Can You Roast Coffee In Helium?

Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals/jameshoffmann - Enter promo code jameshoffmann for 83% off and 3 extra months FREE.
Jacomex: www.jacomex.com/
IKAWA: www.ikawacoffee.com/
Vacpro: vacpro.co.uk/
Links:
Patreon: www.patreon.com/jameshoffmann
Limited Edition Merch: geni.us/TensHundredsThousands
Instagram: jimseven
Twitter: jimseven
My Books:
How to Make The Best Coffee At Home*: geni.us/howtomakethebestcoffee
The World Atlas of Coffee*: geni.us/atlasofcoffee
The World Atlas of Coffee Audiobook*: bit.ly/worldatlasofcoffeeaudio
The Best of Jimseven: geni.us/bestofjimseven
Things I use and like:
My glasses: bit.ly/boldlondon
My hair product of choice*: geni.us/forthehair
(*Affiliate links which may earn us a commission)

[@max7164]

James has completed coffee and now doing side quests

[@RayoAtra]

lold

[@poopscoopproductions3177]

Facts.

[@efafe4972]

yea

[@claytor920]

He's making his own quests just so he can complete them. I'm here for it.

[@error404BrainNotFound]

💯

[@myxfit]

I was half expecting "And now I'd like to hear from you. Have *you* roasted in helium? What was your experience like?" 😆

[@riveness]

My published results at the journal of membrane science. Twimington, Sarah, et al (2023): roasting, grinding an separation of coffee beans in an inert atmosphere.

[@helipeek2736]

Obviously the “and now I’d like to hear from you” would need to be augmented with “in an artificially high pitched voice” as it’s helium(?)

[@mikanstream2298]

​@@riveness how does it taste? Did you try it?

[@riveness]

@@mikanstream2298 I was joking. Like James I found no papers out there. I suspect the bad taste was due to a lack of oxygen roast compounds

[@davidthedeaf]

Or that he is going into space to try a special type of roasting that can be done without gravity.

[@darthjump]

If he keeps up this current pace, i would not be surprised if James becomes the first man to grow Coffee on Mars.

[@DasGanon]

You jest, but this is 90% of the setup of actually just setting this up in Mars atmosphere analogue

[@KevinWebb]

well he'll need to be sure the atmospheric pressure and limited gravity don't get in the way.

[@davew7948]

I wouldn't want James to have an unscheduled disassembly.

[@_Painted]

If humans are ever going to stay on Mars, it would be nice to have some coffee plants waiting there for us when we get there.

[@cullly]

@@_Painted Mars atmosphere is 95% CO2, so James needs to test if it's possible to roast in that gas instead.

[@Aaron-en5cc]

James Hoffmann experiencing the struggles of glovebox chemistry is just peak entertainment!

[@l.roman.l]

I would love to see the results of roasting in MORE oxygen.

[@benjaminm4702]

When hoffman dies in a fire we will all blame you.

[@bary450]

my prediction: combustion and low quality charcoal

[@sloth19938]

such an explosive idea

[@rdizzy1]

Would be good if you enjoy starbucks dark roast, you will be used to the "burnt to shit" flavor.

[@i.p2088]

​@@sloth19938 😂😂😂

[@ThinhTDiep]

The Ikawa is effectively a fluid bed roaster where the medium of movement of coffee is through the air moving inside it, which is why the density of helium matters in the experimental roasts. I think if you can set up small traditional drum roasters, like a Roest, where the movement of coffee comes from the drum spinning, you can try to roast in helium again!

[@error.418]

This is exactly what I was thinking the whole time.

[@lukas1971]

Or maybe roast at a higher pressure

[@alexkaber2472]

yeah the type of roaster that wasnt meant to operate in a different gas just may have made the difference here

[@trondsimonsen6805]

We would love to see the experiment with ROEST;)

[@darkxoa3961]

That's what I was thinking too, but it also occurred to me that he mentioned being uneasy at not being able to hear the machine. I wonder if that also means he wouldn't be able to hear first cracks. If so, I would think the drum roaster would be equally bust. I'm not a roaster though, so perhaps I'm missing something?

[@leonardpearlman4017]

By the way, the Glove-Box usually is NOT opened all the way to make small changes, there is that vestibule at the end, an airlock that can be used to pass fairly bulky stuff in and out without changing the atmosphere inside. Helium is too expensive to just vent it! Also some glove-box systems have pass-throughs, some way to move small routine stuff in and out, such as your already roasted coffee.

[@segamble1679]

I love the diversity of knowledge that shows up on this channel.

[@robinverhoef1007]

The Max Plank Institute probably did not expect that someone would ever roast coffee in their glove box.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

I mean, they're a research institute, so they're definitely used to seeing a lot of coffee.

[@forthegloryofbobdole6277]

In metallurgy, we use fluidized sand baths as a way to heat treat metals while maintaining a high degree of thermal stability and heat transfer. It would have to be done with a set up closer to the deep fryer than a traditional roaster but it would be interesting to see a sort of start-to-finish turkish coffee experiment totally using sand as a medium.

