Roasting Competition by Mill City Roasters - Discussion Thread - Page 13

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
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cannonfodder
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#121: Post by cannonfodder »

Even a blind squirrel occasional finds a nut.
Dave Stephens

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millcityroasters
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#122: Post by millcityroasters replying to cannonfodder »

That would sum up most of my personal roasting prowess. Fortunately, I'm much better at tech support.

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Boldjava
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#123: Post by Boldjava »

Live stream time, folks!

Event: Finalist cupping, Focus on the Roast
Sunday, 2pm (Central Standard Time), 5.31.15
Venue: Mill City Roasters shop. Minneapolis, Minnesota
Video/Audio. Chat will be unavailable.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8YqpkCtLGA

This event will be archived on YouTube in case you can't catch it live.
John Candy and Chris Farley unfortunately are unavailable so I guess I will host/lead the evaluation discussion.

55 coffees cupped. 15 coffees to cup tomorrow. 6 finalists identified to this point.
77 packages sent out; 70 returned.

BoldJava
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TomC
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#124: Post by TomC »

another_jim wrote:I'm afraid my roast hasn't aged well :( Hope the part I sent to Mill City did better.

jalpert wrote:Here's my curve. I imagine I passed but just barely, probably with a 72

I think this critical feedback, both of self, and by jury are important to improve one's skill as a roaster. Being humble as a roaster is a very good trait to have, there's always someone who does it better. But knowing you've done very well and being confident in that, is equally important. In the larger scheme of things, what benefit is it to a hobbyist trying to improve on their craft if they send in something that they think sucks, and it turns out at the top or winning? Or the opposite, you think you just roasted some unicorn juice and the heavens have parted, only to find out that your most common flavor comment was "Meh."? An experienced roaster is certainly allowed to be overtly harsh and even negative about a coffee, but I'd caution a less experienced roaster from doing the same out of some misguided act of humility or not wanting to look boastful.

Other than the obvious financial incentive to win, more simply, it's important to build your own critical judgement as objectively as you can, and these sort of roasting contests should help new roasters hone that skill. Yes, it's great to win and be acknowledged, but I think it's far better to know if you've pooched a roast, versus really got a lot out of it and can see it for such.

Whomever participates, my suggestions to all is to not shy away from giving your opinion on your profile/coffee, before the judging comes out. Especially if you think you did well. Doing very well and knowing you did, will help you a lot more than being meek about it and waiting to see if a blind stab happened to land on target. It's not going to say much if you win or place high and your first comment in the thread is "Yeah, I knew that one was awesome". That's too easy of a statement to make after the fact.

I'll risk being seen as possibly foolish and might even have egg on my face, but I'll take my own advice and say I think I did quite well and I'd be surprised to fall below the middle of the pack. I need to check it out again tonight when I get home from work and assess it via pour over, since it yielded much better acidity and clarity of flavors that my Clever Dripper has sorta blunted the last two days. The first two days out, the coffee was very impressive, probably a solid 88. But I haven't brewed it via pour over in 2 days now to be sure it's holding together the same way. It may have fallen off quite a bit.

The last 4 days I've noted intense sweetness, delicate, lacy, well integrated malic acidity with flavors changing from initially bright juicy cranberry-apple cocktail or some sorta berry cola, to now very heavily floral and quite rose water like. The mouthfeel is excellent, silky and rich. The finish lingers much longer than many other recent coffees.

My very big potential failure is that the second profile which I submitted was cleaner, sweeter and better overall, but the best notes came way late on the palate. The coffee improved from it's initial sip, but is sorta "meh" up front. I tend to think that initial "Impact!" matters, and helps a lot in standing out in a crowd. Especially a large pool of identical coffees. My hat is off to Dave, Steve and their whole gang for taking on such a massive assessment.
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Boldjava
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#125: Post by Boldjava »

TomC wrote:....The last 4 days I've noted intense sweetness, delicate malic acidity with flavors changing from initially bright juicy cranberry-apple cocktail or some sorta berry cola, to now very heavily floral and quite rose water like. The mouthfeel is excellent, silky and rich. The finish lingers much longer than many other recent coffees. ..
Those notes are close to those of many of the finalists who roasted to city plus. Rose came up often. Cranberry and "stone fruit" were in many of the good roasts. Good roasts added the sweetness. One finalist even added chocolate notes on top of all the preceding nuances. Surprising how well a couple of the lightest roasts were developed. Two of them were the best light roasts I have ever cupped. They were sweet and very complex.

