{"id":9811,"date":"2024-05-20T01:48:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T01:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=9811"},"modified":"2024-05-22T15:28:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-22T15:28:47","slug":"somethings-brewin-inside-ross-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=9811","title":{"rendered":"Something’s Brewin’ inside Ross Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Familiarizing first-timers with the concepts of chemical engineering can be a grind.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What happens when coffee beans are brewed at high pressures and temperatures? What happens when coffee beans are slow-roasted but ground coarsely and brewed with an AeroPress rather than a French press?\u00a0Chemical reactions. Molecular breakdowns. Heat transfer. And ultimately… fluid mechanics that drip various samples into the awaiting mug. Some are strong. Some are smooth.<\/p>\n

Each are unique.<\/p>\n

Concepts of Chemical Engineering (CHEN 1000), a class housed within the Department of Chemical Engineering but open to all majors at Auburn University, takes students on a fundamental journey of making coffee while providing them with the basics of engineering principles through repeated experiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about the engineering toolbox, students need to gain a better understanding of what is inside that toolbox and how to utilize those tools,\u201d said Steve Duke, the Mary and John H. Sanders Associate Professor in chemical engineering, whose 11-student pilot \u201ccoffee class\u201d in spring 2023 grew to 46 in just one year.<\/p>\n

Duke hopes to exceed 100 enrollees by 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cInside any lab, students are designing a product and experimenting with different methods to meet the goal of their product\u2019s attributes,\u201d he said. \u201cIn this case, students are designing the best cup of coffee they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not just engineering students but College of Sciences and Mathematics students, business students… even a handful of music students.<\/p>\n

The newly remodeled, 1,200-square-foot laboratory on the third floor of Ross Hall provides students with two bags of green coffee beans to experiment with \u2014 Ethiopian or Nicaraguan \u2014 both of which possess distinct flavors. Students roast, grind, brew, then, finally, sip.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey roast (the beans) themselves,\u201d Duke said. \u201cThey decide if they want a light, medium or dark roast. Or do they want a blend of different roasts? That\u2019s one of the things they\u2019re designing. What flavor profile are they working toward? How can they experiment with roasting the green beans at a variety of pressures, temperatures, lengths of roasting \u2014 and different brew methods \u2014 to achieve that? They control each of these variables, which provide hundreds of outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoasting is where the students learn about control variables, such as time, temperature and airflow. When a student sets up the roaster, they set the fan speed, the time and then the temperature. One might roast for five minutes at a medium temperature, and they\u2019ll achieve a lighter roast,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Some consider this \u201cfirst crack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother might roast for 10 minutes at a higher temperature or a lower wind speed, and they\u2019ll get more of the darker roasts (second crack),\u201d Duke said.<\/p>\n