[@knickly]

There are some fluidized bed cover roasters, in which the beans themselves are the fluidized bed! I bet they could be connected to a gas supply. Edit: I should have realized the Ikawa is a fluidized bed roaster. Oops.

[@MaheerKibria]

They actually do puffed rice in India basically this way. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for coffeee

[@jtvrm1]

Hi James. As a chemical engineer who is seriously addicted to coffee I loved this episode of the coffee roasting saga. Some experimental design tweaks might help (namely test out the roasting under Argon rather than Helium - Argon is heavier than air so in theory you can even do this at home, and it's 10x more thermally conductive than air - I stand corrected it is slightly lower than air but still an interesting control experiment), but definately a great run. Here's a suggestion for a future run - why not submit a project (free and open access o mostly anyone) to ship out green coffee to the international space station, hermetically sealed in a pressure resistant container and just put it outside in space, exposed to solar radiation. The amount of UV and gamma radiation should roast the coffee pretty quickly and under easilly controlled atmosphere.

[@TheHannelorian]

I've never wanted a youtube video more in my life than clips of James Hoffman explaining what astronauts are doing with his roasting experiment.

[@GamerBadger82]

Space coffee is truly next-level hipster 💜

[@benjamingeorgson3099]

I never knew how much I needed something in my life.

[@edgardoheffele3]

wouldn't that absorb radiation from the sun and be kinda dangerous?

[@sh4dowchas3r]

@@GamerBadger82 And therefore has to be consumed using a bripe.

[@robertpolski5763]

As someone who used a glove box off and on for the first few years of my PhD, I absolutely love that the exasperation of using one comes across in this video! Everything is twice as hard with those thick gloves on, and everything decides to just quit working. It takes forever and ultimately ends up being a battle of spirit! Even if you have an antechamber to transfer things in and out, it still takes a several minutes each time you have to load something. For something porous like coffee probably more like an hour or so.

[@milky_peppa]

As an inorganic chemist, I also enjoyed watching him playing/fighting with a glovebox. Been using one almost daily for my whole PhD and still complain about the same things: weird clingy gloves, surprise pressure changes pushing you out, accidentally dumping things all over the box floor (not usually coffee beans though), etc

[@ginaslevinsky8906]

My first thought was to go the opposite of helium: sulphur hexafluoride. (The one that makes your voice deep.) It too has a high heat transfer coefficient, and I'd be curious to see what the high density does to the movement of beans.

[@tylisirn]

And I imagine it will give an absolutely _delightful_ sulphur taste to the beans if it decomposes even a little with heat.

[@FreakAzoiyd]

Pretty sure that would be a lot more expensive, also your are completely not allowed to release it to the atmosphere like helium

[@calebdriedger3650]

"OH hello!" When the glove box tried to grab James is my favourite James Hoffman moment so far.

[@willzarem]

Can't wait to see what Hames makes with that bit lol

[@coltongerber1879]

I agree! Likely because he reached farther into the glovebox to point at the roaster. He displaced some gas, which moved into the other glove and inflated it. James got himself on that one.

[@PontusWelin]

I think it will be excellent for Hames Joffmans next video 😆

[@cyan_oxy6734]

When your boyfriend hasn't seen you in a while.

[@error.418]

@@cyan_oxy6734 so like about 5 minutes apart

[@davidwilliams5497]

James mentioned in the oil roast episode that the traditional roasters are more like air fryers, so how about a guide to home roasting with an air fryer, including how to dial in a roast for the aspects you want from the bean. Maybe include one of the pros from Square Mile in the video with their perspective (or one of James’s other roaster friends) since James freely admits he isn’t an expert roaster himself.

[@pauljones9150]

Yessssss

[@mikairu2944]

inb4 air fryer coffee is better than with my trusty nova handheld roaster

[@boatoflol]

This would be incredible, the bestestest way to home roast coffee without buying an expensive roaster.

[@kg-Whatthehelliseventhat]

Obviously he roasts but maybe not regularly. It is similar to someone saying they drink but is not a drunk...

[@veganpotterthevegan]

​@@boatoflol there will still be uneven roasting. Popcorn poppers are great past a medium roast. For light without buying a roaster, a cast iron skillet on the stove while stirring and heating with a powerful hair dryer from up top works quite well. The smoke roasting like this or in an air fryer is terrible though

[@rmg_lb]

What you've shown us is not what failure looks like - it's what learning looks like! Great, very interesting video!

[@louisenielsen928]

I am a teacher, and I approve of this comment.

[@jace75]

I am a chemist and I (also) approve of this comment.

[@aremenius]

I think solid medium or semi-solid like for example hot sand would be interesting since You've already tried both the liquid and alternative gas solutions. I don't know how to approach the conditions monitoring such as density/temperature etc. but would definitely be a blast to watch the results!

[@skapunkmix]

Sand or salt would be very interesting.

[@winxplorer]

somehow my first thought was: Roast in mercury, a liquid metal. Then I realized it would be a pain to get mercury off the beans. Oh, and also it's toxic, soo more safety equipment...?

[@diegocaldera8285]

You know you are deep into the James Hoffmann rabbit hole when you're watching a helium roasting video. I love it.

