Wet and dirty coffee beans!

May 14, 2009 3:51 PM

Can I salvage these wet and dirty coffee beans?

I had some tasty coffee beans stored in a tin container on top of the fridge. GF just accidentally knocked the container off. On its way down it hit an open bottle of water, and together they fell to the somewhat dirty floor. About half of them stayed in the tin container, the other half is mixed with water and some dust/dirt on the floor. Can I rinse them and then dry them on a paper towel, or will that destroy the flavour? Maybe put them in the oven at the lowest heat setting?

posted by mqk to food & drink (6 comments total)

Do you have a salad spinner? I'd try that before rinsing.
posted by gyusan at 3:58 PM on May 14

Won't do any harm to try it... Just make sure they are dry all the way through before you put them in the grinder obviously.
Mind you if you had been storing them for more than a few weeks past roasting they won't be at their best any longer anyway...
posted by Morbuto at 4:02 PM on May 14

Yeurgh.

If they were properly stored, the beans would have been quite dry and thus soaked up a lot of water.

Rinsing will make this worse, and won't remove any off flavours that came from the dirty water. Then drying will probably drive off any nice flavour notes they ever had.

I would throw them away with a clean conscience.

Also, don't store coffee beans on top of the fridge. Not only do you not want this to happen again, but it's a pretty warm place and your beans will get stale even faster. A cool dark cupboard would be ideal.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:11 PM on May 14

You could grind them, brew them, and use the grinds as an exfoliant.
posted by thisjax at 8:10 PM on May 14

What thisjax said. Don't throw them away! If you decide not to use them for drinking coffee, there are many other enviro-friendly uses for the dirty grinds: composting, ant repellent, etc.
a quick Google search will turn up lots of ideas.
posted by hasna at 2:35 AM on May 15

I would grind them and compost them, personally.

Don't drink them, though, that certainly isn't a fruitful avenue to pursue.
posted by paisley henosis at 10:30 AM on May 15