I'll be using my Compak K-10, a 68mm conical. If you have a commercial conical, you can prescribe the shot making parameters (dose, shot time, and shot weight or volume).

However, your best bet may be to describe the taste profile you are looking for, and just suggest some approximate settings (e.g medium dose, ristretto volume). On the day before the competition, I'll dial in the shot to to best get the desired profile on my gear. This is exactly the way baristas competing at the USBC events, who have created blends on their cafe's and roaster's gear, and have to adapt it to the competition's gear, do it. It seems massively more rational than blindly prescribing the parameters ahead of time.

If I can find qualified guest judges to sample the shots, the analogy will be even more complete; except there will be one ho-hum barista, me, pulling all the entries, rather than a different star for each.

chang00 wrote:
The Ethiopian was the most liked. We'll probably just think of a blend from the remaining three coffees, without the Sumatra. Just for fun, I unpacked the HotTop and roasted 170g of the Guatemala with more or less of the same profile to the Mini500, differing by about 45 seconds.

That's interesting.
I have not got very far yet, have made one batch (125 grams) of the Ethiopian, and one of the Sumatra. The Ethiopian was a light roast, a little after first crack, Sumatra darker, after first, pulled right at start of 2nd. I liked the Sumatra better, but I want to try a darker roast of the Ethiopian. The Ethiopian did get better with age, the first day I really did not like it, by the 2nd and especially the 3rd day, I thought it was OK. Could just be my tastes.

Roasted in my PID'ed, modded popcorn popper.

Randy

I would welcome any notes about these alternative coffees:

Ethiopia Gr.3 Dry Process Yirga Cheffe
Brazil Moreninha Formosa "Raisin" Coffee

Thank you,

Bill

I received my coffees yesterday. One of them was the Brazil Moreninha Formosa "Raisin" Coffee. I roasted one pound to what SM would call Full City+ in my heatgun/bread machine setup last night. I am not an experienced taster and consider myself a novice in this contest, but I can tell you my impressions, though I'm really just echoing the SM notes. I tried it this morning in a v60 and an Abid. The chocolate Tom talks about is obvious in the finish and really nice. There is just enough acidity to keep it interesting, and the body is pleasantly thick. I've mostly stuck to the cheap New Classic blend recently because I can comfortably use it for many brewing methods, but out of the few samplers I've roasted, this may be my favorite coffee. My wife and a couple of coworkers agree.

I apologize if that's not too helpful, but I want to get in on the discussion and start learning more. If you have any questions regarding the beans, I may be able to answer. I'll be roasting more tonight.

rama wrote:Thanks for posting. I'll start with one question, and one statement.

1: On the FVA (Brazil Fazenda Vista Alegre Natural Dry), I noticed the green beans have some sort of brownish pulp/husk on about 20% of the beans- perhaps a result of the unusual drying process. When roasting, this became charred, and for the most part, remained affixed to the beans. You can see this in the photo as patches of shiny black, and the bottom green bean as shiny brown. Is this a problem? If so, is this avoidable?

Ya know, before I even looked at the picture you posted of the different looking beans, and before I read anyone's comments on it, I immediately thought, "Parchment Coffee".

Tom posted a video on Youtube about Parchment coffee's. Basically, the skin and fruit are removed, but the parchment is left on the green, and allowed to dry as such. He played around roasting the parchment coffee, more just for fun then anything else. He was(and maybe still is)selling the coffee too. And, yes, the parchment can be peeled off the beans.

I wonder if thats what those beans were.. Parchment left on(or possibly mixed in the with the Brazil lot by mistake)

My sample of the Morinhena arrived today. The Grade 3 Yrg has has some previous comment in the amaro Gayo discussion; I found it higher toned and more delicate than the Haile Sellasie, but also 90ish in quality. I'll have cupping reports for these two and shot reports for all the coffees up by the weekend.

I've updated the top post with cupping reports for the Morinhena and the Grade 3. I have all six coffees roasted for espresso, and the shot reports will be up by this week end.

I've added my review of the espresso roasts to the top post. All six coffees make good to very good espresso shots, with good or better crema and body.

I tasted the two Brazils and Ethiopians paired and blind, and was surprised in both cases. Based on my impression from the cupping, I misidentified both pairs. All the flavors from the brewed cup were present, but the balance changes in unexpected ways, or at least, unexpected to me.

Heh, I should have been doing more frequent and staggered roasts all this time, and/or giving away more coffee. I just finished the first two pounds (8 oz of each coffee), and had a go at roasting a couple of them again two days ago: the Sumatra and the Ethiopia.

The Sumatra has been a lesson in sorting. I've picked out about 40 beans per 8oz/225g due to very obvious defects. Post roast, I may have picked out another 40, mostly due to significant color discrepancy and some minimal tipping. The pre-sorting need for Sumatras sounds to be the norm, but are you guys needing to do post-sorting too, or is that an indicator my roast is off somehow? (it was roasted to FC in about 15 minutes, with about 4 min of that being after the beginning of first crack.)

randytsuch wrote:I have not got very far yet, have made one batch (125 grams) of the Ethiopian, and one of the Sumatra. The Ethiopian was a light roast, a little after first crack, Sumatra darker, after first, pulled right at start of 2nd. I liked the Sumatra better, but I want to try a darker roast of the Ethiopian. The Ethiopian did get better with age, the first day I really did not like it, by the 2nd and especially the 3rd day, I thought it was OK. Could just be my tastes.

Did you come to any conclusions on the Ethiopian in regards to longer rest times, and/or darker roasts? My first roast was about a City+/FC (by accident), and I really liked it. My second roast was a lighter City+, and with only 2 days of rest time, I'm not really enjoying it. Its got incredible length, but there's something overpowering too, not in a good way. I can't say I've noticed this before when not giving a coffee some resting (2 or more days). Hoping this diminishes more into day 3, 4, 5. Tom @ Sweet Marias implies it can be roasted as light as City+.

My approach is that the lighter the roast, the longer the resting time. I usually let the beans rest for 1 week. I just finished my two pounds of the sidamo beans for the competition and I'll try to taste them tomorrow. This is a pic of one of the sidamo profiles of today



Cheers

rama wrote:Did you come to any conclusions on the Ethiopian in regards to longer rest times, and/or darker roasts? My first roast was about a City+/FC (by accident), and I really liked it. My second roast was a lighter City+, and with only 2 days of rest time, I'm not really enjoying it. Its got incredible length, but there's something overpowering too, not in a good way. I can't say I've noticed this before when not giving a coffee some resting (2 or more days). Hoping this diminishes more into day 3, 4, 5. Tom @ Sweet Marias implies it can be roasted as light as City+.