[@KitagumaIgen]

Perhaps well described with "a delightful waste of time"?

[@stevepoling]

Behold the power of the Internet. Maybe Mr. Hoffman could get a cat.

[@MonEyRuLess]

You know you're approaching bedrock when you're watching said helium roasting video and getting excited for the Hames... (The erection of the glove is definitely making it in!)

[@insearchoffaith]

"Goodbye coffee, I wish you the best of luck." Spoken like a person who truly loves every bean.

[@vegardt3433]

Every bean is sacred

[@SilverFoxGPC]

Happy you mentioned the sustainability aspect. Every balloon of helium we inflate for fun might be a medical procedure not happening down the line.

[@NobAkimoto]

James is such a legend that he makes a video involving helium and his voice sounds deeper not lighter.

[@TommyWalker1991]

I'm so happy you acknowledged that helium is a finite source that we should take care of and should use for more useful things. That was the first thing I thought about when seeing the title card. But the curious scientist in me also tremendously enjoyed that you explored this crazy idea.

[@LeReVaQ]

Helium isn't finite in the way that gold or titanium is. There is a way to extract it from other sources. We can extract helium from water which is the simplest way to do it but the problem is how energy intensive the process is. That's why there's only a limited production of Helium. Not that it's finite..

[@Summer-xu8qu]

@@LeReVaQ Extracting Helium from water??? How? Helium has lower concentration in seawater than in air. A simple googling tells me that most of the helium are extracted from natural gas, so it's kinda like gold or titanium, in a way.

[@chrismeardon1]

@@LeReVaQ I think you may be refering to hydrogen rather than helium

[@adrianstein1121]

The thing is we are going to start the time where we get our resources not only from earth but from other objects in the space around us like moons astroids planets etc cause if stuff is going to an end somewhere humans tend to take from somewhere else but why should they do it now and concern about it cause atm they still have enough for the moment here

[@GameTimeWhy]

​@@LeReVaQ you mean hydrogen.

[@BelligerentWoW]

I got 2 other interesting methods 1. Roast PRE-GROUND coffee! I know grinding green beans will be rather hard, but I think it might have 2 major benefits in both efficiency and uniformity. Increasing the surface area of your coffee will drastically reduce the required roasting time as well as make it easier to ensure even roast as you won't roast the outside of a coffee bean more than the inside. 2 - Air Fryer: This ones a bit more "fun" as regular coffee roasters ARE essentially air fryers, but air fryers are pretty readily available to most consumers and IF it's good, home roasting might be somewhat easier to get into... In a weird way?

[@corwinblack4072]

Yea, air fryer was first thing that came to my mind when he did oil one. Very interested in that too. Grounding green coffee is interesting idea definitely. I think Czech made Typhoon roaster is pretty much like very sophisticated air fryer. Given I have actually few bags of coffee from that, I can say its definitely good roasting machine. Unsure about regular air fryers still. :D Hope James tries that.

[@error.418]

Air fryers have been explored in depth in the home roasting scene and they don't work as well as even a cast iron skillet.

[@kulpreet125]

Roasting a pre-ground coffee won't work . Since it has more surface area, the volatile compounds will have more potential to fade away giving the coffee a weaker profile

[@C0baltBlueJ]

RIP the grinder tackling that green coffee!

[@thejoetandy]

​@@kulpreet125so you're saying we should roast them in refractory cement before roasting? Or in argon?

[@vinnymurphy1299]

Interesting results! I think there’s a big caveat that needs to be considered. Our roasting methods have been fine tuned through a lot of nerdiness over many years, all for the environment we live in. There’s every chance nitrogen or helium could be just as good, if not better, but the tools we have at the moment just aren’t developed with that in mind. I bet with some tinkering and experimenting these could be fine - raises the question though of what’s the actual point?

[@nackedgrils9302]

Coming from a tea background, I'd be curious if something like ''wet piling'' fresh coffee beans would work (just like with Shou Pu Er). It would probably be the most awful cup ever but I'd love to see James drink it and hear his thoughts on it. I'd also be curious to know if there would be some process to make aged coffee good and not stale, maybe there's too much oil in it... Aged tea is a world in and out of itself and I'm always amazed by how the aromas develop with time depending on the storage conditions.

[@abodiabd3444]

Lets appreciate how this man has gone from making high quality content to insane quality content

[@nickflesher7608]

Before even watching the video I jokingly told my friend “drinking that coffee would make your voice high pitch” and then James did the high pitch voice at the end and I’m dead 😂 💀

[@smalle]

This was way more entertaining than I expected it to be! Never skip a James Hoffman video!

[@segamble1679]

I've got a few Ivr missed over the past year amd a bit, and it just kills me that I haven't had time to get back to them. What gems of KZbin am I missing?!!

[@Gwenivator]

I just watched your “Deep Frying Coffee” video. When the video finish it auto played this one. I didn’t read the title until you started talking about roasting coffee because I was convinced your channel was about deep frying.

[@michaelbral390]

I would love to see your take on a low-tech method of home roasting - specifically skillet roasting or oven roasting. Watching you play with the expensive toys is fun and all, but I don’t see me getting access to a hermetically sealed chamber anytime soon 😂

[@samanthageiger5851]

I’d really appreciate seeing the take on low-tech at home as well!

