Rate My Roast: Nutty Buddy

[another_jim]

Roaster's description:

Thanks for offering to taste the coffees

This is my stock blend and was roasted by SC/TO on July 20. I find it peaks 5 to 7 days after roasting

25% Brazil Facenda Jacaranda
25% Brazil FVA Natural Dry
25% Monsooned Malabar
12.5% Oromia Yrg
12.5% Yemen Sanani

It's an all purpose, bu I like it for macs and caps. I pull 2 ounces at 201.

My main aim is lots of toast and nut with some chocolate. I think this does well except for occasional musty or grassy flavors from the Monsoon if the roast profile isn't right.

I look forward to your comments

[Abe Carmeli]

Day 1

I had a shot of his coffee this morning. 2 oz 16.5 grams 201f in 26 seconds. It was nicely balanced with notes of toasted almonds & sunflower seeds husks. I was surprised not to get any flavor of the Africans in the blend and for me it was mostly the Brazilians & the Malabar. There is still a slight mushroom mustiness in the finish, but it hits me after two minutes, not right away. I think balance is the strength of this blend. Flavor is a little mild/pedestrian for me. Perhaps a 1.5 oz pull will bring in more from the Africans.

Day 2-3

A shorter volume pull of 1.5 oz in 25 seconds and & 198f brought in more pronounced flavors of dark chocolate, toasted nuts and nondescript mellow and pleasant acidity. Body & mouth-feel are improved as well. However, there was a price to pay in balance, and the bitters are more pronounced. Experiments with different brew parameters going all the way down to 14 grams changed the cup profile but kept the overall score at 3.5 which is halfway between good and very good. This coffee can tolerate a range of brew parameters and can go from a very mild & balanced 2 oz shot to a very chocolaty ristretto. I personally would have loved to taste more of the African coffees in the blend, which could have brought up its overall score. It is worth experimenting with a more vivid roast of the Africans and a slight increase of their percentage in the blend while decreasing the percentage of the Malabar and/or Brazilians

[another_jim]

The cappa passes my personal Viennese Kaffee and Schlag test: almonds/marzipan, a little chocolate, a little smoke. Very satisfying, but not wow!: A straight four in my book.

Straight shots at 16 grams and 22 seconds for a full two ounces are solid. Abe is right, there's nothing explicit from the Africans, but there is some liveliness and complexity in the bitters that shows them at work. Otherwise as advertised: toast and nut, a hint of of the Malabar wet wood & mushrooms thing. I'd rate it just short of being very good, a 3.5.

The contrarian shot, 12.5 grams, with a long flush to 197F, and a medium pull is better, a 4: very sweet,
mostly brazil rooty-nutty, with "bright-bitter" wood and toast, a bit of chocolate, and just enough acidity to keep it lively.

I'm no fan of the Vivace/Malabar Gold/Liquid Amber blending style. These blends haven't fared well in competition; but they are popular with customers. I think their appeal is more to customers used to milk drinks rather than coffee professionals used to cupping lighter roasts. But this blend is a good effort in this style, and I recommend it based on that.

If you want to get a little livelier, emphasise the African bean more. If it is a post-blend, roast the African portion maybe a little lighter and definitely faster. If it is a pre-blend, up the proportion of the Yrg at the expense of the Brazilian beans.

[HB]

This was a very easy blend to dial in and predictable. A nice crema and tiger striping; the dominate flavors are nuts (walnuts and almonds if pulled cooler) with reminiscent oak overtones. An enjoyable albeit simple blend; if you're willing to tolerate some hints of sourness, try pulling a few degrees cooler and you'll be rewarded by more berry/almond overtones.The body was silky smooth. While the front taste was consistently enjoyable, I was unable to avoid a lingering bitterness/ash finish that marred an otherwise solid 3.0 espresso.

[RMR]

My thanks to the illustrious panel of judges! The information that you have provided has been outstanding and I can't wait to work on the next revision...

Clearly the next effort will cut back on the monsooned coffee and bring the africans up in concert.

I've been trying to reduce/eliminate the monsooned malabar but have never found anything that seems to work very well. I've had some batches of this coffee that are a sour and musty as a damp wash rag! Despite this liability, I have yet to find another bean that offers the creamy mouthfeel and body that seems to accompany monsooned coffee when it is good. I've tried sumatra but still haven't found a bean or roast that really does the job. Any thoughts about how to move in this direction would be very welcomed.

