Don't worry about it too much. It's not a big deal. We've been happy to have various vendors host and sell greens for discussions (Marshall Haunce/ Mountain Air Roasting and Mill City Roasters, Chris Schooley, SM/Shrub) all did an excellent job and both helped enrich the discussion. When I threw GCBC out there as another source, it was simply because we hadn't yet, nothing more.

It's pretty easy to follow Dan's simple "sniff test" on things. I'm happy to have more chefs in the kitchen. Like I mentioned previously, I just want the HB body to lead the discussions in terms of content, meaning they feel like they're exploring what interests them, rather than someone (a company selling a product) seeing this as a chance to market greens. And it's not that big of a deal in the long run, nobody is nailing their sales goals for the year by supplying our group. We're probably good for 80 pounds of greens on an average month, maybe 200 on a month at most with a very high scoring, impressive yet affordable green (loosely guesstimated by participation, comments and PM's). That's not a lot of green coffee.

My shipment of the Guji Hambela arrived last week and I did my first roast of it this weekend. It's a very nice coffee, especially at the price point, offering some rich strawberry & sherry notes in my first pour-over this morning. I liked it even more as a shot on the Strega. This early there is still a hint of ferment in the aroma, but I expect that to fade as the coffee rests a bit more. If the group has decided that we are going with this one, I'm happy to post my first profile and more detailed tasting notes.

I, for one, would like to see your profile. Mine arrived but I roasted the last of my Geisha from a couple of months ago first.

I've had my Guji for several days as well. Just waiting for someone to say "Gentlemen (and ladies?), start your roasters!"

Please do share the Guji Hambela profiles.
I received mine Guji few days ago, but changed my mind and roasted some leftover Brazil Minas Gerias and Hawaii Kona with very fast Drying phase last weekend. (Ha, I was still thinking of Marshall's 25% to 212F.) Cheers all.

In a mega thread What's Your Charge Temperature? Marshall [endlesscycles] proposed a very interesting roasting style, 25% time to 212F in the Dry phase. Since there are some inherent differences between a drum and a fluid bed roaster, I haven't attempted to mimic his profiles on my drum roaster yet. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the prolonged Dry phase is a reminiscent of Mamoru Taguchi's roasting theory, albeit I don't have his book.

Anyhow, I decided to play with various length of Dry phase on the sun dried Ethiopian last night. I had my first two trials done, but as can be seen below, not quite as I planned. They were roasted for espresso which usually needs longer rest time, and therefore I'll update my observations next week.



Roasting Info:

Bean: Ethiopia Sun Dried Guji Hambela #1, 4-min Dry Phase
Roaster: KapoK 500 Sample Roaster
Charge Mass: 227.0g in, 191.9g out
Charge Temp: 358F
Dry/MAI/Development: 3:47/4:33/2:07
FC-start temp: 387.7F
Finish Temp: 410.4F (1C + 22.7F)
Overall Roast Time: 10:28
Weight Loss: 15.5%

***



Roasting Info:

Bean: Ethiopia Sun Dried Guji Hambela #2, 5-min Dry Phase
Roaster: KapoK 500 Sample Roaster
Charge Mass: 227.0g in, 191.6g out
Charge Temp: 306F
Dry/MAI/Development: 4:54/4:41/2:09
FC-start temp: 386.6F
Finish Temp: 411.4F (1C + 24.8F)
Overall Roast Time: 11:44
Weight Loss: 15.6%

___

2/1 updated:

Both of my batches #1 and #2 made delicious single origin espresso. As expected, there were less upfront high fruity/floral notes, but I got more nuance of flavors in the middle range. No perceivable roasting defects (e.g. grassy, woody, dry distillates) in the cup.

My batch #1 with short drying phase was sharper and had more acidity in it. Although it retained a bit more floral notes, IMO it was slightly off-balanced, too much high ends but too less supportive base. OTOH, my batch #2 had more subtle flavors when lukewarm and it even had a hint of chocolate. Both the wife and I preferred the batch #2. It became complicated when extraction parameters (dialing-in) mix up with personal preferences, and therefore I wouldn't claim my batch #2 a better espresso roast.

My observation so far is that, shortening the Dry phase enhanced the acidity, but slightly reduced the complexity.

On the technical side:
My batch #1 was not executed as my plan. As highlighted in the red circle around the5-min mark, I reduced the gas too early, too much, and this move caused a plummet of RoR. This dry processed Ethiopian seemed to have more resistant while entering into the first crack, and by the 8-min mark I had very limited option. I wanted to keep some momentum and couldn't further tap off the heat. Therefore I simply watched the bumping up of RoR (highlighted by red arrow at 8-min) and didn't do anything. I wanted similar profiles to compare, and therefore didn't aggressively messing around with the air and gas during the development phase (which may not as easily duplicated) and simply dropped the bean shortly after the first crack had ended.



My batch #2 was a repeat of my batch #1 except the 1-min longer Dry time, even with the non-Rao style RoR bump and the shorter than 20% development time ratio.

When you say "they were roasted for espresso", what do you mean?
A- You simply intend to only consume them as espresso, or
B- There are particular characteristics in your profiles that you only use when you're roasting for espresso?

I intended to consume them (both my Guji batch #1 & #2) only as espresso. (I may lose some upfront fruity/floral notes, gain mouth feel and potentially get some chocolate out of these roasts.)

Sometimes I roast lighter only for drip, and sometimes the same batch of roast could be used for both drip and (after longer rest time) for espresso.

For example, last weekend prior to the two batches of Ethiopian Guji, I drove a faster and lighter run of Ethiopia Sidama Deri Kochoha for "drip only". The shorter MAI phase (3:30 to 4:00 in my case) seems to emphasize the fruity blueberry flavors in this Ethiopian. Further stretching the MAI phase may gradually reduce the sweet and clarity in the cup. However, I wouldn't expect this batch singing as espresso before messing around all of my extraction parameters.



Roasting Info:

Bean: Ethiopia Sidama Deri Kochoha
Roaster: KapoK 500 Sample Roaster
Charge Mass: 227.0g in, 195.9g out
Charge Temp: 353F
Dry/MAI/Development: 3:39/3:43/2:03
FC-start temp: 381.1F
Finish Temp: 402.8F (1C + 21.7F)
Overall Roast Time: 9:26
Weight Loss: 13.7%

It's now February but I bought 5 pounds of the Guji Hembala and was wondering if there was there was anyone who roasted it and perhaps compared it with the Gedeo Worka? Just curious.

I dunno. I did 3 roasts of this Hembala and it only further proved that I am not good at roasting DP Ethiopias.

Either I'm underdeveloped and fragrant, or properly developed and dull. Will post the charts tonight.