[@33blue]

@@samanthageiger5851 Would like to see that as well

[@lutze5086]

I think the line between low tech and optimised process would be hard to balance

[@lappy65]

Try pop corn machine coffee roasters

[@toby1103]

You're an odd chap James, but in the best of ways. You're answering all the questions that nobody asked and I love it.

[@oborotenn]

That's so cool to be able to have fun and design these experiments! I am really happy James can have so much fun after many years of "accumulating" his professional (and popular) credit. Cheers!

[@sarahC19]

James is so excited throughout the video, its honestly endearing to watch. 😂❤❤

[@picassoimpaler3243]

Would be interesting to see a roast in something like heated sand. I would imagine since sand is a solid that acts very similar to a liquid and will fully pack around the coffee, you should get better heat transfer than air/helium/water. But also have something that you can more or less completely remove afterword, unlike the oil. I can see the logistics of temp control being difficult though.

[@Justin34585]

That would be a very cool experiment, but sand would not get you as good heat transfer as gas or liquid. It may seem like it acts similar to a liquid but it would not fully pack around the coffee. If you zoomed in a lot, you'd see only a tiny part of each sand particle actually touches the coffee bean. It'd be mostly air touching the coffee bean. It would still be neat to see the results though!

[@picassoimpaler3243]

@@Justin34585 I think it would depend on the sand being used. If you are using beach sand, probably not. But there are very fine grain asymmetric metal sands/powders that have fantastic packing and heat transfer properties. Particularly on something that isn't completely smooth like glass. They would probably work great. Problem comes when it's time to remove it, static is a killer when it comes time. But in theory an air bed like you would use to cool the beans should be able to remove most of it.

[@secretscarlet8249]

How does this differ from Turkish coffee? 🤔

[@noahcole6622]

Turkish coffee is a brewing style, not a roasting style

[@FreakAzoiyd]

Nice idea. Use a fluidized bed for that. But make sure your sand is rounded, if you use fresh hardcornered sand there might be nothing left of the bean when your done 😅

[@troyjacobs8530]

James has gone beyond PhD level coffee education and is now in post-doctoral research

[@olamisie]

My thoughts exactly

[@shadowblade232]

At this point, some prestigious university should just give him an honorary food science doctorate 😂

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

He studies theoretical coffee, not applied coffee.

[@fernandou999]

James is becoming an absolute madman of coffee, love this guy!

[@ChrisYoungCooks]

And now I want to watch the pure O2 roast! 🔥 💥

[@dudea3378]

It's gonna be da bomb!

[@Idontrunntoofast]

Hydrogen.

[@placeholdername3907]

That shit gonna be fire 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@MinorFool]

If you can somehow make it or find someone who could, I’d like to see you try supercritical steam. Roasting coffee with water would be quite an interesting experiment.

[@jacobfrantz5970]

ooooh or supercritical CO2

[@zekezander]

I really like this idea.

[@GonzoDonzo]

@@jacobfrantz5970 super critical co2 is a strong solvent. It would strip things from the bean and leave it in the co2 solution

[@jacobfrantz5970]

@@GonzoDonzo so is steam

[@pjmorgan]

I think it's worth trying the Helium again, but with 78% Nitrogen added to provide enough density in the gas mixture. You'd also need to add a fan inside the chamber to prevent the Helium layer from sitting at the top.

[@dealbreakerc]

definitely not worth using a non-renewable resource like helium on coffee roasting tests.

[@HauntedSheppard]

​@@dealbreakerc as long as you're a company it's fine, just gotta make sure consumers are not misbehaving and trying this

[@todd4054]

@@dealbreakerc I'd rather they used helium for coffee roasting tests rather than filling up environmentally damaging balloons.

[@GamesFromSpace]

That would just be the nitrogen roast again. Neither gas reacts chemically in this scenario, they are both noble. So the only variable is density.

[@xander1052]

@@GamesFromSpace Nitrogen is not a noble gas, it's not very reactive but in the right circumstance in fairly normal situations it can react (NOx as the famous example) while a true noble gas is almost impossible.

[@crumbtember]

I love your content because it intersects with so many interests beyond coffee, such as science, food, etc.

[@monzr93]

Sulfur Hexafluoride is used for its great heat-transfer capacity and it is much denser than air. And the funny thing about it is that it does the opposite of helium to your voice. Maybe you can test it with that?

[@brentroman]

12:54 laughed out loud. Was so happy this was included. Great job

[@thecatofnineswords]

I wonder if James pre-prepared a few snippets of audio using the helium and nitrogen? and if so, will they turn up in Hames' upcoming video?

[@sallys2423]

Same, and almost choked on my beverage!

[@Im_Ryan]

Next on James Hoffman: Roasting Coffee on Mars

[@siposz]

A possible Doom crossover: Roasting Coffee on Mars with argent energy from hell.

[@JackOfHearts44]

Love how you’ve completely expanded the coffee world and keep pushing the boarders

[@brewbudsclub]

it's the sneaky 'foreshadowing' in the top right corner for me.