My next question is whether the judges would be willing to take samples of the next version - it would be very interesting get your thoughts of blend as it is refined.

[Abe Carmeli]

I've been trying to reduce/eliminate the monsooned malabar but have never found anything that seems to work very well ... I've tried Sumatra but still haven't found a bean or roast that really does the job. Any thoughts about how to move in this direction would be very welcomed.

Try an aged Sumatra instead of the Malabar but perhaps not more than 15%. The bad ones will be woody, the good ones will be like fine heavy brandy. The best I've tried is from Terroir, but I'm not sure they still have it.

My next question is whether the judges would be willing to take samples of the next version - it would be very interesting get your thoughts of blend as it is refined.

Speaking for myself here, I'd be interested to see version 2, so feel free to send me your sample.

[cannonfodder]

I was going to suggest the same thing Abe did. Cut the MM out completely and go with an aged Sumatran. Different beans prefer different roast levels but you could try it at full city just before or at the first snap of second. That keeps the charcoal flavor out but mellows out some of the funk that some of the aged Sumatrans have. FYI, my running house blend is Yemen, aged Sumatran and a nice peaberry Brazil yellow bourbon, Full City, City, City+ roast levels for my particular beans.

[another_jim]

The attraction of Monsooned Malabars is its relative consistency. Aged Javas and Sumatras went from a few heavenly to many sewage plant ones (some people still kid me about a blend I sent out about 4 years ago).

However this has changed. An air conditioned warehouse in Kuala Lumpur now ages high grade washed Lintongs for four to five years. These coffees are carried by green by Terroir and Paradise, and Bob and I have scored them at around 90 each of the three or four times we've tried a new batch. In other words, they completely outperform MM.

There are still some inconsistencies: some have worked better at unusually light, some at unusually dark roasts, and they may also need to run anywhere from 1/8th to 1/4 in a blend to add just the right level of their characteristic oak-cask flavor.

[cannonfodder]

The blend I have been using is 50% Yemen, 30% aged Sumatran and 20% Brazil yellow bourbon peaberry, or two different Brazil's at 10% each depending on what I want. I have one of those good Sumatrans, at a light roast is brighter with some fruity complexity, darker roasts (start of second) the flavor shifts and I get a heaver flavor with pronounced sherry cask flavors that will linger on the tongue for an hour.

[RMR]

Hi,

Version 2.0 of Nutty Buddy is a slight variation:

25% Brazil Facenda Jacaranda
25% Brazil FVA Natural Dry
10% Monsooned Malabar
20% Oromia Yirg
20% Yemen Sanani

The hope in heading into version 2.0 is to accomplish a couple of things. First, the judges comments strongly suggested that the original blend could use more character and that the African coffees were "missing". By boosting their proportion, I'm hoping to get more of them to appear. The second comment was that the monsooned coffee might be a liability so that was the clear bean to bring down.
Last, two judges noted ashiness in the coffee which I puzzled over a bit but I think I understand now. In my SC/TO I've been pre-blending the Yemen and Yirg with the hope that the smaller Yemen beans would get to a slightly higher degree of roast than the Yirg. The idea being to get the chocolate from the darker Yemen and the fruit and herbs from the lighter Yirg. Well, I pulled a small sample of this two bean blend to cup and noticed that my roasting strategy has largely failed. This blend simply goes too dark under the conditions that I'm currently using to roast and I'm willing to bet that this accounts for a reasonable contribution to the issues - ash and not much African character. In version 3.0 (if we keep going), I'd probably opt to roast the Yirg and Yemen separately.

Again - it will be great to get some feedback and I'm enjoying this immensely!

[Abe Carmeli]

Version 2.0, Days 1-2

This version with the higher proportion of Africans (40%) on paper should show a lot of character. The woody/mushroom slightly funky note is gone, perhaps attributed to the reduced portion of the monsooned malabar, however the attempt to add fruit to the blend failed. Ashiness has increased, and the only way to pull a decent shot is to go with an updose of 16.5 grams and 2 oz. Acidity has decreased, and though I can taste dark chocolate from the Africans (I assume) I am not getting their berries.

As the roaster pointed out, it is very likely that the Africans were roasted too dark and perhaps too slow. My recommendation is to roast them separately, go faster to first crack, and stop the roast 5 degrees before 2nd crack.

