I'll be attending next week. Anyone else going?

I'll try to take some pictures and give a bit of a report after the event.

The team roasting event this year is "blends". With a Sumatran, Guatemalan, Mexican and Ethiopian dp. I have always had mixed feelings about blends for brewed. Actually the one that makes most sense to me is a "Donut Shop" blend as a sort of default "coffee". Where blends much more clearly make sense when it comes to espresso.

Funny, I was just reading one of Trish's articles about how to absolutely kick everyone's butt at a blending roasting competition just two days ago on portafilter.net. But she admitted it would be nearly impossible to pull off. It was in reference to a 2006 ( I think that was the year) Roaster's Guild Retreat too.

I'd love to attend one when it's back on the left coast.

Edit: Found it. 2005

http://www.portafilter.net/archive/2005 ... chive.html

Thanks Tom,
many of the same strategies I've been scheming
There are 14 on my team, agreeing on a blend should be a piece of cake

farmroast wrote:..... There are 14 on my team, agreeing on a blend should be a piece of cake

Surefire way to win or at least greatly stack the deck in your favor (granted that no-one else does exactly the same thing) print and cut out her brief blurb on a sheet of paper and tuck it in your back pocket. Pass it around to your teammates and tell them the High Goddess of All Things Roasting can lead them to victory

Find out whatever cups by far the best as a standalone stellar bean as if you were choosing SO's, then beg, barter and steal to get as much of it away from the other teams. Just taking it out of the hands of the others will lift your scores.

Some pictures from the retreat

http://s1319.photobucket.com/user/farmr ... RGR%202013

Ed, thanks for the pics. Did you get to use the Giesen? Anything about it stands out, compared to the Probat and the rest?

Was a major tease, too little time. Wanted to spend a week in that tent, alone, with my monitoring equipment and some sacks of beans

Great pictures Ed. Looks like it was a good time.

Someday.....

tamarian wrote:Ed, thanks for the pics. Did you get to use the Giesen? Anything about it stands out, compared to the Probat and the rest?

That's Boot's Giesen and I've roasted on it a couple times (I took a Boot Camp course a while ago). I almost bought the same model but ended up buying a Diedrich IR-1.

The Giesen is pretty fun to use. It can be a fast roaster if you're not careful. My first run on it was extremely short; 6 or 7 minutes...FAIL!

One of the cooler features that I haven't been able to really explore is that it controls the fan speed based on gas pressure. I'm not sure if that is better or worse than having manual control over airflow, but I'm inclined to say it's worse because it's nice to use less airflow to help accentuate sweetness in some beans.

At any rate, sorry I didn't see this post sooner! I would have loved to meet someone from here!