seedlings wrote:You said your drying times couldn't be faster than 5:30 with a 500g load. Are you referring to yellowing or a specific bean temperature? I generally take 4 to 7 minutes to get the beans to yellow at 300F.

By drying times, I meant "the time at which I observed a color change from green to light yellow, consistent across the bean load". My measurements show this happening around 285F consistently, and as far as timing goes, I can nail it at 4:00-4:15 with the 350g load.

What I do know is that it is very consistent and predictable from roast-to-roast.

Can't ask for more than that. IMO, consistent trumps accurate for the purposes of this discussion. I've struggled somewhat with temperature measurements; while I'm consistent, I'm not accurate. I need to experiment more with probe location - thanks for showing your probe placement; it gives me ideas on how to proceed.

I generally take 4 to 7 minutes to get the beans to yellow at 300F.

Are you intentionally varying, or is this more incidental? Have you tried doing side-by-side cupping comparisons? How do they taste? I've done some comparisons, but only from 4:00 to 5:30, and for the same beans, I could taste a slight difference. I need more beans for experimentation!

Thanks for the info. This is the detail that I've been craving, and I appreciate someone else blazing the trail.

-s.

Sherman, I think we may have the same machine, and if it isn't exact, a very close cousin! If you need any pointers on rewiring it, let me know.

Leaving the lid on, sealed closed, keeps the heat in and does allow a 1.25# charge to be at drying temperature much sooner than with the lid open or partially open (I do have a vent hole drilled in the bottom, so the heat goes into the hopper, up over the walls of the hopper, down the sides and out the back rather than down and right back up). I do vary the drying time based on bean and desired roast level - softer beans and lighter roasts have longer dry times, harder beans and darker roasts have shorter dry times [generally]. Short drying times will usually have grassy overtones and require more rest, but will also have more of the pleasant acidity. Reading here at H-B I've discovered that I can extend the dry time (to prevent grassy notes) and then progress to first crack rapidly (higher heat) to preserve the winey-acidity that the air-roasting shows off so well.

Roast on!

CHAD

seedlings wrote:Reading here at H-B I've discovered that I can extend the dry time (to prevent grassy notes) and then progress to first crack rapidly (higher heat) to preserve the winey-acidity that the air-roasting shows off so well.

This actually sounds exactly like what I do, along with opening and closing the lid to get the desired effect. I guess I must have read about it somewhere but never had a firm understanding of what I was doing. I just knew I liked the results. Thanks! And I will probably take you up on that rewiring help offer. Maybe I'll try this weekend.

North Sullivan wrote:99% of the beans that I roast are on an older Diedrich IR-12. But for personal consumption, I have a very primitive set-up in the garage: a MHT Model 750 heatgun and a Magic Chef breadmaker. I've cut out the window in the lid of the breadmaker.

As someone who has had experience with both a professional drum roaster and the HG/BM setup, how would you compare the results?

-s.

They are very different animals. It's easier for me to take a 12 pound load on the Diedrich and achieve a number of different profiles with a particular bean. But I've had seven years of experience on the Diedrich now, so I know the ins and outs of my particular machine. I've used the hg/bm for less than a year and am still getting comfortable with it. Throw in ambient temperature differences of 100 degrees between summer and winter, and consistency can be a challenge. Having said that, I can get very satisfactory results for vac pot or espresso that I enjoy on a daily basis from the hg/bm setup. If it wasn't producing good coffee, I'd be bringing coffee home from work.

Quick question for the people who put the heat gun through the lid or an improvised lid. How do you deal with the chaff issue? Do you simply try to remove after the roast? I am considering changing to this method (closing the lid...I have it open now) but would like a way to still get rid of the chaff if possible. Thanks.

That's good to hear. I've never truly attempted consistency before, since in the past I have rarely roasted the same coffee more than once. However, the few months before this contest came around, I had just been drinking SM's New Classic blend roasted to a rolling second crack because it was cheap and tasted good as both espresso and brewed coffee to me. The results were very consistent for me at that roast level. Now that I have started experimenting with profiling lighter roasts of the Haile Selassie though, I'm hooked and want to take more risks. However, I agree when you say consistency is difficult. I hate to admit it, but my successful entry was partly due to luck.

I roasted my fourth 1lb batch of Haile Selassie last night, this being my 2nd attempt to repeat the results of my contest entry. I failed again and came up with a completely different result. This morning's cup was very mild, yet juicy, but had almost no aftertaste. Very drinkable, but I think boring compared to what I was trying to achieve, and I severely miss the sparkly fruit finish I tasted in my submission. While trying to document what was going on and fiddling with my breville's thermometer (Only goes up to 292F and wasn't very useful, by the way), I believe I ended up roasting too slowly for the desired result. 1st crack was right at 9:00 minutes, but I lifted the lid right away and the rest of the beans were very slow to follow. Around 10:30 I put the lid back down and 1st crack got rolling, and I stopped it at 11:30. Henry's excellent defect pictorial and Jim's subsequent comment about center line charring has me wondering. Compared to Sweet Maria's macro video of my submission, this roast seems to have far more prevalence of dark center lines.


And there were quite a few more quakers this time than in previous attempts. I'm going to try again tonight, this time going with a bit more of an aggressive profile.

dialydose wrote:Quick question for the people who put the heat gun through the lid or an improvised lid. How do you deal with the chaff issue? Do you simply try to remove after the roast? I am considering changing to this method (closing the lid...I have it open now) but would like a way to still get rid of the chaff if possible. Thanks.

Sorry, I unintentionally ran over this question. I'm also curious about it. Quite of bit of chaff is still mixed in with my beans when I pour them out and is removed while tossing them between colanders during cooling, but I'd like to know how chaff management is with others' methods.

The chaff blows over the lip of the hopper and falls to the bottom of the breadmaker. If you add a hole in the back, most of the chaff will blow out. I'd recommend adding a hole anyway so the heatgun has air flow and isn't blocked (imagine blocking the air flow of your hair dryer). The chaff stays pale, and isn't burned.

Also, it's good to put a "tube" in the hole you drill since there's an inner and outer wall of the breadmaker. The chaff falls between walls and down to the belt and pulley.

CHAD

dialydose wrote:Quick question for the people who put the heat gun through the lid or an improvised lid. How do you deal with the chaff issue? Do you simply try to remove after the roast? I am considering changing to this method (closing the lid...I have it open now) but would like a way to still get rid of the chaff if possible. Thanks.

I keep the lid down. It's not airtight, so a little chaff leaks out, but not in any significant amount, and no fires have been started (yet). I'm attributing (perhaps falsely) my ability to nail down 15-30 second windows to the combination of lid & insulation, but welcome critique and discussion in this respect.

OTOH, this is nowhere close to the level of reproducibility that shown with some of the PIDed systems that I've seen on video and in action - pretty dang neat.

When the roast is completed, I dump the entire load, chaff & all, into the cooling chamber. The combination of wooden-spoon stirring and vacuum cleans up the beans pretty well, and when the beans are cooled, I detach the hose from the bucket and use the vacuum to suck up any roasting detritus.

-s.