Hello All:

This is my fourth try at home roasting, and I'm posting for your advice and feedback. After an earlier try in which I had to cull out some dark beans, I read Jim Schulman's thread about reducing roast size in an air roaster to slow down the process and facilitate agitation of the beans by the hot air. I was surprised that the roast doesn't seem to slow, although I've had fewer outliers (dark versus light). I'm trying to roast slower because his thread suggests the result will be less bright. His thread in the FAQs and Favorites is here: The cheapest and simplest way to improve your roasts

Coffee: Sweet Maria's El Salvador Finca El Majahual. Tasting notes on package: Full City to FC+: Cocoa chocolate notes balanced with almond, good body, raisin-like character, warming spices. Wonderful SO espresso. Additional notes on their archival site is that this coffee is wet processed, and the varietals are 82% Bourbon, 18% Pacas, and that it's high-grown (1500 meters plus).

Roaster: FreshRoast Plus8.



First batch, 40 gm (about 1.4 oz). First crack starts at 2:43 and lasts through 4:00. Then 30 seconds with fan running at Cool setting before removing to metal bowl.



Second batch, 80 gm. At 50 seconds until 70 seconds from start, turned off roaster and stirred. At 2 minutes through 2:20 from start, turned off roaster, removed bean holder and chaff catching assembly intact and shook thoroughly to mix beans. 3:15 starts first crack through 4:15. Put roaster on Cool until 5 minutes and dumped beans into metal bowl at 5:15.



High resolution images of the beans are available on Picasa here: https://picasaweb.google.com/drgarysee/CoffeeRoasting6411?feat=directlink

Both batches look like they're going to be drinkable, and I think these beans are forgiving. I'm aware that I didn't use the same technique for both roasts. I didn't cull any beans for the pictures. I knew from an earlier try three weeks ago that if I just let the 80 gm batch run without stirring, I would get some beans way too crispy. I'm going to let these sit for at least three days before tasting (I wouldn't yet call what I do "cupping"!) and will post more then. I'm aware of the cupping instructions on Jim's site, Coffeecuppers.com. But for now, my questions are:

1. Why doesn't the roasting process seem to slow down much with half the amount of beans? It seems to slow a little because I ran the small batch straight through without stopping the roast to mix or agitate.

2. What degree of roast do these look like to you? I heard it go through first crack but especially with the second batch I also heard quieter pops, but I don't know if those were second crack. Certainly the beans aren't dark and there's no oily sheen. The bean surface looks a little more even to me with the second batch and the roast more uniform, which seems slightly farther along per the Sweet Maria's site.

At this very green stage of my roasting career, I'm not ready to send the roast for expert evaluation but am looking for a drinkable cup and any tune-ups offered in technique.

BTW, in a roasting session last week, I roasted through first crack and thought the crinkling sound was continuation of that but suddenly the beans were covered in oil and I got the equivalent of what Peet's calls an "Italian roast." Haven't yet tasted that, but it's certainly not my preference, and the attempts above feel more in control.

With a FreshRoast+, you could get better times if you use a long electrical extension cord to power the roaster. With the extension cord (a cheap one), you will extend the roast time to 8-9 minutes (they should taste better).

Cheers

Thanks, Jim. Learning what not to do at this point is very helpful, like if you're ice skating, you don't want to roll your ankles!

It's clear you're recommending against stalling the roaster at or beyond first crack. I think you're also recommending to try extending the drying phase.

From your suggestions these seem to be my beginner steps in order:

1. Roast beyond second crack just to get to know the roaster and the reaction of the beans. I'll time that and note the dose, maybe starting at 60 gm. (I would start at less than 80 gm based on your hint in the other thread to try 1.5 oz in an air roaster.)

2. To try and hit the sweet spot early, titrate dose down from 60 gm in about 10 gm increments at first to see if I can get to 4 minutes from start of the first crack to start of the second. If it goes too long, increase the dose. If I'm near a sweet spot, vary this by 5 gm to get ideal dose for this roaster.

3. At the "ideal" dose, extend beyond first crack right up to start of second and taste after three days' rest.

4. The tasting experience will be complex but see if there's a grassy taste. If so, try stopping the roast for two minutes when the beans go from green/tan to yellow/brown to help them dry more thoroughly.

Does that seem right?

