Just getting the hang of my new hottop (seven roasts). I've had good success with full city and full city+. I understand the importance of stretching the finishing ramp and have been able to get four to five minutes after first crack begins to end of roast.
I'm looking for advice on profiling city and city+ levels. Is it important to stretch time from first crack to end of roast to four plus minutes at these levels also? If so, how do I do so?
I don't roast for espresso, yet, and many of the beans I have are said to be best at city+. I do not yet have any additional temp. probes, just using the stock readout.
I know lighter roasts are the hardest, but for what my wife and I like, I need to become competent at them as well.
Any advice or source references would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Glenn K.

Stop the roast earlier. I judge by color of beans, they do get a darker after ejection. I clean the window on the inside after each use to better judge the color and use a flashlight.

Marvin

Cut the heat just before the first crack starts.

If you pull the roast as the first crack ends, you'll have a cupping roast, a Cinnamon or City minus roast. This will have some tannic and sour notes, no roast flavors at all, but the origin flavors in the coffee will be at their clearest.

I sniff for light roasts -- as the first crack ends, the smell will be slightly acidic, reminiscent of vinegar. If you end the roast when this smell ends and the aroma becomes sweet, you'll have a true City roast. Visually, the flat side of the bean will no longer meet the curved part of he bean at right angles, but will be slightly puffed out. The bean surface will still be a little wrinkled. This is a City roast.

For City plus, sniff until the sweetness becomes slightly caramel. Visually, the bean will start looking very much like a local TV anchor man, with a big white smile in the cut, a healthy tan, all the wrinkles gone, but no sweat yet.

If your anchorman beans'go on location, and their smiles gets darker, their tans get ethnic, and there's a bead or two of sweat showing, you've gone into Full City territory.

Thanks Jim,
How long can I or should I stretch the time from first crack to the end of the roast with city+? Everything I read says how important this is but I don't know if it applies to the lighter roasts also. What should be my target time from 1C till I dump for city and city plus? Or am I just going solely on smell and color and what I get is what I get?

I like to go 3 to 4 minutes from just before the first crack to end of roast for brewing, 4 to 5 for espresso, regardless of roast level. Use a lot less heat for lighter roasts, while for really dark roasts, keep the heat at full tilt.

Since the Home Roasting Competition just ended, perhaps it will be helpful to use similar beans.

It is a good idea to choose a bean like the Guatemala Maravilla, due to the beans have similar shape, size, and moisture content. This bean also follows the roast stage pictorial at the SweetMaria's website. The center line for the Maravilla is also fairly obvious, and this feature can be used to follow Jim's advice for espresso roast.

For the HotTop 8828B, smaller batch of 170-175g is more suitable. Roast a batch to second crack, record all settings including time. Use the start time of second crack as a landmark time, and roast the subsequent batches to, for example, 20 sec, 40 sec, 60 sec before this landmark time, and compare the result. It is fun this way to taste the same bean at different roast levels.

This was my profile used at SweetMaria's Home Roaster Dream Camp last summer. Enough home roasters liked the roast for me to claim the prize:

Time Temp Fan Heat
0 170 0 7
1 185 0 7
2 200 3 7 Fan on for about one minute to evacuate moisture and dust
3:30 235 0 7
4 248 0 7
5 269 0 7
5:15 275 0 10 "Ramp up"
6 291 0 10
7 311 0 10
8 330 0 10
9 347 0 10
10 363 1 10 Fan on low to evacuate smoke
11 373 1 10
12 388 1 10
12:30 394 4 5 First crack starts, fan up, heat down, to attenuate the exothermic reaction
13 400 4 5
13:30 402 4 5
14 406 4 5 First crack ends
15 410 4 5
15:50 413 4 5 Second crack starts

Thanks, guys.
Henry, I'll try your profile tomorrow. What bean and batch size was it for? I'm working my way thru a 5lb. bag of Colombian Huila Monserrate to get the hang of things on the Hottop. Any recommended adjustments based on this bean?
Congrats, by the way, for both Dream Camp and the Roast Competition.

I don't go to 10 heat when roasting with less then 200g of beans in the HT B more like 8 and 9 being max I also try to cut the heat down to 2 or 3 just before 1st crack since the burners need some cruise time to adjust, at this point I just play with the power level that will get me at least 3 minutes to city or city+. I really like a bean mass probe but there are plenty of cues with sight, smell, and sound to get there with out one.

Edit: This info may be better suited for when using a BMP since adjustments in how I apply heat are subject to rise in temp of beans vs time and making adjustments to speed up or slow down rise.

Edit 2: I find a target time of 14+ to 17- minutes to work very well for my HT. I break up the time I want to spend in the 3 phases ( drying, time to first crack, and first to finish) accordingly this way if I am trying something new and I run past the projected time in drying phase I know I need to make some time up going to first with more heat and then from my notes I can adjust for the next roast.

another_jim wrote:I like to go 3 to 4 minutes from just before the first crack to end of roast for brewing, 4 to 5 for espresso, regardless of roast level.

This has been my rule of thumb as well.

germantown rob wrote:Edit 2: I find a target time of 14+ to 17- minutes to work very well for my HT. I break up the time I want to spend in the 3 phases ( drying, time to first crack, and first to finish) accordingly this way if I am trying something new and I run past the projected time in drying phase I know I need to make some time up going to first with more heat and then from my notes I can adjust for the next roast.

Hi Rob -

Do you use any general guidelines for how to apportion time between the three phases you mention? I've read elsewhere that some people advocate roughly equal time in the three phases, but if you're roasting to 16 minutes or so, that would seem to indicate about 5.5 minutes from start of first crack to finish, which seems longer than I've read others suggest. Also, I thought I'd read elsewhere that the third phase was considered from start of first crack to start of second crack; you describe it as start of first crack to finish. Maybe those aren't too different, I guess, if most people stop around the second crack...

cc