to Be Roasted?

To help you understand why we need to roast coffee beans before using them for beverages, you need to understand its origins. Coffee beans begin life as small red fruits that have a number of different stages, they need to go through to get them to the point where they can fill our cups with that beautiful liquid.

First the coffee is picked from its plant and processed, during which time the parchment skin on the inside, the pulp and the outer skin are all removed. After that stage, the inner seed, which is what we know and love as a coffee bean, is then dried.

It’s during the drying stage that it becomes a green coffee bean that is ready to be shipped out all over the world to be roasted. Similar to dry pinto beans, coffee beans can be in storage for extended periods and still retain freshness once they are roasted.

What would happen if you tried to drink coffee made with unroasted beans? You’d have a very unpleasant drink indeed that tasted incredibly acidic and bitter.

It’s during the roasting process that the coffee bean develops its unique and delicious scents and flavours. Roasting coffee beans forces all the moisture, retained inside it, out making it dry out and expand. All the while, some of the bean’s natural sugars are transformed into CO2 while many more are caramelized and produce those flavour notes that help form the complete taste we have come to expect of coffee.

Once roasting is completed, the once green coffee bean will have been turned into a beautifully brown bean that is around 50 to 100% bigger than it started and weighs 18% lighter.

How Long Does it Take to Roast Coffee Beans?

Now that we have discussed what is involved in the roasting process and why it is a necessary part of preparing coffee beans for brewing delicious pots and cups of coffee, you are probably wondering how long the process of roasting actually takes.

It depends on the amount of coffee beans you are going to roast. If you are only planning on roasting a small batch of beans, it could take you between 10 to 13 minutes to roast them to perfection, whereas if you intend on roasting a much larger batch, it might take anything from 16 to 18 minutes to roast them.

Can I Roast Coffee Beans In the Oven?

Now we know why roasting coffee beans is so important and how long it takes, you will probably be turning your attention now to equipping yourself with the right tools and appliances to roast beans. As not everyone wants to rush into buying a brand-new coffee beans roaster, whether you are planning on doing so but at a later time or are not even sure you want to own one.

Therefore, you may be interested in alternatives. Alternatives that you already own and that are in your home. You’ve probably asked yourself before, simply based on the vocabulary used, whether you can use your oven to roast coffee beans like you use it to roast a chicken.

Well, the process is probably a lot closer to making popcorn, but yes you can use an oven to roast coffee beans.

Before you pop some coffee beans in a baking tray and watch them burn, there are some things you need to make sure you have close to hand, including:

• A baking tray – one with very small perforations, similar to the kind you would use to cook a pizza with
• Stopwatch or timer
• Wooden spatula
• Metal colander you can use when it’s time to cool the beans
• Coffee beans
• Flashlight (if your oven doesn’t have a working light)

Your oven needs to be able to ideally reach temperatures of 470 to 500-degreees Fahrenheit and there should be a viewing window you can use to keep an eye on the roasting process. This Is crucial.

Preparing to Roast

There are a number of things you need to do once you have all the things listed above. First of all, you need to spread out the beans onto the baking tray or pan you plan on using, being sure that they don’t touch, and they are spaced out enough. Avoid stacking them on top of each other, as this will cause problems once they start expanding.

The tray is not the only thing you need to prepare. You need to ready yourself for the amount of smoke that is produced while you are roasting coffee beans. The larger number of beans you roast, the darker the roast will be, and the more smoke will be produced. Open windows and make sure your home is properly ventilated, to avoid setting off the smoke alarms.

You then need to plan out what you are going to do when you take the beans from the oven. Although there will be the chaff, the thin layer of tissue-like material that will need to be removed before grinding them, the most important thing you will want to do immediately after roasting is to cool the beans down.

The aim is to reduce their temperature to room temperature as quickly as possible, so they don’t continue to cook and spoil. Allow yourself space to get from the kitchen through to your back garden or just outside your property and keep a metallic colander there.

Roasting the Beans

When you are ready and the oven has preheated, place the tray with the beans on in there, watch and listen. The beans will take between 10 to 17 minutes to roast. If you notice any unevenness during the process, open and stir them up a little with a spatula, being careful to not leave them out of the oven for too long.

Cooling Them Down

Once they have finished and resemble roasted beans you need to quickly take them to the cooling area you set up outside. Place them carefully into the colander and then use that to shake them down to room temperature, this will also help remove the chaff.

You then have roasted beans that, once they have stood for 24 to 48 hours to degas, can be used to make a delicious cup of coffee. You will then be able to enjoy the enormous sense of worth and achievement. Pat yourself on the back.

