All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗

in a glass-stoppered bottle and shake continuously by machine or hand for one-half hour. Pour the entire contents of the bottle on a 12.5-cm. folded filter, covering with a watch glass. Weigh 150 grams of the filtrate into a 250-cc. flask and evaporate on the steam bath, removing the last chloroform with a blast of air. Digest the residue with 80 cc. of hot water for ten minutes on a steam bath with frequent shaking, and let cool. Treat the solution with 20 cc. (for roasted coffee) or 10 cc. (for unroasted coffee) of 1-percent potassium permanganate and let stand for 15 minutes at room temperature. Add 2 cc. of 3-percent hydrogen peroxid (containing 1 cc. of glacial acetic acid in 100 cc.). If the liquid is still red or reddish, add hydrogen peroxid, 1 cc. at a time, until the excess of potassium permanganate is destroyed. Place the flask on the steam bath for 15 minutes, adding hydrogen peroxid in 0.5-cc. portions until the liquid becomes no lighter in color. Cool and filter into a separatory funnel, washing with cold water. Extract four times with 25 cc. of chloroform. Evaporate the chloroform extract from a weighed flask with aid of an air blast and dry at 100° C. to constant weight (one-half hour is usually sufficient). Weigh the residue as caffein and calculate on 7.5 grams of coffee. Test the purity of the residue by determining nitrogen and multiplying by 3.464 to obtain caffein.

15. Caffein—Power-Chestnut Method—Official

Moisten 10 grams of the finely powdered sample with alcohol, transfer to a Soxhlet, or similar extraction apparatus, and extract with alcohol for 8 hours. (Care should be exercised to assure complete extraction.) Transfer the extract with the aid of hot water to a porcelain dish containing 10 grams of heavy magnesium oxid in suspension in 100 cc. of water. (This reagent should meet the U.S.P. requirements.) Evaporate slowly on the steam bath with frequent stirring to a dry, powdery mass. Rub the residue with a pestle into a paste with boiling water. Transfer with hot water to a smooth filter, cleaning the dish with a rubber-tipped glass rod. Collect the filtrate in a liter flask marked at 250 cc. and wash with boiling water until the filtrate reaches the mark. Add 10 cc. of 10-percent sulphuric acid and boil gently for 30 minutes with a funnel in the neck of the flask. Cool and filter through a moistened double paper into a separatory funnel and wash with small portions of 0.5-percent sulphuric acid. Extract with six successive 25-cc. portions of chloroform. Wash the combined chloroform extracts in a separatory funnel with 5 cc. of 1-percent potassium hydroxid solution. Filter the chloroform into an Erlenmeyer flask. Wash the potassium hydroxid with 2 portions of chloroform of 10 cc. each, adding them to the flask together with the chloroform washings of the filter paper. Evaporate or distil on the steam bath to a small volume (10–15 cc.), transfer with chloroform to a tared beaker, evaporate carefully, dry for 30 minutes in a water oven, and weigh. The purity of the residue can be tested by determining nitrogen and multiplying by the factor 3.464.

16. Crude Fiber—Official

Prepare solutions of sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxid of exactly 1.25-percent strength, determined by titration. Extract a quantity of the substance representing about 2 grams of the dry material with ordinary ether, or use residue from the determination of the ether extract. To this residue in a 500-cc. flask add 200 cc. of boiling 1.25-percent sulphuric acid; connect the flask with a reflux condenser, the tube of which passes only a short distance beyond the rubber stopper into the flask, or simply cover a tall conical flask, which is well suited for this determination, with a watch glass or short stemmed funnel. Boil at once and continue boiling gently for thirty minutes. A blast of air conducted into the flask may serve to reduce the frothing of the liquid. Filter through linen, and wash with boiling water until the washings are no longer acid; rinse the substance back into the flask with 200 cc. of the boiling 1.25-percent solution of sodium hydroxid free, or nearly so, of sodium carbonate; boil at once and continue boiling gently for thirty minutes in the same manner as directed above for the treatment with acid. Filter at once rapidly, wash with boiling water until the washings are neutral. The last filtration may be performed upon a Gooch crucible, a linen filter, or a tared filter paper. If a linen filter is used, rinse the crude fiber, after washing is completed, into a flat-bottomed platinum dish by means of a jet of water; evaporate to dryness on a steam bath, dry to constant weight at 110° C., weigh, incinerate completely, and weigh again. The loss in weight is considered to be crude fiber. If a tared filter paper is used, weigh in a weighing bottle. In any case, the crude fiber after drying to constant weight at 110° C., must be incinerated and the amount of the ash deducted from the original weight.