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The Coffee Process Lab is housed in a newly renovated laboratory in Ross Hall and provides students with grinding stations, roasting stations and equipment to brew hundreds of flavor outcomes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s Not Just Coffee \u2014 It\u2019s Science<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roasting at different rates and temperatures impacts flavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might sound more scientific than coffee-making, but water heating the grounds is extracting molecules out of the ground solids \u2014 and then putting it in the liquid,\u201d Duke said. \u201cThe students learn a little bit about extraction and how temperatures affect it. Then they learn a little chemistry because they\u2019re roasting beans and observing the chemical reaction that occurs during this process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each time students create a cup of coffee, they must measure the energy in the water they\u2019ve heated and the energy in the roast they used for the beans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition, students learn engineering concepts related to porous media \u2014 water seeping through the coffee grounds and then mass transfer in the brewing process,\u201d Duke said. \u201cWhat happens next when heated water hits the grounds? That\u2019s when you\u2019ve made a cup of coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Typical flavor varieties include floral, chocolate, lavender and dark, though all coffee creations are black with no cream, milk or sugar allowed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverything you create in this class is unique to yourself,\u201d said Luke May, a senior in chemical engineering who serves as Duke\u2019s teaching assistant. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to think that making coffee is easy before you get started. You add water to the beans, and you get coffee, right? But going through this class and these labs provides exposure to so many different variables and opportunities to tweak your formulas to make the coffee better, whether it\u2019s in the way you roast, the way you brew, use water temperatures or how long you brew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicknamed the \u201ccoffee process lab,\u201d participants are provided with eight lab stations, four sinks, four roasting stations (all covered by a 3×20 square-foot hibachi exhaust vent to control aroma), eight brewing stations and a variety of coffeemaking-related tools, including a French press, AeroPress, Clever Dripper and thermocouples for testing temperature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have pH meters and total dissolved solids meters, which measure how much of the fluid is solid,\u201d Duke said. \u201cFor everything they do, they measure the energy of the process in kilowatts, and for product quality, they measure total dissolved solids and the percent of extraction. Also, how does the product rate on a taste test scoresheet? Do you like the brewed coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is much more rigid than the old tried and true Mr. Coffee method.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one of those, too,\u201d Duke said. \u201cBut the students rarely use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Coffee?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee makes it very approachable,\u201d Duke said. \u201cIf I said we were designing something else, like a Q-tip, that wouldn\u2019t draw that many people into the class.\u201d<\/p>\n

The class\u2019s real genesis stretches far beyond the third floor of Ross Hall. It was born on the West Coast. \u201cThe Design of Coffee: An Engineering Approach\u201d was the 2012 creation of William Ristenpart, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California-Davis and director of the UC-Davis Coffee Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 10 years ago, I heard Dr. Ristenpart give a talk at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and I thought, \u2018Oh, I really want to do that,\u2019\u201d said Duke, who has taught in Auburn Engineering classrooms since 1996. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do something for students from all majors to expose them to engineering skills. I thought I would call it engineering literacy, which would have been a lot like financial literacy. Instead of learning the basics of finance, how to stay out of debt and balance checkbooks, etc., this would similarly be called engineering literacy \u2014 the basics of engineering, or some aspect of that. I even mentioned it to (Auburn University President) Chris Roberts, who was the college\u2019s dean back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duke\u2019s vision had to wait, however, as he became associate dean for academics, pulling him away from teaching for seven years. His presence in the classroom was missing. His desire to create a basics of engineering class was not. By the time Duke returned to Ross Hall classrooms in 2020 as associate professor, that original engineering literacy idea had the scent of roasted coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Roberts asked, \u2018You\u2019re probably going to start that coffee class, aren\u2019t you?\u2019 I replied, \u2018I already am,\u2019\u201d Duke said.<\/p>\n

\u2018You Learn With Imagination\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luke May was one of the 11 original students in the pilot coffee class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis class helped me develop a better appreciation for basic engineering concepts and pushed me along as an undergraduate researcher,\u201d said May, a member of assistant professor Symone Alexander\u2019s bio-inspired materials laboratory. \u201cI cannot stress enough how valuable this class has been to me and other students, who are provided with more tangible means to apply what we\u2019ve learned. In many classes, you learn the information on paper. In this class, students learn by hands-on participation, which is extremely valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Duke\u2019s idea was to educate and inspire, he takes pride in watching the students develop.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou equip students with abilities, then provide them with space and freedom,\u201d Duke said. \u201cWhat\u2019s great is you don\u2019t have to force them to come to the coffee lab. They\u2019re going to be excited about making the best cup of coffee they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping students can take what they\u2019ve learned here and apply it to projects or tasks moving forward in whatever discipline they pursue. They might ponder, \u2018There\u2019s a concept I\u2019ve developed, or a product or a goal that I want to achieve, and now I have some practices about how I might achieve that goal,\u2019\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a win-win for students in engineering and across campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might mean they must experiment with a bunch of things, but that\u2019s how you increasingly improve. You learn by the process of optimization. You learn by sampling. You learn by experimenting. You learn with imagination,\u201d Duke said.<\/p>\n