Hi everyone
I also decided to try a speedy roast, but I don't get anywhere near your results. It may be that the washed Colombian Huila that I'm using don't respond well to this kind of roast, but I doubt it. I measure my roasts in Celsius and my 1.5 kg Golden Roaster usually works on pretty low temps. My probes are probably not accurate, but I haven't checked it out. Anyways, normally I charge at 123-125 C according to my PID and the roasts are done between 9 and 11 mins. After reading about this speedy roast I wanted to try for myself. I did three batches,,
all of them were 1300 grams, charging at 160,180 and 200 C, with medium airflow all the way. I dont have my roastnotes at the moment but the droptimes were from 8.20 to 7 mins. And one more thing I don't understand is that when I did those roasts, 1C came way before reaching the same temps as chargetemp. Charging at 200 C, I think I got to 1C at 160 C? Can someone explain? I see your roasts often ends some degrees higher than chargetemp. Sorry for maybe asking stupid questions but I don't have that much experience yet.

Best
Pål

I've done three roasts of this coffee in my old, 2007 Behmor with the Plus board added to it recently. I meant to post a write-up last night, but it's been busy, I'm posting this now with the roast graphs and some discussion with the hope that I'll get back to this and flesh it out a bit. As I said, it's been busy and I've been finding it harder to roast as regularly as I want, my roasts seem to have suffered as I've likely fallen back into old habits I picked up from before I installed the Plus board. Most of this write-up will apply to roasting with a Behmor and not be very interesting for other roasters. Without a good BT probe, roasting can be a challenge and though I've read the latest Scott Rao roasting book, I've had a hard time applying it to roasting with a Behmor.

The first two roasts tasted fairly flat, with not much sweetness or acidity. You'll note that I dropped the temperature quite a bit during first crack to stretch out the roast, this was done using the Behmor Plus board by adjusting the duty cycle of the heating elements. Before I had the Plus board, I'd do the door dance to slow things down at first crack, usually with good results. This would mean that the heating elements would be on 100% duty cycle for the most part but I'd drop the temps and introduce airflow at the same time. If I replicate that same profile with just changing the heater duty cycle to lower the heat without opening the door, I'm not going to have the same airflow and probably not the same BT, because my probe really only says something about how hot it is near the heater.

On the third roast, I minimized the temp drop at first crack, aiming to keep first crack under control by sound queues to make sure it doesn't get away from me or slow down too much. I was surprised by how little I ended up having to drop the heat to maintain control. This roast also has a higher temp measured going into first crack, not really intentional, but it could play a part. I found this roast much more interesting with increased acidity and sweetness, much better roast, but I'm not sure I've really nailed it. These are production roasts for me, meaning this is the coffee that I'll be brewing primarily in my BraZen and drinking all week. I received no feedback, good or bad, from my other "customers" who don't seem interested in providing feedback on the flavors in our coffee.

I'm measuring the heater temp with a probe snaked under the old style chaff tray and about 1/4" below the bottom heating element on the left hand side and an exhaust probe tucked into the back of the exhaust vent. This probe only has interesting readings when the afterburner and fan kicks on, at about 7:15 for a 1# roast setting.

The temps shoot up when I hit cool, as the airflow is kicked on even higher. I cool the roasts in the Behmor for the first minute or two as the Behmor is good at the initial cooling and to prevent any chaff fires, then I stop the roaster and pull the drum and externally cool the beans with a shop vac attached to a canister with a metal double boiler insert that makes a good fit and has lots of holes for cooling the coffee quickly.

All roasts were preceded by a ~1:45 pre-heat with the old-style chaff tray installed. The Behmor was stopped at 1:45, the tray pulled (with Ove Gloves) the drum with green coffee installed and the roasting proceeded with a 1# P1 A profile. Once I started the Roaster, I hit P5 to go manual, D to double the drum speed and make sure I'm getting 120 V to the roaster for the drying phase with a variac.

