Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/612330
30 STiR tea & coffee industry international / Issue 6, 2015 (December/January) There are now 60 Ecomills operating in Colombia. This smaller version is located on a coffee farm in Caldas near Marizales. Photo by Dan Bolton/STiR Tea & Coffee sume and contaminate a lot more water than it does today. Some equipment suppliers even claim that their machines do not consume water at all but the real question is if such machines are indeed used without water and then what is the extent of damage to coffee this may cause," he said. Pinhalense wet mills require a very limited amount of water in order to ensure nearly zero loss of parchment coffee with the pulp that is discarded and minimal or no physical damage to coffee. Cenicafé the research arm of the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC), began investigating techniques known today as dry pulping during the 1980s. Scientists there spent a decade and a half in research and development before testing their first commercially available ecological milling system, Be- colsub. More recently, they debuted Ecomill which is available in three sizes. Researchers reported Becolsub reduces contamination due to milling waste water by 90% and Ecomill closes the 10% gap eliminating waste wa- ter contamination. A press release summarizing Ecomill's capabilities stated, Ecomill can save 35,000 liters of water, the amount used by 233 people each day, for every 1,000 kg of coffee that is processed. Penagos created a line of pulpers called DCV, short for despulpador a cla- sificador a de verdes or in English "green sorting pulper," and another called UCBE, an acronym for unidad compacta de beneficio ecológico or in Eng- lish "compact ecological benefit unit." Each incorporates features designed to use less power and water. For example, the DCV is best suited to pulping when 5-50% of the cherries may be under-ripened (hence the reference to "green" in the name). Penagos is in the process of making refinements to its latest designs, which are not yet available, after surveying attendees at the Specialty Coffee Association of America Exposition in Seattle this year. Al- fonso Penagos, international coffee division sales director at Penagos, said, with the DCV, "a rubber device located on the top part of the pulping channel 'knows' when a ripe cherry must be pulped and when a green cherry not." While each organization's system differs in the amount of power and water necessary to function, most use similar processes and techniques. Wet mill designs now incorporate mechanical or verti- cal siphons, green cherry separators, screen pulp- ers, and repassers to optimize water use. Many also use sieves, screens, and screw conveyers. The benefits of the latest generation of pulp- ers includes less loss of parchment coffee in the pulp, little to no physical damage to parchment, and lower water consumption. Also, less physical space is needed for many models. More progress on the way In spite of the barriers to adoption of drier wet mill systems, trial projects and production-ready deployments continue in coffee-growing regions around the world. Work is already underway in Asia, Central and South America. In one case, a large Brazilian processor and exporter updated equipment to produce better beans for export. Ipanema Coffees switched to using equipment from Penagos's DCV line in 2014. Ipanema tested the new processing system for one whole season before announcing in a press release in May that "…all the initial promis- es of increasing productivity and improving qual- ity have been fulfilled." Indian grower and exporter BBTC uses the lat- est Pinhalense wet milling equipment to process arabica and robusta coffees that have received quality awards in India and abroad and have been selling for premium prices. The little waste water produced is used to generate biogas for the Pin- halense driers. The FNC has been promoting Ecomill to its membership since announcing its availability in 2013. According to Carlos Oliveros, principal in- vestigator at Cenicafé, there are 60 Ecomill sys- tems of varying sizes in use on farms and in coffee processing facilities in Colombia. Three completed projects—Ecomills in the Center of Cañasgordas; in the Risaralda region; and in Argentina, Huila— will serve a combined total of about 445 coffee producers. One under construction now has the capacity for receiving more than 180,000 kg of cof- fee cherries and to meet the needs of at least 200 small coffee producers. Oliveros said, "As you can see, there is a sig- nificant increase of small coffee producers' use of technology for [processing coffee]." Brando also observed that as his customers convert existing mills to newer, drier coffee pro- cessing equipment they experience water use re- ductions. Some also repurpose fermentation tanks