Difference between revisions of "Caffeine Project"
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To make the coffee for the samples, 2.6 oz of beans were weighed out. These beans were then grinded, and 38 g of the beans were placed into a pourover filter. Then, 640 g of boiling hot water were poured over the grounds, allowing the grounds to bloom as needed. This process was done with both L0 and L5 beans. | To make the coffee for the samples, 2.6 oz of beans were weighed out. These beans were then grinded, and 38 g of the beans were placed into a pourover filter. Then, 640 g of boiling hot water were poured over the grounds, allowing the grounds to bloom as needed. This process was done with both L0 and L5 beans. | ||
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| + | After this first round of coffee, we discovered that the coffee samples were too concentrated for our standards, so we cut the amount of beans to 30 g of L0 and L5. This round we also made a sample of 15 g of the green coffee beans with 320 g of boiling water. We used a 0.45 micron filter and syringe to put this solution into the HPLC vials to ensure there was no particulate matter present. | ||
==Instrumentation== | ==Instrumentation== | ||
Revision as of 19:53, 3 June 2019
Project Overview
For this project I worked with Brad and a fellow student, Will Fox, to determine the caffeine levels in different samples of coffee. For this project we had to make caffeine standards to compare the samples to. The following link describes how we made these standards.
Making the Coffee
To make the coffee for the samples, 2.6 oz of beans were weighed out. These beans were then grinded, and 38 g of the beans were placed into a pourover filter. Then, 640 g of boiling hot water were poured over the grounds, allowing the grounds to bloom as needed. This process was done with both L0 and L5 beans.
After this first round of coffee, we discovered that the coffee samples were too concentrated for our standards, so we cut the amount of beans to 30 g of L0 and L5. This round we also made a sample of 15 g of the green coffee beans with 320 g of boiling water. We used a 0.45 micron filter and syringe to put this solution into the HPLC vials to ensure there was no particulate matter present.
Instrumentation
After making the standards, we tested the standards using the HPLC to see where the peaks were for the different concentrations of caffeine. The following link goes into more depth about working with the HPLC.
Once the standards were tested, another HPLC trial was done including the L0 and L5 coffee samples.
Data Analysis
To analyze the HPLC data, the data was exported as an arw file. This file was then loaded into Igor, and further analyzed from there. This allowed us to make chromatograms to gain a better understanding of the how each concentration of caffeine absorbs at 273 nm.