JonR10 wrote:Right. So when you say
what you really MEANT to say was probably something more along the lines of
"it is unlikely a home roaster will rise to the elite level of the top 1% of roasters in the country"

Uhm, yes? Therefore, unless you're really into doing it yourself, why bother.
To each their own of course, i was just trying to point out to the OP that unless there is reason other than saving money, home roasting isn't the panacea to his question most likely. That is all.

The first thing people say in response to saving money is "home roast". I think that's a misguided and misleading answer.

malachi wrote:Actually... doing it fairly is easy and drawing fair conclusions is equally easy.

I agree with your testing idea being good, but my concern is maybe more fundamental. There are tons of home roasters out there all over the internet; what basis would you be have for assuming that you'd taken a good 'cross-section' of homeroasters? How would you link that to experience, and without a truly massive sample size, how do you identify a poor roaster from a guy who had a possibly one-off screw-up (maybe not so much the "one" part )? If you want to settle this debate, I think you'd have to be able to ID inconsistency vs. consistently poor quality, and reading the accounts from Rate My Roast would suggest that orchestrating a bunch of home roasters delivering pairs of roasts that they're truly happy with, all for one big comparative taste test, would be a monumental task that would put asterisks all over the place on the test and make your conclusions either super-limited (not very useful) or controversial (not widely accepted).

I don't know if this debate will ever really be settled; again, I'm really skeptical that a huge test like you describe (which would be interesting to participate in AND to read about) would get us too much further to that end.

Read the State of SF Coffee rounds 1 through 3 on http://godshot.blogspot.com/ for some surprising issues with consistency and roasts from the pros.

One interesting observation from round one was:

Coffee people like sour coffees - consumers with educated palates do not.

While there are some people who home roast for purely economic reasons, others do it because they can dial into their own coffee preferences and really fine tune their roasts for what they want. I know that there's some roasters that are willing to do custom roasts for their customers, but that usually comes at a higher cost.

The other factor is that the challenge of ordering enough coffee to justiy the shipping charges, but not too much to risk staling pretty much drops out of the equation when you home roast since greens keep much longer the roasted.

-Chris

HB wrote:Unless I'm missing something, you two are in violent agreement.

Um...sorta. We agree that it takes talent and practice to become a great roaster.

jasonmolinari wrote:Uhm, yes? Therefore, unless you're really into doing it yourself, why bother...

Why bother? I suppose it's true that you should not roast at home unless you're really into doing it yourself, but here are some of the reasons why I choose to "bother" with home roasting.

1. To be more involved in the whole coffee process
2. To learn about the bean (different types and origins, etc.)
3. To understand more about what tastes are associated with what roast parameters
4. To experiment with different beans and different blends and different roast levels and profiles
5. For me it's an interesting, fun, and rewarding hobby
6. and Yes - even to save some money. At $20/pound x 2 pounds/week adds up fast (about $2k/year)

Of course, my usage is 5-6 pounds per week. Even if it was only $15/pound delivered then artisan roasts would cost me about $4k per year...but for my home roasts it's half that number.


So while I heartily agree that people need to understand that it's not for everyone and most home roasters will have a steep curve to be able to produce coffee on the quality level of a Paradise or PT's (if at all, ever)...I heartily disagree with the idea that "if you can't match Klatch then why bother"

For home roasters, theres an easy question and a hard question, and a revelation at the end of the road.

The easy question is "Should I homeroast." Get a popcorn popper, a whirlypop, or Freshroast, try it, and see if you enjoy it. It has almost nothing to do with skill or coffee expense, and everything to do with finding an enjoyable hobby.

The hard question is how good are home roasters. There's a spread here.

Many are happy doing a few roasts every week, of a coffee or blend they know well, for a prep method they know well, usually espresso. They will learn how to do that particular roast very precisely, and be both content and confident in their skills. But if they try something else, the results will usually be disconcerting all round.

Others try a lot of different coffees each year, roast coffees for others, and experiment with different prep methods. This group will become better all round roasters, but they will also be far less confident about their ability to get the best out of each coffee. After all, there will be dozens of time each year when their roasts of some supposedly magical coffee tastes like dust and ashes.

In other words, attitudes and skill levels among home roasters vary just as they do among professionals.

It's become much easier for a home roaster to rate their roasting chops. Some of the best roasters in the country, Klatch and Metropolis, winner of best small SCAA roaster of the year awards, Intelligentsia and PTs, winners of the large SCAA roaster awards, and Paradise and Terroir, the ratings leaders on Coffee Review, all sell some of their roasts as green beans. Rate your own roasts against theirs, and you'll know if you're ready for prime time or not.

