Hello there guys.

As you may know. I started a new job as a coffee roaster for a new espresso roaster, and I am doing my best in order to deserve my title a little.

Being the engineer I am, I am sacrificing a lot of income by going for this job, but I am determined to figure it out and become a good roaster.

My focus is espresso, and in this regard I have been trying to roast a very basic bean, the Brazilian santos to a quality acceptable for espresso. I have doubts that the lot I have might not be of good quality, there are a lot of defected beans, and some deformed ones which might indicate an incorrect moisture content, but I haven't actually measured it using the oven method, namely because I don't have a scale of the required accuracy.

My problem is the following. I have went to incredible extents in roasting this bean in every imaginable way. If baking it was to result in a good and a clean espresso cup that compares well to the stale Italian roasts available, then I was ready to be a baker and baking it commercially.

Yet, no matter what I do I cannot escape one of two possible scenarios, either burning the bean resulting in the very harsh and bitter tastes, which can be obfuscated by under extraction, or result in a good, sweet and a rich espresso but a one that features two annoying things:

1) a crema that has a dusty smell (a very strong one)
2) a very harsh, but mellow (neither acidic nor bitter) aftertaste that is perceived at the back of the throat. It is a quite strange aftertaste that is perceived as sweet but is so harsh and lingering that it can make you incredibly sick after drinking many shots. The strength of this sensation is increased in longer roasts which on the other hand result in a cleaner overall taste and better body development.

Note that the second ingredient above is obfuscated by the harsh notes of over roasting but would still be present in a dark roast (maybe to a lesser extent, not sure). Furthermore, it still emerges even in a baked roast where air temp is kept very low through a very long roasting (I.e. baking) cycle. In fact it is very powerful in that case.

Note that with this bean, dullness is not an issue as the objective is to roast for a predictable and a tolerable taste in the cup. My objective is not bringing any authentic flavor out of the bean which is a low quality one.

My question hence is, from what I said above, does it seem that the coffee might be defected for espresso? (I.e. might have gone through internal chemical changes, picked up favors, or stored incorrectly) or does my descriptions suggest that I am doing something wrong?

In all of my roasts I make sure to create a distinguishable drying phase which I verified could eliminate the chlorine pool taste that would emerge otherwise (in case roasting was attempted as a single ramp).

Note that beside the creation of a reliable drying phase, I have took the liberty in exploring every possible way of roasting. That is to say, I allowed myself to bake the coffee when I felt it would meet my objective.

What do you think?

Hmm... sounds like the greens could be old? Do you anything about there age or how they have been stored? I just roasted some old greens for fun that were really tasty about a year ago. The old greens have a woody taste integrated into the flavor of the coffee. The wood taste is detectable in the aroma as well.

The second possibility is your now over drying your beans, which is dusty aroma/ harsh flavor.

I really never roast Brazilian coffee, so I can really be of any more help. Any chance you can switch to a different bean?

Tell the owners to stop being cheap, and give you the right tools. A moisture meter can be had for a few hundred dollars online. Not sure who you work for, but at the last Coffee and Tea festival, I took several 1lb. samples of some specialty grade coffee, and they were super dry. The vendors at the Souq (who may be the importer for your company?) keep the bags exposed to the elements, and with the heat and humidity in Dubai, they won't last long. You can taste Dubai in those beans.

See if you can get involved in the bean purchase stage, purchase what arrives at the port prior to storage, see if some arrive in grain pro. Negotiate with the importer to use grain pro.

With stale beans, I would go as fast as possible, sort of a Nordic roast but darker finish. May add some grassy and toasty flavours, but this may turn to be a plus, depending on the bean.

In fact my boss is convinced now that the bean is not good for espresso and he wants me to choose whatever bean I desire. So he is being nice. I just wanted an extra assurance that I was not messing things up and clues as to how to get something drinkable out of this bean which I already have.

Tamarian what you said makes sense, it is cool to see that there are some coffee people in Riyadh. I wouldn't mind roasting fast except for the fact that I wanted to reduce the acidity and the degassing of the product as well as hiding the distinctive bean taste which is obnoxious to say the truth. That's why I kind of resorted to long roasts but aside from the initially clean taste was then alerted by this sticky aftertaste.

Motorized Pharos, huh? Man Riyadh got a true enthusiast

And "1KG" fluid bed roaster, how much did you buy that for?

orwa wrote:Motorized Pharos, huh? Man Riyadh got a true enthusiast

I know of 2 other local home roasters. There's probably more, but hard to find.

orwa wrote:And "1KG" fluid bed roaster, how much did you buy that for?

Home made:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Man you made my day, xD

IKEA utensils basket for chaff collection, that's the hilarious part

Okay I think most of the knowledgeable members on the forum has abstained from replying to someone who cannot avoid an obvious contradiction in the title of his post (i.e. "harsh but mellow" lol), so I corrected that.

In fact I meant harsh in the sense of powerful and mellow in the sense of being neither acidic nor bitter, in fact it is vaguely perceived as sweet.

Yet today I put my hand on it, the sensation is oily!

Furthermore, I discovered today that a healthy lot of Santos did not have it, and that it lacked the body problem I was facing with the damaged lot.

Namely, despite of knowing that Santos coffee has no body mostly, I was suffering with the damaged lot because it has a very thick body that is very hard to eliminate regardless of the way of roasting.

I am thinking that the obnoxious/persistent oily sensation and the unusual body might be connected. I am almost sure the moisture content is low but I have a lot of Rio coffee which is also dry, yet it did not have the obnoxious oily sensation associated with it and did not make me as sick as the damaged Santos lot did.

So I am thinking that this is not where the problem resides. The moisture content might indicate a history of improper storage where the coffee might have changed internally.

Looking at the coffee taster's fault wheel I am mostly now considering words such as "mineral oil". The coffee has triggered a metallic taste in my throat during the past couple of days, but that is a recurring problem in my case (has always been triggered by an unusual consumption, or a consumption of an unusual coffee though).

Thinking that coffee is such a complex product, where neither its flavor constituents nor the health effects of all these are completely understood, makes me think of the number of things that can go wrong with coffee, leading to a toxic product.

Quite interesting isn't it?

I have used the method in this thread Measuring the Moisture Content of Green Coffee by Frying in Oil to measure the moisture content of the defected Brazilian coffee, as well as another lot (allegedly a fresher crop) that was provided by the supplier when we tried to replace the old beans.

Below is the moisture content data.

[OLD LOT]

100 grams coffee + 130 grams oil = 230 grams (before)

216.4 grams (after)

Weight loss = 13.6
Moisture content = 13.6%

-----------------------

[NEW LOT]

100 grams coffee + 130 grams oil = 230 grams (before)

215.7 grams (after)

Weight loss = 14.3
Moisture content = 14.3%


Assuming that both lots were stored in similar conditions, and that the newer one was indeed a fresher crop. I think I am leaning towards the idea that this coffee is moldy, which explains the obnoxious side effect of it that is better described by the long-term effect on my body rather than the immediate taste of it, though there was a lingering aftertaste that hunted me for the entire day.

This supplier is seemingly receiving very moist coffee, 14.3% which was allegedly received in August last year. The other one was allegedly received in March in the same year. Assuming that the two coffees are from the same source, which is what is told, a 5 month storage has caused the moisture content to drop by 0.7%, whereas both coffees were seemingly exported at such a high and non-standard moisture content.

A basic calculation and assuming similar environmental conditions in the warehouse indicates that the coffee might have had a moisture content of 15% upon receiving it. God knows how much upon exporting it from Brazil.

Quite interesting. What do you guys think?