[@IncertusetNescio]

My suspicion with Helium, if you can ever do this again, is that it needs to be at the same density as air, meaning way higher pressure, to roast it correctly. Would be very interested in that if it could ever be.

[@ItsaDigitalHamster]

I reckon this is just because of the design of that particular roaster, which uses air to stir the beans around the chamber. If some other stirring mechanism was used, like tumbling or mechanical stirring, maybe that would remove the problem. Also, a special design of roaster could compress and heat helium to spray it into the chamber at higher pressure (ie. modifying the roaster so it works with helium instead of air) - if done right this would eliminate the need to use a glove box, as the roaster could be fed with helium directly, and the roasting chamber would be its own little box isolated from the air by a higher internal pressure. Anyway this is all a bit unrealistic, but would be interesting to try to tackle the engineering challenges of helium roasting :p

[@karimchahine4883]

But then how would the thermal conductivity be? That was the interesting bit to begin with.

[@r_bear]

@@karimchahine4883 the thermal conductivity would be higher

[@iansabrewolfe]

Rather than roasting at high pressure, a mechanical solution would be easier. A better blower and/or a physical tumbler/stirrer.

[@Waisonian]

Someone probably already have mentioned this but....roast it in a BBQ/smoker with wood or charcoal. It'll be interesting the flavours of wood or charcoal in coffee. I know, it's very similar to current roasting minus the fire source but still fun!

[@locke03]

This would probably be good with the right combination of wood type and smoke amount. I've had smoked teas that were quite enjoyable and a very unique experience.

[@killersmile7180]

also, frying in bacon grease

[@Waisonian]

@@locke03 I should prob give this a try!

[@Waisonian]

@@killersmile7180 That's next level!

[@duanevan9791]

Summer moon coffee in Austin, TX does this pretty well.

[@krisrobinson3787]

This is awesome. Always looking forward to these weird coffee videos.

[@MrAmazing3]

I'm not sure why but the idea of using sand to roast coffee beans was the first thing that popped into my head. No idea how that might work, maybe a continuously stirred pot over a low fire but sand is added to the mix? I think there's a type of coffee in India that transfers heat into a small pot of liquid via sand in order to froth it up, so maybe sand could be a viable medium? I can imagine it has a great possibility to drastically influence the coffees flavor

[@johnoffenberg6487]

How about glass beads if approximately the same size as a bean-o-coffee? Reusable, hold a bit o heat, and could even be cleaned between uses (washed or combusted ).

[@jakobperkin7417]

I'd like to see the deep fried coffee experiment be expanded upon. it might be interesting seeing if different oils had different effects on the final cup. For example, coconut oil, avocado oil, perhaps a really nice olive oil. I'd imagine those 3 oils would likely taste better in the final cup compared to whatever neutral oil was used in the original deep fry video!

[@Blutzen]

Deep frying in olive oil? So you want to set James's studio on fire?

[@jakobperkin7417]

@@Blutzen low temp for long time maybe? James could figure it out

[@brainiac642]

I had a very similar thought, but... deep fry in cocoa butter! It has a very high smoke point, and who is gonna complain about adding a bit of cocoa flavor to coffee?

[@peterkitts8815]

Given Starbux's olive oil coffee from the other video that could be interesting

[@Laz_Arus]

"That is terrible!" I lost it at that remark. Well played sir. It's always good to have a laugh first thing in the morning. 👍

[@franciszekmalinka4590]

Yeah caught me off guard as well :P

[@themadscientest]

Seeing how the oxidizing process is used to change tea from harsh to mellow the way air performed in coffee roasting makes sense.

[@roccol7956]

Do it in a very dense fluid like co2 and sulfur hexafluoride. Similar concept, but opposite end of the spectrum! Also, try a 80% co2/20% o2 mix to see if the presence of oxygen improves or detracts from the coffee.

[@warrenbaker4181]

now I am curious to see what would happen with a mechanical tumbler and argon gas (which is available at any wielding supple outlet)

[@fredhenry101]

This was my thought as well. Like, okay, the helium couldn't move the beans, not dense enough, that's fair. Mechanically move the beans, let the gas provide the heat, what happens?

[@peterheinzo515]

argon is very bad at conducting heat iirc

[@niceguy191]

@@peterheinzo515 yeah, isn't it used in windows to provide a bit of insulation?

[@coreycannon4511]

@@niceguy191 correct

[@warrenbaker4181]

@@peterheinzo515 Personally I don't think the heat transfer is all that important as long as it gets hot enough, more interested in the chemistry that happens.

[@adamlauze]

I simply adore the amount of experimentation and joyous discovery in all your videos. This was top notch. Thank you for your enthusiasm!

[@jameswhatsit]

I love that you’re going down this rabbit hole. Try roasting in high oxygen. Or try freeze drying before or after roasting. Or try the deep fry again but centrifuge the oil out of the beans

[@kylkim93]

As soon as James had problems with the machine in the helium cabinet I was reminded of Michael Crichton's The Sphere, where the science team is working at the bottom of the ocean in an hab filled with helium. It's explained in the book, that the navy had to supply them with special gear, like custom-CRTs, and that cook of the crew had to make major adjustments to her cooking to accomodate for the high-helium atmosphere.