Note: The time scale don't line up in these graphs, unfortunately.


Roast 1 roasted 8MAR15, 300 g green, 261 g roasted, roasted to City Plus with a 13% weight loss.



Roast 2 roasted 14MAR15, 350 g green, 302 g roasted, roasted to City Plus with 13.71% weight loss



Roast 3,roasted 22MAR15, 300 g green, 260 g roasted, roasted to City Plus with 13.33% weight loss

Roaster - Hottop B-2K with variac and TC4C

Roast #3
I targeted a drop at 2:30 after start of first crack, or temp of 1C+27 F. 30 seconds after first crack started, I turned the heat and the fan OFF.
NOTE - my thermocouples read 30 degrees lower than most others. As noted in this post at Sweet Maria's, I have virtually identical readings as Barrie. We both have identical Omega probes installed in the same location on our Hottops.

Evaluation
I had two Hario pourovers to evaluate this after four days rest. The second roast with 2:15 development was clearly better than this longer roast (which had lost some fruit).

BenRedikFyFasan wrote:... Charging at 200 C, I think I got to 1C at 160 C? Can someone explain? I see your roasts often ends some degrees higher than chargetemp....

Your thermometer probe is too heavy and reads slow. Get a faster responding probe.

endlesscycles wrote:Your thermometer probe is too heavy and reads slow. Get a faster responding probe.

What probes are you using if you don't mind me asking?

What I'm using doesn't matter as much since I've got 12-15lbs of coffee to transfer heat to the probe quickly. Bare wire is what I used on my way up from 1/2lb to my current roaster via four iterations of the design. I again recently used bare wire while borrowing a quest and liked it well.
Sub 45sec turnaround times and 200C/392F 1C temps are indicative of responsive and well placed probes.

thanks.. Proves your point about the tp being instrument error.. Thanks for the help.

[creative nickname] wrote:
Dry Fragrance: Rich, cantelope & tomato jam, roasting spices, floral

Wet Aroma: Vanilla, milk-chocolate caramel, floral, citrus, cherry

Warm taste: Sweet caramel, meyer lemon/clementine, bergamot, lingering, richly fruited finish with just a hint of black tea astringency.

Cool cup: Lovely, like lemon-infused black tea w/ whole milk & sugar..

Mark's tasting notes have been among the most detailed from this session of Roast and Learn. I'll have a chance to roast another batch this weekend. My impressions are similar to these notes but the bergamot is so prominent, I'd like to taste the other flavors more. What is the 'fruited finish' in this coffee and which profiles have displayed it most for you roasters of it?

These are the 3rd and 4th roasts I am reporting on here. The first 2 were posted 3/10. (I roasted a couple of batches in between but gave them away before I had a chance to evaluate.) They are very different profiles, but the results are surprisingly similar. Both have stone fruit, cardamom, but with differences as noted below.

Modified WB Poppery
The first is short and hot; the chaff in the seams is slightly darker; the flavor is slightly less complex of the two, with very slight bitterness in the finish, but no char or ashiness.
Charge 150g, 1.8/2.0/2.5, roasted weight 86.7%


The second has a bit more citrus -- maybe mandarin or blood orange.
Charge 160g, 2.3/4.3/2.6, roasted weight 86.3%


This is one of the most forgiving coffees I have roasted for R&L. I have enjoyed all the roasts I've done. I add my thanks to Mountain Air and Mill City for making it available. I should have bought more. To my taste, I preferred the longer roasts that I did in my first attempts; however, I am unpracticed at controlling a fast roast and I would have liked to explore that more with this Gedeo. Cheers!

Andy wrote:This is one of the most forgiving coffees I have roasted for R&L. I have enjoyed all the roasts I've done. I add my thanks to Mountain Air and Mill City for making it available. I should have bought more.

Same experience here - this is an impressive coffee. I simply love this, no matter how I roast it.