Found this Yirgacheffe at a small Ethiopian grocery store. Selling one and two pound ziploc bags for 5 bucks a pound.

The store clerk was kind enough to tell me it was raw and had to be roasted!

Another fellow there kept emphasizing not to roast it too much.. or too something..clearly indicating not to overdo it.

Upon the advice in another thread I ran a pound through my home built roaster, planning a fast, light profile. High preheat, air full blast. Yellow at about 3 min. First snap of FC about 5:30, roaring FC and chaff blizzard at 6:30, dumped at 7:15 as FC was still going but slowing down, about 410 F inside the bean mass.

How does this roast look? Is this what I'm looking for? Rest time? Grind? Preferred brew method? What flavors should I expect if its good? If its not good?

Hey Dean,

Are you using a drum roaster or fluid bed (like a popcorn popper) ? If a drum, you probably went way too fast. Getting to FC at 5:30 is aggressive, even for those of us who like really acidic "third wave" roasts. As a reference, I'm often still in the drying phase at 5:30, with bean temps closer to 300F than 400F. Shoot for a range of 7-9 minutes for FC.

Also, depending on your thermocouple, 410F is likely to be VERY light, but perhaps appropriate if you're shooting for a nordic roast.

Good luck.

Frank

If you look through this document here, you'll find that most Nordic roasters actually drop very, very light. Of course, you can't easily compare different drums, nevermind drum vs. air and different thermocouple placement and thickness problems, but anyway: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... _roast.pdf

You'll see they're dropping sub-400F in some cases. They're almost always not finishing first crack. Roasting this light is really hard!

Right, that's what I meant when I said it might be appropriate for a nordic roast. But like you said, depends on the roaster (machine).

Sounds and looks like a good roast to me. Grind to 800um / 0.03", filter brew 60g/Kg. Enjoy!

NoStream wrote:If you look through this document here, you'll find that most Nordic roasters actually drop very, very light. Of course, you can't easily compare different drums, nevermind drum vs. air and different thermocouple placement and thickness problems, but anyway: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http ... _roast.pdf

You'll see they're dropping sub-400F in some cases. They're almost always not finishing first crack. Roasting this light is really hard!

BTW Jan, based on the FC temperatures in the roasts with the lowest roast finish temperatures (Probat and Giesen), it's clear that these guys' thermocouples are set up (placed) way differently than most other commercial roasters, and so I'm dubious of the resulting finish temperatures as well.

Not trying to imply in any way that I'm half the roaster these guys are, but first crack doesn't happen anywhere near as low as 166c (BT) on the vast majority of roasters' machines. A good average range would be 195-205c, with some margin of error for exceptional coffees, probe placement, etc.

I absolutely agree. Thermocouple placement and type is often wrong, but if it's repeatable, they wouldn't even realize it. Of course, it's better to use correct TC's and place them correctly so that you can compare your roasts with others. I am still curious what their finish temp is.

I finished a roast at 398 (with FC at 385) and found it slightly underdeveloped. I tried a couple at 403-405 today. Then there is the idea of stretching out the drying phase to allow inner-bean development... this is all complicated, and I am learning.

Complicated is right, but so worth it I hope people keep pushing the light roast envelope so I can keep enjoying the results. Good luck, and keep posting.

dogjamboree wrote:Hey Dean,

Are you using a drum roaster or fluid bed (like a popcorn popper) ? If a drum, you probably went way too fast. Getting to FC at 5:30 is aggressive, even for those of us who like really acidic "third wave" roasts. As a reference, I'm often still in the drying phase at 5:30, with bean temps closer to 300F than 400F. Shoot for a range of 7-9 minutes for FC.

Also, depending on your thermocouple, 410F is likely to be VERY light, but perhaps appropriate if you're shooting for a nordic roast.

Good luck.

Frank

Hi Frank,
Its a stationary double wall aluminum/cast iron roast chamber with a stir bar. Hot air from a propane burner is vacuumed through the bean mass as they get stirred.

endlesscycles wrote:Sounds and looks like a good roast to me. Grind to 800um / 0.03", filter brew 60g/Kg. Enjoy!

Sounds good! I'll give it a try. How much rest do you recommend?