[@patpatboy2]

This is probably obvious, but what about using an air fryer to roast coffee? A lot of people already have one in their home, so I think it'd be interesting to find out if it makes good enough coffee to be a viable entry-point to at-home coffee roasting.

[@Frango26]

AIRFRYER pleaseee 😂

[@KainYusanagi]

Air fryers are basically just large roasters without spin, so... probably not great?

[@trevorus]

I have a Pampered Chef one, and it has the rotisserie thing. The only problem is it doesn't get nearly hot enough.

[@AxelGage]

A coffee roaster kind of IS an air fryer in its basic form

[@Vykk_Draygo]

Air fryers are just convection ovens. There is no magic to them. It looks like the roaster he used in this video operates very similarly to a convection oven.

[@reggiesworkbench]

try roasting in sand, complete coverage and even thermal transfer.

[@sepht23]

this is the best suggestion I've seen.

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

@@sepht23 haha I was just gonna say this. Lot of terrible ideas down here but this is interesting. I'd be slightly worried about effing up my grinder so it probably isn't actually a good idea for practical reasons. But it might make great coffee

[@newtonswig]

Maybe some kind of dough arrangement would avoid the sand in the grinder problem, but have similar benefits?

[@reggiesworkbench]

@@newtonswig i suppose you could just sieve it? or maybe you could use small pebbles?

[@Santibag]

Interesting stuff: pressurized gasses also have higher thermal conductivity. During the humans living in high pressure environment tests, they had to keep the temperature perfectly at the correct level. Because even small changes were able to cause hypothermia and hyperthermia. The "air" made of hydrogen or helium was extremely conductive for heat. Of course, the gas type is also a variable there, but it's not like 5 times more than air or something. It's almost like an instant transfer.

[@Nondescripthumanoid]

just bought a book and i'm making sous vide coffee. i'm very excited about it.

[@atavax3420]

get a pressure chamber so you can raise the boiling point of water and sous vide coffee beans. I think it's about 15 bar to get to 200 C boiling point. If you sous vide with a very thin layer of beans it should be a super roast even as well.

[@simong-uk]

Why ? seal beans in a bag and use fat/oil to get the right temperature.

[@chesterwsmith]

That's a scary amount of steam pressure, I think a home pressure cooker is about 1 bar of pressure to get to 120 C

[@tremendosour99]

I would love to see what the moisture content of the roasting chamber would do. Just like moisture levels need to be tweaked along the process of drying pasta, maybe there is an advantadge to introducing and removing moisture from the roasting environment. Plus, I can assure that water is completely renewable ;)

[@ThatGuy-pu3tt]

go big or go home, pour a cup of water in the roaster, see what happens

[@tremendosour99]

@@ThatGuy-pu3tt thats just green bean soup my guy 😂

[@EmyrDerfel]

This! I think the nitrogen environment would be essentially dry (one of the reasons they fill car tyres with nitrogen, especially when racing, is to avoid water vapour changing the temperature vs pressure curve of the gas within the tyre). Does dessicated air roast like the nitrogen environment, or is it closer to the control or potentially better?

[@ThatGuy-pu3tt]

@@tremendosour99 just the way I want it if you add a tad of pepper and oregano

[@Physicshelper]

I wish you could brew coffee in low oxygen environment. And I tried microwave the coffee, stir every 15sec until done. It is a interesting experiment, You can put bean in any try of gas, and it is easier to setup.

[@c.d.w.3944]

I love how out of this, there's such an immediate interest in a follow up video to use hot sand

[@PointShotDR]

I love these videos with a more scientific line. Combining coffee, technology, curiosities, science... Perfect!

[@hausofjulian]

I WAS NOT READY FOR THE HELIUM VOICE 😂

[@glfrjack]

I literally did a spit-take... with coffee even.

[@tomgimon5267]

I wanted him to do a helium voice and I was not disappointed. 😊

[@wrlprchnx]

Roasting in Neon would be interesting - It's density is sufficiently similar to air that you shouldn't have the same massflow issues but it has double the thermal conductivity vs. air. It would also be cool to modify one of those roasting units for higher RPM's on the intake fan so that you could get an equivalent MASSFLOW into the roaster with non-air gasses

[@segamble1679]

That's what I was thinking! But in non-science-person terms. (The fan not the neon) I'll go write a poem about it now.

[@MindlessWanderings]

What about roasting in a roast?.. We could roast coffee beans in coffee. In theory all we'd need to do is increase the pressure to about 10 bar (145 psi) get the boiling point high enough to reach a roasting temperature. Or we could try roast pork and potatoes...

[@xZOOMARx]

It would be really interesting if you paired up with Noma to explore coffee ferments, coffee shoyu, coffee miso, and more. What would be really cool is tasting as time goes on; the flavors will change week by week.