[another_jim]

I got word that there might have been a problem with the roast. But when I pulled my first shot on Friday evening, it had very good on taste, a 4, with decent body. There was plenty of fruit, and lots of low end complexity to set it off.

But whatever went wrong began showing up yesterday and it went downhill rapidly from there, with the shots getting ashier and ashier. By today, even the low dose, low temp, fast flow efforts were too ashy to finish. This even affected the cappas, which lacked the sweetness of the previous version.

Based on the first shot, I think the blend recipe is about right. I'm not sure whether I agree with Abe on changing the roasting strategy, or whether trying the intended roast first might be the way to go.

[RMR]

I thought I'd give a picture of how this troubled roast actually developed.

First - I changed the recepie without re-optimizing the roast. Slightly different bean weights from my original stock roast and while I thought I could handle it, I really need a couple of runs to get it right.

Second - my boys 'helped' me and it is more than likely that one or more of the beans aren't actually correct.
The Yirg, Yemen, and monsooned coffee are in there but I'm not really sure about the brazils. I store all of my beans with slips of paper in each bag. Five of the slips were pulled out by my helpers and left on the floor. Also, in the frenzy of having two boys watching a smoky roaster in the garage - I'm thinking that I must have really missed the timing/temperature on one or more of beans.

After shipping the beans, I wrote to Jim and let him know that I thought something was wrong. The shot I pulled the morning after the roast was atypically green and unbalanced. This was right in line with the somewhat irregular aroma that the coffee had just after roasting. Anyway it seemed to improve for a day or two then came crashing down. The shots that I made this morning were grassy, woody, and reminiscent of solvent. Frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed that I shipped this stuff.

So - too many changes with too little time to re-optimize. I'd like to try again after this very disappointing run...

[RMR]

Ok - back with another attempt at the improved version of Nutty Buddy.

A few interesting notes and comments.

I'd have to say that this roast is still a work in progress! There are several variables that need better control but I hoped to get a post in the ground suggesting that I'm headed in the right direction after the last mess up.

Since I roast in a SC/TO I have to say that roasting the Yemen is very difficult. Previously I was roasting the Yirg and Yemen together which seemed to help make sure that the beans were well agitated in the roaster. However, the new blend has caused me to move to roasting the Yemen and Yirg separately which makes the Yemen a tough bean to roast well. The variability in bean size is a real problem for the stir bars in the bottom of my Stir Crazy unit.

Second, I'm definitely still getting a bitter taste that I don't like too much and think must come from the Africans. It's interesting since it seems to be quite sharp bitterness that is strong early in the taste but which fades very quickly. As the coffee ages it seems to be getting much less intense and there is a chance that it may be gone in a day or two. Nevertheless, it is one of the unexpected features of this new blend.

The comments from the tasters will be very interesting to me. Overall, I'm not terribly satisfied with the flavors as I've changed the blend. Even if there are improvements to be made, I think I will start exploring some other beans. I've considered swapping Harrar for the Yirg and will be testing an aged sumatran as a replacement for the monsooned coffee.

Good evening all and thanks to Jim, Abe, and Dan!

[another_jim]

I got an unannounced batch of the latest roast a few days ago. This is a no-no, since the package is quite likely to find us unable to check it. Abe is away, Dan is moving, and I'm about to move.

I did manage to taste it yesterday and today. There is a probably a too high MET on this roaster, since there is still a tendency towards ashy. However, this time around it, it's not nearly as bad, and a low pulling temperature of 90C or 195F, controls the problem.

The taste is predominantly chocolate. At lower doses one gets berries, at higher doses, there's an oakiness. There was a small but very distinct ferment note (sauerkraut) in the long finish of most shots, probably from the Yemen or one of the Brazils. It would rate at 4 for both body and taste without the ferment, with it, it goes down to anywhere from 0 to 3.5, depending on how tough one scores. I'm fairly tolerant of DP funk, so I'm OK with rating it a 3 to 3.5.

At its best, this blend will never get above a 4, since it's too complicated, and none of the beans would cup over 90 on their own. This is the "very good" level, what one expects from the regular blends at the top cafes. But to get out of the comfort food zone, and into the excellent zone, you'll need a simper blend that uses 90 plus coffees.