Hi all,

Looking for some feedback on a roast I recently did of SM's Ethiopia Buufata Konga. In short, I'm concerned that I've gotten a bit of tipping/facing, but am having some trouble distinguishing between what perhaps are inherent characteristics of the coffee itself and actual defects. One bean in particular caught my eye (apologies for the very mediocre image quality):



Here are photos of that same bean from above and from each side:







And here's a broader snapshot of the roast as a whole:



This was a fairly aggressive, City+ roast on a TJ-067. The roast finished in 8:58 with 1:57 dev time and a DTR of 21.7%. The batch size was small - 500 grams - half of my machine's nominal 1000-gram capacity.

For what it's worth, the roast actually cupped fantastically well, very much in line with SM's tasting notes.

That said, I'm looking to nitpick Hence, very curious as to what others make of the darker areas on some of these beans, and particularly on the flat side of that first bean.

Cheers!!

This is typical of a natural/dry processed bean.

Without going to the SM site and looking it up.......

That's my assumption based on what I see and what I read.

I've found that Ethiopian beans can have some "unusual" physical characteristics.

Fantastic coffee but a little odd looking at times.

Try a central or S. American using a similar profile and see if the beans look like that.

turtle wrote:This is typical of a natural/dry processed bean.

Thanks for the feedback Mick! I should have specified that this is a washed Ethiopian, not a natural. I take your point, however, regards to Central and South Americans. I rarely see these characteristics on beans from those regions...

Did you record your roast profile? What was your drop temp? The North is very heat-stable, hence METs are low for this roaster, so you have to be out-of-band on your profile to get tipping/facing, even on low density beans.

slickrock wrote:Did you record your roast profile? What was your drop temp?

Sure did:



Bean drop temp was 206C and exhaust temp peaked at around 220C. Unfortunately, my MET probe was installed incorrectly during production and does not read accurately. As I haven't gotten around to relocating it, I've omitted it here.

1. For a 500g batch, a 206C drop temp is way too high (albeit your graph shows a much lower value). My drop temp for a 2 lb batch is around 165-175C.
2. Not too sure what your profile objectives are, but drying time seems hasty and brought on with a big hit in ET.
3. Ramp seems hasty as well, though ET looks good and stabilizes into FC.
4. Max ET looks about right.

Not sure what roast level you are targeting but a 9-min roast time seems a little quick, assuming FSSF. Or are you going for SSFF?

Cheers Joel.

So, to be clear, my charge temp was 169.7C. The (end-of-roast) drop temp was 206.5C. It seems we may be conflating terms. Who ever thought that possible in Coffee World?

The overall objective of the profile was to emphasize florals and acidity. I was shooting for a city+ roast level. Cupping results were refreshingly in line with my goals this go around. Happens from time to time

You know, it's funny you bring up the overall "hasty" nature of the roast. A few weeks back, I would have instantly agreed with you. But I've been spending a lot of time the past week or so pouring over the (fantastically informative) data that the Royal Coffee folks publish with each of their "Crown Jewels". From what I've gleaned, most of those sample roasts are done on a 1K Probatino using 1lb (roughly 453 gram) batches. As I've been trying to dial in 500 gram batches on my 1K North, I thought I might try loosely mimicking some of their more aggressive profiles. I've only tried two roasts to date, but have been pretty stunned by the results I've gotten. Bright/acidic, sweet, floral, etc.

My only real concern was that the aggressive heat application early in the roast was producing some tipping/facing. Still not completely sure it isn't, but haven't detected it in the cup.

For what it's worth!

I have been roasting for about 4 years and the terminology thrown about is confusing to say the least.

I wish some of the more accomplished roasters here on HB would derive a simple list of terms and their definition. No need to give roast profiles or desires, but just a simple list of terms, like an index.

I am currently in the process of switching from a Quest to a mini500 with an order being placed today and in doing so I certainly would appreciate and index of sorts.

FotonDrv wrote:I have been roasting for about 4 years and the terminology thrown about is confusing to say the least.

I wish some of the more accomplished roasters here on HB would derive a simple list of terms and their definition. No need to give roast profiles or desires, but just a simple list of terms, like an index.

Pull up the Roast and Learn Together threads. The very first one has a big section about terminology. Boar_d_laze, BoldJava and I sorta hashed out some basic terms, but the post itself was compiled by Boar.

I'm on mobile so I can't easily search and link it at the moment at work.

** Edit: Here it is. Also, I'll correct myself, it was BoldJava who did the nice summary, not Boar.

Thanks Tom, that is exactly what I was looking for, and wouldn't you know it to be Dave Borton who came up with it. I like his videos on roasting