[@TechfulThinking]

I’m both grateful and impressed that you mentioned that helium is a non-renewable resource and shouldn’t be wasted on something like roasting coffee! This finite resource is used for things like medical treatments, MRI machines, computer hardware production, and many other critical purposes. Not only is roasting coffee in it a waste, but things like filling balloons and blimps with it is also wasteful. As always, you don’t skimp on giving all the details available. Thank you, James 👍

[@TheSucread]

Blame US government for getting rid of helium reserves. Balloons and one crazy youtuber has nothing to do with that shortage.

[@TechfulThinking]

@@TheSucread I never said it did. I only mentioned that I’m glad he mentioned it’s a non-renewable resource. Calm down, chief ✋😐🤚

[@aryabiss9445]

@@TechfulThinking to be fair, recent discoveries have led to much higher estimates of helium present on earth, but point still taken!

[@hugoarevalobacon6479]

Important too to consider the embodied carbon of the apparatus needed to brew each method. This would be quite high for a pod machine compared to minimal equipment needed to do a pour over.

[@WalterMaguire]

Better this experiment than mylar balloons that end up in the ocean. I'm glad you noted you didn't know it was a finite resource. I enjoy your coffee videos very much. Keep up the good work.

[@johanmartinez206]

Thank you for keeping curious minds around. Big respect for what you do. I am a coffee tour guide in Colombia. A more humble influencer but hopefully as passionate as you are. Regards from Colombia

[@Kyarrix]

James Hoffman is not an influencer. Influencer is an awful term that means nothing more than a pretentious blow hard. He is a knowledgeable coffee expert who delights in sharing his information with others. He isn't an influencer. I hope you aren't either. I would stay as far away from that label as humanly possible. A coffee guide sounds wonderful.

[@joepangean6770]

Johan, I roast green from Columbia often. Very good coffees and thank you for the beans.

[@milesedgeworth132]

Maybe you can revisit the deep-frying technique but with different oils. Sunflower, canola, peanut, olive, and then maybe animal fats like beef tallow or lard.

[@zachrowe6271]

I can't imagine they'll be any better

[@stephenlee5929]

@@zachrowe6271 Agreed, but he was not expecting deep frying to be good, and it was. So maybe a different 'oil/fat may change and possibly improve things.

[@Grogeous_Maximus]

Bacon.

[@kattanakaokopnik5170]

…I sense a crossover with sous vide everything.

[@zimathewolf9390]

A hypothesis about the roaster troubles in the helium enviornment: There is a phenomenon where in high concentraitions, helium is known to diffuse into microchip and electrical components (incliding MEMs oscillators which are used in electronic devices to measure time and manage data transfer) and cause them to fail until the heluim diffuses out of them. It is possible a similar situation occoured within the components of the roaster caused a malfunction of the timing and data components, causing errors and disrupting the normal functions of the machine.

[@Samkaildyke]

Would love a video about that cool little coffee roaster!!

[@DH-bf9xb]

You've raised the bar on coffee insanity. That's not easy to do at this point. Kudos.

[@iangp1113]

I'd love to see a comparison of how different conventional roasting methods affect the flavour profile of the same coffee. Gas, IR, wood, fluid bed, plus any traditional variations on them from different cultures or any other types I've definitely missed.

[@mommachupacabra]

I roast in a 1 qt revereware saucepan, stirring constantly with a big stainless spoon. Propane stove; Highest heat until first crack; turn to 50% until the crackling stops, turn to 25% until second crack, turn back to 50% until it's done the way I like it. Never stop stirring while you roast. I've used hot air poppers and cast iron pans; my coffee roasting pot seems to work to my favorite state of roast.

[@phoenixrising4073]

Roast coffee in hot sand! This can be done either in an oven or over an electric stove with a thermometer. The beans can be sifted through a mesh when finished to remove the sand. This would hopefully produce an even roast once the sand is thoroughly preheated.

[@0xCaboose]

i would love to see a part 2 of this video with a improved helium roasting experiment

[@mechtec]

That's a interesting issue. Maybe some oxidation reactions are happened in coffee roasting process. Once oxygen is moved out, chemical reactions are different. It's a significant issue.

[@hoominwifquats]

I immediately wondered what the exact chemistry is of roasting. It has to be an oxidation event to darken to brown which I thought is the Maillard reaction that makes things taste better? It's not the magic of heat, it's the magic of what reacts with what because of adding the extra energy, and oxygen at 20% of the normal atmosphere it's definitely heavily involved, therefore changes what the active molecules turn into. What's amazing is that James can detect the results of the different reactions that happened. With his mouth.

[@LTPB2]

You should try roasting in sand. Hot sand holds heat well and is used in forms of heat storage. It could be interesting to see how it roasts coffee

[@aoehtns7133]

It's hard to get rid of all the sand from the beans and/or filter the sand afterwards. I've tried with coarse-grained salt -- disaster 😂

[@kylemcarthur7729]

Sulfurhexafloride, I think that is how it is spelled. It is 10x heavier than air. It is inert, I have seen it used for arc flash protection in electric systems for industrial facilities.

[@conormclaughlin5811]

The voice was brilliant and wonderful. Well done!

