Occasionally, you might find some very light brown flakes in your beans (or grounds). They are called chaff and they are a wonderful part of the coffee process. They are the outer layer of a raw coffee bean that dries up and comes off of the bean when the bean is in the high-heat stage of the roasting process. The chaff resembles that of the thin, outer layer of a peanut when it is removed from the shell.
Most of the chaff comes off in the roasting and cooling processes and is discarded by the one who is roasting. There is a serious amount of chaff that comes off in a roast and this chaff is responsible for most of the fires that come to roasters who aren’t attentive to their roasts. It’s also a wonderful addition to any compost as it adds quite a bit of nitrogen to the soil.
Though most of the chaff comes off and is discarded, occasionally some of the flakes either stick to the bean it came from or don’t make it through the sieve. You can pick those out as you prepare your coffee for the brewing process if you want, but they are harmless and can be ground up along with the beans.
At New Morning Mercies Coffee, we inspect every bean by the spoonful as it comes off of our bean cooler to make sure we eliminate as much chaff as possible, but there are always those flakes that not only avoid the sieve but also the sharp eye of our quality inspections. No need to worry, they are just another wonderful part of the coffee experience.
New Morning Mercies Coffee 