Summary

We hope this guide to roasting coffee beans has been as interesting and enlightening for you reading it as it was for us researching and writing it. There are many other ways you can roast beans at home, that we will likely tackle in different posts. We wanted to discuss roasting using an oven, because it is the one thing that everyone will have in their house ready to use.

Although it is perhaps not as simple as you initially thought it may be, we have hopefully shown that it is also not widely impossible. Preparation is the key.

Happy roasting, grinding and brewing, but just don’t blame us if you start a fire!

There was a time when you would have been practically laughed out of town for uttering such a ridiculous question. Nowadays though, there are lots of retailers and shops that sell edible coffee beans, with chocolate-covered coffee beans being particular popular.

You may wonder, if you are always a little cynical first, before following the crowd, if it is actually safe to eat coffee beans or not.

To help you have a more comprehensive and thorough answer to your question than a simple ‘yes, you can eat coffee beans’ we are going to break down the subject further.

As we have established they are safe to eat, we will discuss how many is safe to eat in one sitting, how many coffee beans you would need to eat to consume the same amount of coffee and caffeine found in a cup of coffee and whether it is wise to eat coffee beans with the sole purpose of losing weight.

First things first

How Many Coffee Beans is it Safe to Eat?

Like so many other things, it is safe to eat coffee beans, in moderation. The antioxidant and easily absorbed caffeine, offer you plenty of benefits. However, you will only experience the benefits without any of the negative effects, if you carefully monitor how many you eat.

The amount of coffee beans that is considered safe comes down to what is considered a safe level of caffeine. While everyone has a different tolerance to caffeine, single doses of anything from 200mg up to 400mg are considered to be safe for all adults.

You also need to take into consideration that the amount of caffeine found in coffee beans tends to vary widely based on a number of different factors such as how long they were roasted for, the particular coffee bean strain they are and how big or small they are.

For instance, Robusta coffee beans are thought to approximately twice the amount of caffeine as Arabica coffee beans.

You will find that on average, chocolate-coated coffee beans contain roughly 12mg of caffeine, that includes the caffeine present in the chocolate itself.

What does this mean? Adults are able to eat approximately 33 coloured-coated coffee beans and still stay within the safe RDA of caffeine consumption. As these tasty and addictive treats may contain high levels of added sugar, fat and calories, it may be a good idea to limit the amount you eat.

You also need to factor in your consumption of coffee and any caffeine your body gets from other food and drink sources. To avoid pushing your daily intake over the limit, it may be worth reducing the other caffeinated things you consume.

How Many Coffee Beans Do You Have to Eat to Equal a Cup of Coffee?

Following nicely from the above, you may be trying to figure out how many coffee beans you would need to eat to equal a cup of coffee. Whether this is just out of idle curiosity or you are trying to figure out how many cups of coffee you may have to stop drinking if you want to continue enjoying coffee beans as a tasty, edible snack, we hope we can help you out.

Generally speaking, and it obviously depends on the size, strain and lots of other things related to the beans, it is thought that about eight coffee beans will provide you with the same level of caffeine that a full cup of coffee would.

Can You Eat Coffee Beans for Weight Loss?

There are a lot of reports you will find online that support the fact that eating coffee beans can provide you with some great health benefits. Most of this is true, to an extent. After all, coffee beans are high in antioxidants, and contain chlorogenic acids and fibre.

These are components that can help you to both lose and manage weight effectively. There are have been some studies, in fact, that show chlorogenic acid can slow down and limit the body’s intake of carbohydrates.

Does that mean we are suggesting you should switch to eating a lot of coffee beans as a pathway to losing weight? Not at all, as the fact is that most coffee beans lose any chlorogenic acids they had during the roasting period. Therefore, if you are going to eat any coffee beans, it is best to opt for green/raw beans rather than those that have been roasted.

Summary

Are you feel the same as us? Do you want to rush out and buy some edible coffee beans, whether it’s so chocolate-covered versions or other varieties? We can’t wait until we have the next opportunity to invest in some.

When you do and when we do, we now know to only eat them in moderation, while paying close attention to whether or not we have had our RDA of caffeine in that day. We have also discussed the possibilities of using coffee beans as part of our weight loss strategy.

Although it may be a good idea on paper, we still remain unconvinced whether you will actually lose a significant amount of weight from eating coffee beans that you make it a better option than any of the alternatives.

We hope the above post has been of some help to you. For more information about coffee beans, roasting them, brewing them and reviews of various important equipment such as grinders, check out some of our other great posts here at Best Coffee Beans.