[@Eduk007]

I believe that the good side oil roasting of the beans was that the oil is much denser than gas, so heat flow was much bigger. So it will be very interesting to see more results of roasting in high density environment - may be in very hot sand, or boiling in water under high pressure ( maybe 15 bar were boiling temperature is near 200 degrees), or go crazy and try something like boiling food salt (~800 degrees).

[@alextopfer1068]

fluidised sand beds get used for heat treating metal sometimes, could be worth a try

[@defeqel6537]

sand roasting would be interesting

[@yyunko7764]

sand in traditionnaly used a cooking medium for making popped rice and cooking other grains

[@jimhim585]

Love these types of videos, James. A few other ideas: 1) Infrared or microwave roasting seems like a good idea (still with a physical circulator of some type), I guess it can be in a vacuum since this is based on radiation, not conduction 2) Surface area to volume roasting experiments. Does grinding to varying sizing before roasting affect the flavor? It could mean a quicker, more even roast. Buck the tradition of whole bean roasting, although prob a pain to grind dense, unroasted coffee beans. 3) Cold brew coffee with super high ethanol, evaporate ethanol to leave behind coffee residue then add to water, may have unique flavor profile. Also, you may have already covered this. But why isn't blending more of a thing in high-end coffee? I don't mean bean origin or species but instead, roast types. I used to make my own morning blend by mixing 65% medium roasted, 25% dark french roast, and 10% blonde roast - it was tasty, complex, and well-rounded. I'm guessing roasting in an oxygen environment could actually be good for flavor compound development during roasting - just like burning oak produces flavorful compounds for whiskey. So how about roasting in a higher oxygen conc. than atmospheric? Ughh, fire hazard?

[@joepangean6770]

Microwave roasting could have value. Chefs will tell you the best (most efficient and safe) method for roasting nuts like walnuts, pecans, almonds and hazelnuts. I guess the microwaves heat the internal water which boils off leaving dry nut surface that goes through the Maillard from residual heat. I can imagine 1st crack of coffee beans to be quick then a short development.

[@jimhim585]

@@joepangean6770 yes, that was my thought. But my guess is it will not get hot enough and be underdeveloped - at least worth a try. Even if it fails, radiative heat transfer could be useful in conjunction with conduction methods. Coffee is a black rabbit hole :).

[@EmyrDerfel]

3) ethanol is a solvent, and one of the methods of decaffeination is using dichloromethane. it's possible that you wouldn't extract enough of the compounds you want, and too much of compounds you don't. Also, you'd lose flavour evapourating the ethanol as other aromatics would also be lost. A fractional distilation might let you catch the stuff that evapourates earlier than ethanol, and add them back in.

[@cyan_oxy6734]

​@@EmyrDerfel the ethanol thing will result in a bitter sludge that will be undrinkable.

[@KlepticHeist]

Saw some others say this, but using fluidized sand baths might be the next move. very useful for heat transfer consistency since air circulation is removed from the equation.

[@rhett644]

Roast in vacuum, use LASERs to transfer the heat from the photons into the coffee beans, or something like just a vacuum sealed microwave oven. Could vary the frequency in either case. To get evenness you would need to perturb (in zero gravity they could float around randomly in the chamber). Alternatively, for evenness you could illuminate with laser or microwave energy from top and bottom simultaneously.

[@xjminahh]

everytime james releases a new video theses days, he never fails to suprise me what new idea he's going to try

[@Laz_Arus]

I'd be curious to see what roasting in a vacuum would be like. You'd have to use something like a Behmor drum roaster that used infrared to provide the heat transfer but it might work. Only issue I can think of is the heating elements might overheat because there would be no convection drawing the heat away.

[@Andrewbert109]

I'm not sure why KZbin has been recommending me these videos I am not a coffee nerd but I'm glad it did I guess the algorithm knows something I don't cause these coffee head videos are pretty dope

[@Armin.T9]

That was awesome! You know, you should review this Ikawa and a Roest unit.

[@jacobfrantz5970]

Thank you for teaching me how to brew coffee, and for making videos crazy enough that the tea-drinking girlfriend loves them too. Whether it's the misery or insanity, we appreciate the content.

[@TonyNaggs]

Thanks, I don't know what I learned here but the slurps & helium voice were hilarious! ☕

[@jeffandersen6233]

Just as I'm asking myself what else James can do with coffee, we have Helium and Nitrogen coffee roasting. We've gone way beyond Aeropress techniques and tea kettle recommendations. Just awesome.

[@xenodrake4008]

You could always do pressurized helium to reach the same level of density of air. Or use the bullet or a roaster that moves the coffee with mlving parts and not air

[@Bigthoogs]

Two things: -Thoroughly disappointed you didnt take the coffee back in a paper bag labeled Fresh Coffee Beans. -You had a giant helium tank and didnt breathe it in?! Lol great video

[@Daltwardo]

"you were probably thinking, at this point, *niche chemistry knowledge*" -James. "Ah yes, chemistry stuff" -me

[@samdempsey3037]

The excitement at getting drinkable looking coffee tells you a lot about James's previous videos...

[@kellymikeyhall]

Ha! What a fun video. I am impressed you were able to pull this off. The scientist in me is totally geeking out right now.