17. Starch—Tentative

Extract 5 grams of the finely pulverized sample on a hardened filter with five successive portions (10 cc. each) of ether, wash with small portions of 95-percent alcohol by volume until a total of 200 cc. have passed through, place the residue in a beaker with 50 cc. of water, immerse the beaker in boiling water and stir constantly for 15 minutes or until all the starch is gelatinized; cool to 55° C., add 20 cc. of malt extract and maintain at this temperature for an hour. Heat again to boiling for a few minutes, cool to 55° C., add 20 cc. of malt extract and maintain at this temperature for an hour or until the residue treated with iodin shows no blue color upon microscopic examination. Cool, make up directly to 250 cc., and filter. Place 200 cc. of the filtrate in a flask with 20 cc. of hydrochloric acid (sp. gr. 1.125); connect with a reflux condenser and heat in a boiling water bath for 2.5 hours. Cool, nearly neutralize with sodium hydroxid solution, and make up to 500 cc. Mix the solution well, pour through a dry filter and determine the dextrose in an aliquot. Conduct a blank determination upon the same volume of the malt extract as used upon the sample, and correct the weight of reduced copper accordingly. The weight of the dextrose obtained multiplied by 0.90 gives the weight of starch.

18. Sugars—Tentative

See original.[186]

19. Petroleum Ether Extract—Official

Dry 2 grams of coffee at 100° C., extract with petroleum ether (boiling point 35° to 50° C.) for 16 hours, evaporate the solvent, dry the residue at 100° C., cool, and weigh.

20. Total Acidity—Tentative

Treat 10 grams of the sample, prepared as directed under 4, with 75 cc. of 80-percent alcohol by volume in an Erlenmeyer flask, stopper, and allow to stand 16 hours, shaking occasionally. Filter and transfer an aliquot of the filtrate (25 cc. in the case of green coffee, 10 cc. in the case of roasted coffee) to a beaker, dilute to about 100 cc. with water and titrate with N/10 alkali, using phenolphthalein as an indicator. Express the result as the number of cc. of N/10 alkali required to neutralize the acidity of 100 grams of the sample.

21. Volatile Acidity—Tentative

Into a volatile acid apparatus introduce a few glass beads, and over these place 20 grams of the unground sample. Add 100 cc. of recently boiled water to the sample, place a sufficient quantity of recently boiled water in the outer flask and distil until the distillate is no longer acid to litmus paper. Usually 100 cc. of distillate will be collected. Titrate the distillate with N/10 alkali, using phenolphthalein as an indicator. Express the result as the number of cc. of N/10 alkali required to neutralize the acidity of 100 grams of the sample.

Unofficial Methods

22. Protein

Determine nitrogen in 3 grams of the sample by the Kjeldahl or Gunning method. This gives the total nitrogen due to both the proteids and the caffein. To obtain the protein nitrogen, subtract from the total nitrogen the nitrogen due to caffein, obtained by direct determination on the separated caffein or by calculation (caffein divided by 3.464 gives nitrogen). Multiply by 6.25 to obtain the amount of protein.

23. Ten Percent Extract—McGill Method

Weigh into a tared flask the equivalent of 10 grains of the dried substance, add water until the contents of the flask weigh 110 grams, connect with a reflux condenser and heat, beginning the boiling in 10 to 15 minutes. Boil for 1 hour, cool for 15 minutes, weigh again, making up any loss by the addition of water, filter, and take the specific gravity of the filtrate at 15° C.

According to McGill, a 10-percent extract of pure coffee has a specific gravity of 1.00986 at 15° C., and under the same treatment chicory gives an extract with a specific gravity of 1.02821. In mixtures of coffee and chicory the approximate percentage of chicory may be calculated by the following formula:

(1.02821 – sp. gr.)
Percent of chicory = 100 —————————
0.01835

The index of refraction of the above solution may be taken with the Zeiss immersion refractometer or with the Abbe refractometer.

With a 10-percent coffee extract, nd 20° = 1.3377.

With a 10-percent chicory extract, nd 20° = 1.3448.

Determinations of the solids, ash, sugar, nitrogen, etc., may be made in the 10-percent extract, if desired.

24. Caffetannic Acid—Krug's Method[187]

Treat 2 grains of the coffee with 10 cc. of water and digest for 36 hours; add 25 cc. of 90-percent alcohol and digest 24 hours more, filter, and wash with 90-percent alcohol. The filtrate contains tannin, caffein, color, and fat. Heat the filtrate to the boiling point and add a saturated solution of lead acetate. If this is carefully done, a caffetannate of lead will be precipitated containing 49 percent of lead. As soon as the precipitate has become flocculent, collect on a tared filter, wash with 90-percent alcohol until free from lead, wash with ether, dry and weigh. The precipitate multiplied by 0.51597 gives the weight of the caffetannic acid.