For me the exercise has cured me of contempt in either direction, and increased my respect for coffee itself. There is a base level of roasting competence one needs to acquire; but beyond that, every good roast requires particular knowledge of the individual coffee being roasted. The best roasters, mostly pro but some amateurs, get to know their coffees as well as they can in order to bring out the best in each.

another_jim wrote:For me the exercise has cured me of contempt in either direction, and increased my respect for coffee itself.

+1

another_jim wrote: There is a base level of roasting competence one needs to acquire; but beyond that, every good roast requires particular knowledge of the individual coffee being roasted.

+100,000

shadowfax wrote:There are tons of home roasters out there all over the internet; what basis would you be have for assuming that you'd taken a good 'cross-section' of homeroasters?

I don't think you'd ever try to promise you'd take a truly representative sampling - just as you wouldn't try to do that for "US professional roasters." You'd simply have to live with the fuzziness on both sides.
That being said.... the approach detailed above (top home roasters from each round go to a "finale") would yield a good "State of Home Roasting" sample IMHO.

Of course, this doesn't address the "compare it to pro roasters" issue - but as I said earlier that would be an area I would personally shy away from.

shadowfax wrote:How would you link that to experience, and without a truly massive sample size, how do you identify a poor roaster from a guy who had a possibly one-off screw-up (maybe not so much the "one" part )?

I don't think you would worry about experience.
In terms of sample size... I think 30 home roasters would be sufficient.
Each would provide 1 coffee, 10 would be cupped per round, top 2 advance.
Each of the top 2 would be asked to provide 2 coffees for the finale.
I'd say that would be worthwhile if not scientifically or statistically complete.

If someone sends in a screwed up roast - then I think they get what they deserve.
If you can't tell that you screwed up your roast, I'd have a hard time arguing that you know what you're doing.

shadowfax wrote:If you want to settle this debate, I think you'd have to be able to ID inconsistency vs. consistently poor quality, and reading the accounts from Rate My Roast would suggest that orchestrating a bunch of home roasters delivering pairs of roasts that they're truly happy with, all for one big comparative taste test, would be a monumental task that would put asterisks all over the place on the test and make your conclusions either super-limited (not very useful) or controversial (not widely accepted).

See above model.
Seems like it would be valuable against what you're describing.
First 30 roasters sign up and commit to sending in coffee. If they fail to send it in - they get called out for it (incentive).
Top 6 end up providing 3 different coffees over 2 roasts (consistency).
The model of the "set of serious palates" for evaluation works (quality).
Results would likely not be "super-limited" (but would be somewhat limited).
Absolutely I can guarantee it would be "controversial" -- but it would still be TRUE (ie see the "controversy" of the SF results as it relates to Equator - Roaster of the Year; and Blue Bottle - cult favorite).

shadowfax wrote:I don't know if this debate will ever really be settled; again, I'm really skeptical that a huge test like you describe (which would be interesting to participate in AND to read about) would get us too much further to that end.

If you are talking about the home vs pro debate - as noted above this would not be designed to address that and it's something that I don't think is worth debating. I think everyone in the center of the bell curve agrees on that debate (a somewhat skilled home roaster is very likely to be able to sometimes produce coffee better than the "supermarket" roasters produce; a skilled home roaster is very likely to be able to consistently produce coffee better than these "supermarket" roasters and is likely to be able to periodically produce coffee better than all but the top 1 or 2 percent of professional roasters; very few home roasters are likely to be able to produce that is consistently on par with what those top pro roasters produce).

If you're talking about "how good is home roasted coffee" as the debate - I think something like this would give a sample in time.


And to be honest - I'd even be willing to predict how it would come out. I think that anyone who has been to any large home-brewing events / meet ups / conventions can probably apply the same % breakdown to coffee as you see in home-brew.

I'd like to just bring this thread back on topic for a second (so I can go off topic in a different direction), but the economist in me says that paying around 75 cents per double shot for top quality, fresh roasted beans is a pretty good deal. Even if I only manage to make a decent shot of espresso from them, that shot is worth at least $1.50 to me (the price of a shot at a cheap cafe) and probably more then that since I enjoy the experience and convenience of making at home. And if I manage a good or great shot it'd be worth quite a bit more then that.

Paying 1/2 the value of my cup for the main ingredient, which is grown and processed on a different continent (or maybe several different continents) flown to a roaster somewhere who blends and roasts them, then packs them and puts them on a plane to me to show up 2 days later, seems like a good deal to me.

Hell, if all the crappy stale coffee selling for $6/lb wasn't out there I'd be excited for the chance to be paying only $18/lb because then the artisan roasters would probably be able to charge twice as much as they do now, and I'd still happily pay it.

Actually, any decent economist (or for that matter financial analyst) would freak out if they modeled coffee in this manner. On average (and with a few glaring exceptions) it is probably 2/3 the price (per pound) that it should be. Most coffee businesses are run by people who are far from business professionals - and few if any understanding pricing.