I'm an idiot that fell into the black hole of brewing for testing batches of coffee in a way that worked well for less than great roasts. It's caused serious anxiety as I have tried to improve my roasting and grow my little business because it just didn't compute for me. Everything I did tasted either seriously underdeveloped or seriously overdeveloped. Only really great greens turned into palatable coffee on the tasting table (I use small v60s) and tasty batch brew. Even when I got coffee from reputable great roasters, it wasn't all that good, usually tasting "overdeveloped", or so I thought.

Then I put together the first four of Perger's Barista Hustle articles, with some more great beans from Compelling & Rich, and a text message with Kian at C&R (that he subsequently expounded upon in a great blog post) and it clicked. I'd been seriously over extracting virtually everything because I'd dialed in an early profile for a super sweet Ethiopian based on a certain grind. For some reason I stuck with those tasting parameters (grind, dose, time etc.) like they were in stone and I was trying to profile roasts better to suit those parameters. UGH! I wasted months in this black hole.

Veterans in the Roasting forum are constantly stressing that cupping is the key to advancement as a roaster. "Cup, cup, cup", they say. I thought that was all about palate development, but I didn't get it. First you must learn to brew great coffee consistently well, whether using SCAA cupping standards, or whatever your "cupping" method of choice is. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels trying to make your roast fit your brew.

This may seem like a no-brainer to most on the forum, but if I can help one roaster avoid the misery I suffered, I make my embarrassing oversight public.

Immediately upon this realization and a few profile tweaks, I'm getting much sweeter, smoother coffee across a larger variety of brew parameters.

Reading your post I have been in the same boat..
Nothing was tasting spot on to me for a few weeks now..
I just figured out I need to change my dose..

I was using an old vacpot cloth filter and took me weeks to put 2+2 together that it was time for a change
I kept thinking it was taking a long time for the coffee to get drawn back down and it was kind of strong and bitter..
I added a little more water to my normal method and now I changed filter and I'm still using the old amount of water..

cimarronEric wrote:...

Veterans in the Roasting forum are constantly stressing that cupping is the key to advancement as a roaster. "Cup, cup, cup", they say. I thought that was all about palate development, but I didn't get it. First you must learn to brew great coffee consistently well, whether using SCAA cupping standards, or whatever your "cupping" method of choice is. Otherwise you're just spinning your wheels trying to make your roast fit your brew.
...

Excellent post with great reminders. I would only add to cup in groups. Learning goes up exponentially.

Boldjava wrote:Excellent post with great reminders. I would only add to cup in groups. Learning goes up exponentially.

Groups of cups, groups of people or both?

People. People. People eager to learn.

Cups. Lots. We usually go after 4 minimum. We have set learning with each cupping beyond the evaluation of the coffee.