I see that a lot of people here seem to dose their hottop with under 250g of beans. I'd love to understand this, in order to get more out of my roasting.

Ideally I want to roast as much as possible - I drink a LOT of espresso. So I've been using 250g as my standard. But I'm wondering if I should change that.

Do people roast less because they think the roast is taking too long to get to first crack? I take around 10.5 minutes to get to noticeable first crack, putting in the coffee a bit late (200) and keeping the heat cranked up all the way to first crack, and cranking the fan up to full in the low 300s - seems like drying is done by then.

Is that too slow? Or too much heat/fan early?

Variables - I roast on the stove, under the hood, so room temp is in 70s - not fighting a cold garage. Voltage is 124.7 RMS, which seems on the higher side. So between that I might have a bit more heat than some.

I'd welcome any thoughts.

A lower dose roasts faster and allows for a greater range of roast profiles. If you like what youi are getting at 250 grams, stay there; if you want something zippier, you may need to reduce the dose.

More variation before first crack you mean?

And does zippier in practice mean more acid flavors?

I may be happy with what I have, but its tough to be sure if I don't know what I'm missing. I could just experiment with lower doses, of course, but the more I learn here before I do that the more I'll get out of it I think.

And then there's the voltage/environmental issue - I may get the same profile out of 250g that someone in a cool garage with 110 gets out of 200g. Tough to say.

Put another way, I think of coffee roasting in 3 phases - drying, ramp up, and first crack+. Does this make conceptual sense?

And does a time of 10-11 minutes to first crack make sense as an espresso goal? I gather this might be a bit slow for drip, but I'm a 99% espresso guy.

Thanks again

Drying is not a problem with any load, but many people like to go faster than normal to the first crack, then go slower than normal afterwards. Turning corners like that is usually easier with a smaller dose.

I'm not a Hot Top expert. I do know lower doses allow greater profiling flexibility; but it could be some people manage the same flexibility with more beans.

The limit is how hot the drum gets (as it heats the beans), called the environmental temperature. You can achieve the same roast speed and higher finishing bean temperatures at lower environmental temperatures when using less coffee. This is important for fast profiles or dark roasts, since when the environmental temperature goes above about 480F, roast quality begins to degrade.

Acidity is good; generally, the more acidity, the more flavor. If your coffees taste sour, it's not because they are too acid, but because they are not sweet enough. Maybe you are buying cheap beans, not drying them enough, or going too slowly to the first crack.

Thanks Jim,

I've been pleased with my roasts, but I've no doubt they can get better. 2 thoughts I've been working on are roasting less into second crack, and speeding up the time to first crack. I'm a big fan of slowing down between first and second - I get a lot less grassy flavors that way (chlorogenic acid breaking down?)

Does a faster roast to first crack keep more of the sugars? Clearly holding back from second will do so.

And related, is there ever a situation where one would want to go slowly from the end of the drying phase to the start of first?