Rate My Roast: Starry Night

[another_jim]

The roaster submitted two roasts: The tasters did not know any of the details until after they had completed their ratings. Subsequently the roaster added the details shown in the 6th post of the thread.

[Abe Carmeli]

Day 1

Roast Batch A: Following the roaster's recommendation I brewed it at 202f, and started with my standard/neutral dosage of 15 gram and total shot time of 1.5 oz in 26 seconds. The shot was
heavily bitter - in the green bitters like radicchio, and was also ashy. The fragrance of dry berries and chocolate was a good indication that they are buried under the bitters, but I could not get to them. I tried it at variety of brew parameters to no avail. The cup was so unbalanced towards the bitters that it was undrinkable.

Day 2-3

Roast batch B: I pulled two shots today of both roast batch A & B at lower temperature and faster pour. 15.4 g, 1.5 oz in 20 seconds. The difference between Sample A & B in my batch is in bitterness. A is still too bitter to drink, Sample B is drinkable though the bitterness is still too strong for my palate. The berries chocolate & dry fruit aroma are accessible in B however, I could not take more than two sips of that cup. It is still too bitter to consume. Experiments with higher dosage, faster/slower pour, lower temp and even very low dosage didn't improve it much.

My final score for batch A is 0 - unacceptable and Batch B is 2 - average.

[another_jim]

General
The aroma and origin flavors indicates a Sidamo or Lekempti region Ethiopian, dry processed. However, my guesses are frequently wrong. The original coffee seems to have had some sweetness, an interesting combination of fruit notes with vegetal and chocolate undertones, and medium to heavy body.

Roast A
This roast was very astringent and ashy. The first sips through the crema are acceptable, but after that it is virtually undrinkable. In its favor, in this roast the origin flavors are fairly clear underneath the bitterness. My flavor scoring ran from 1.5 to 2.5, average of 2. My body score is 2.5. The cappa tasted like liquid soap, a score of 1.

Roast B
This roast was less bitter and astringent, but also had almost no flavor, aroma, or sweetness except on the day it arrived, when I gave it a 3.5 for taste. After that it nose dived down to 2, having no identifiable origin flavors or aromas whatsoever. The body was lighter than A, maybe a 2, and the cappa was as soapy tasting as A, a score of 1.

[HB]

Roast A
Harsh, bitter, with lingering taste of burnt wood pencils and raw potato. When pulled at its very best, it had medium body and hints of peppermint. In competition, I would score this roast 1.0 to 1.5 on flavor balance.

Roast B
Easier to pour, but still bitter and ashy. More body. Reminds me of a milder version of Starbucks. Tried it as a cappuccino and it works better, but the ashy flavors were not entirely masked. I'm not a homeroaster, but I would guess that these samples were both under and overroasted given the vegetable rawness combined with ashiness.

[cannonfodder]

Ashy and vegetable, bitter, sounds a bean that was roasted too fast. Charred shell with an under roasted core, been there done that, full city on the outside and cinnamon on the inside. If you break a few beans open, is the color even through the entire bean or is it light in the center and darkens as you go out.

[another_jim]

Here are the coffee and roasting details:

Coffee: Ethiopia Organic DP Koratie from the Dara, Sidamo, Oromia Region. July 2008 arrival from Sweet Maria's 2 batches A & B were sent to each cupper with different profiling.

Roast: Full City - although Tom from SM suggested C to C+ and he thinks FC has good milk chocolate but less fruit dynamics. I decided to go for FC before 2nd crack for the judges. Apparently that turns out to be a disaster.
Batch A: charge temp: 250f with slower profiling in the middle. and drop temp of 410
Batch B: charge temp: 300 with faster profiling in the middle and same drop temp as A

The flavor I am looking for are intense fruit and chocolaty with good body.

[another_jim]

The roasts were darker than I usually care for, but not overly dark nor charred. If this is a drum roaster, the low drop in temperatures could lead to an excessive drying phase. A few minutes too long adds some astringency to light roasts; way too much drying might have created these ashiness problems.