Woah, that was really hot and fast. Is that your typical profile for Ethiopian beans?

Hi Rama.

I get the most fruity flavor using a profile like that. Flavor is best around 10-14 days when it develops more body. The MET looks very hot but the probe is outside the drum (close to the heater element). So it is not the 'real' MET inside the drum. The MET of the graph is used to control the temperature inside.

This is another one from yesterday. This mixed with the previous one gives a powerful berry chocolatte. This one adds more body.



Cheers

rama wrote: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?

I ran into the same problem with the FVA. Finally, I had a little more success with my third, and last, roast. For the successful roast, I lowered the ET by ~20F compared to most other beans that I roast. I also roasted the beans to a final temperature that was almost 10F lower than my first tries (which came out with the same burned chaff/skin as rama's).

The FVA was a very challenging bean for me. I purposely did not read this thread until after I had finished my roasting for the competition because I wanted to take this opportunity to see how far along my "roasting sense" is. Based on warm bean shots, I think the strategy of lowering the roast temps may have worked for the FVA.

I was sure glad to read that at least one other roaster (thanks, rama!) saw the burns on the FVA.

Jim

JimG, your experience seems to match Jim Schulman's:

another_jim wrote:The FVA may need more careful handling than the usual Brazil. There was a subtle background of distillate flavors in my cupping roast (fairly high drop in), that I don't remember from my slower espresso roasts.

I noticed a "burnt plastic" taste with my first/only batch in the photos. Did you also notice this on your first two batches, but not your third?

It's unlikely I'll have another go at the Brazil before the competition, but there's 1.5lbs of it left I'm going to roast eventually, so it'd be good to know how to make it palatable.

rama wrote:I noticed a "burnt plastic" taste with my first/only batch in the photos. Did you also notice this on your first two batches, but not your third?

My first 2 batches had a distinct charcoal taste. Not undrinkable, but not what I was after. The other notable thing was how much smoke came out of the roaster, starting a little before FC.

The gentler profile on my last roast, which I think turned out well, is below.

Jim

another_jim wrote:Brazil Naturals have to be roasted with low heat; no higher than a 470F MET.

Lesson learned!

Jim

another_jim wrote:I think a collective project to work out a method for calibrating temperature measurements across roasting systems might be fun -- maybe impossible, but definitely interesting.

Maybe FC temp could be treated as a reference standard. Then normalize measured temperatures to that reference?

Jim

another_jim wrote:I think a collective project to work out a method for calibrating temperature measurements across roasting systems might be fun -- maybe impossible, but definitely interesting.

I had originally done a rough job of insulating my roasting pot. Last summer during hot weather I removed it intending to redo it but never got around to it. Recently the room I roast in has been cold (low-mid 50s). It meant my ET had to be a bit higher(showed negatively in my Sumatra test roast) but also effected my BT reading and more so at the higher (approaching 2nd crack) BT readings. My beans revolve around the sides of the pot and though my ET readings stay consistent with TC placement towards the upper inside and just away from the bean mass the BT gets effected by the outside cooling of the pot. So what I'm saying is that it's not just at what temp. reading say 1st occurs but how evenly the correlation is at different stages of the roast.
I had hoped to get a chance to add some insulation last week and test it before doing my comp. roasts but due to a family member hospitalization I just got it done this morning and will see what changes it makes when I do the comp. roasts this afternoon.