Arpi wrote:With a FreshRoast+, you could get better times if you use a long electrical extension cord to power the roaster. With the extension cord (a cheap one), you will extend the roast time to 8-9 minutes (they should taste better).

Cheers

Arpi,

What gauge extension cord should I use to balance mellow coffee flavor with hints of melted plastic? I've seen people try voltage regulators for the same effect. Are there any you would recommend? (Probably a Quest M3 to start ...)

If you have one, try one of those red 50ft extensions cords from Home-Depot (but not a fat 12 gauge yellow-black). I think they are 14 gauge. That's an easy way to gain some extra time in the roast. Some sockets in some old houses drop the voltage when they are under load. It depends on age, length, etc. So if you have good power, add a long extension cord to make it bad.

Cheers

Very interesting tweak for this crude roaster. I'll try it after I work through Jim's suggestions. I just happen to have one of those very long power cords!

I remember using a variac to decrease the voltage to 100 or less. Old thread on coffeegeek.com http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/homeroast/58709

Marvin

Marvin:

Thanks for that thread. For others reading this, it's a full discussion of ways to reduce voltage to an air roaster to extend the roast time including power cords and variable transformers and other ways people may load the circuit. As ljguitar writes on that thread: "Quite a difference between four minute briquettes and 13.5 minutes to city full." But please be careful and know if you're jiggering the voltage by overloading it, take precautions!

The dose issue I brought up at the start of this thread isn't just aimed at extending roast time but is also intended to avoid briquettes and yellows mixed in with roasted beans.

Here's a follow-up of my unscientific roasting experiment. Not your usual lab environment...



I combined Jim's and Rafael's suggestions, trying to slow down the roast for a mellower cup.
Here's a link to these images in higher resolution:

https://picasaweb.google.com/drgarysee/CoffeeRoasting610?feat=directlink

First, the poor man's Variac (voltage controller), at least if you've already got these sitting in your garage. We've rewired our house, so the line current is optimal for most purposes. I had to go that route to reduce the voltage. I connected the roaster through these cords and I could hear the fan running slower. The brown one on the right got too hot for comfort, and I finally succeeded at "stalling" a roast, so I eliminated that cord.



I went through some early iterations of dosing, starting at 60 gm and taking it all the way through second crack just to get familiar with the look of the beans, the sounds, the smoke, the changing sound of the roaster fan. It hurt to do this, but I purposely barbecued several loads of beans. Sorry guys!



In all, I went through most of a pound of what I now call "Sacrificial Monkey," Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey blend. No disrespect intended! Of the sampler they sent me, this one called for the darkest roast, which may be furthest from my preference, or that must may be what those beans require. I hope I've properly roasted enough to give this a good taste.



Starting only with the 15 amp orange power cords, I took it all the way down to a 20 gm load and still couldn't stall a roast or extend the time between first (1C) and second crack (2C) beyond 2 minutes. So I gave up on this particular air roaster being slowed enough by sparse beans and 15 amp extension cords and connected some lower gauge cords.

I finally managed to stall a roast at 30 gm, with all extension cords attached, including the thin and aging brown one. [Add: As a reference point, stalling an air roaster with too low a dose seems homologous to choking an espresso machine with too fine a grind. Then one backs off slightly to dial it in.] 1C was 2:47 - 5:00 minutes. The fan sped up, which I interpreted as the beans drying out. But then they just baked and never entered 2C. So I ended that roast at 12:00.

I went to 35 gm with one less power cord, eliminating the old one where the terminal would get quite hot and figured I wouldn't want to use that one anyway. (I know, change one variable at a time, but I'd had an intense day and just wanted to play and guesstimate.) Here 1C was 2:49 first pop to 4:00 and 2C began at 6:53 and was ended there.



I tried upping the dose keeping the power cords the same now. 45 gm, 1C 2:08-4:05, 2C 5:00 and ended, but now the beans were smoking. This told me temperature might have gotten too high at the end.



So I went to 40 gm, 1C 2:25-4:01, 2C 6:30 and stopped there. Now the beans weren't smoking.



Because the time from 1C to 2C was longest and the roast didn't stall, I'm guessing that 35 gm is the ideal but small dose for this machine (third photo from the bottom of this post) -- that is unless I can lower temperature more through adjusting line voltage. But taste will be the final test, about three days from now.