Over the last two years, I have found that I award mental points for complexity. I enjoy the "comfort cups" that many disdain. But on my cupping table, the comfort cups just don't rise to the top scores.

Some of the better roasts pulled off some effervescent, sparkling acidity, which might be described a "cola-like acidity." The florals that some of you teased out of this coffee were phenomenal. I am not suggesting this was a stellar coffee. I am suggesting that you took a solid 87 coffee and pounded points into it, some a good 2-3 additional points. That was not an easy task.
...the best notes came way late on the palate.
Finish is more important for me than "bam" upfront. I aspirate, then I chew, then I swallow (I don't spit). Then I just sit.

We cup, "top to bottom." For me, it is extremely important how the coffee tastes when hot, when medium temp, when cool. It *must* continue all the way to the "bottom" (when cooler).

There was one fantastic roast, the best full city submitted. It was phenomenally balanced, smooth, and not roast dominant. It actually might work as a single origin espresso which is surprising. Unfortunately, we couldn't move it on to the finals because of diminished fruits and florals but I can still taste it and will shoot that roaster a note after the contest to remind him how well he roasted.

We found two coffees that we about pushed on to the finals but we discussed them. They ended up as 87+s. They were cups that we preferred, but they weren't of the quality that the 89s possessed. Quality and personal preference are two different things.

As Tom suggested, we learn from dialog. Our hope at Mill City is that all will use this opportunity to review what they did, share with others why they roasted that way, and discuss their own personal "take-aways" as learnings from this event.

Roast on, folks!
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jalpert
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#126: Post by jalpert »

TomC wrote:I think this critical feedback, both of self, and by jury are important to improve one's skill as a roaster. Being humble as a roaster is a very good trait to have, there's always someone who does it better. But knowing you've done very well and being confident in that, is equally important. In the larger scheme of things, what benefit is it to a hobbyist trying to improve on their craft if they send in something that they think sucks, and it turns out at the top or winning? Or the opposite, you think you just roasted some unicorn juice and the heavens have parted, only to find out that your most common flavor comment was "Meh."? An experienced roaster is certainly allowed to be overtly harsh and even negative about a coffee, but I'd caution a less experienced roaster from doing the same out of some misguided act of humility or not wanting to look boastful.
This is totally fair, and I agree. If I'm being honest, I have a decent palate, and I know when my coffees are good and when they're not. Most of my coffees are pretty good, and some are even excellent to my taste, but I had a hell of a time with this one. My first two roasts were honestly kind of gross. Roasts three and four were better, but I still wasn't getting what I needed from the coffee. It seemed to need a level of finesse I'm not sure I have yet. The best I could do was my 5th roast, which I submitted.

HOWEVER, I honestly have no idea how my 5th roast turned out, other than that I know it was better than the previous 4. I only roast 1/2lb at a time, so not only did I have to submit my entire batch (less 14g for my own first cupping), my only taste of my coffee was cupped at 16h post roast, because I had to fly to Asia for work. My first 4 roasts changed significantly over time, so I really have no idea what happened to my submitted roast in the week post roast before it got cupped. Maybe it degassed and was awesome! Hence my tongue-in-cheek response and my uploading of my curve - I am honestly dying to know how the roasters like yourself who know you got good results approached this coffee.

Would you mind providing a rundown of what you did to get good results? Not just your curve, but your entire troubleshooting and optimization process? I had a process I followed and would love to discuss.

Jeff

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#127: Post by TomC »

Here's everything I did. Ignore the temps and times if you'd like and just skim over to the reasons why I profiled the way I did, noted after all the objective measurements and gibberish.

All roasted on the 1 kilo gasser. I split the 4 pound lot into two portions, the first roast was 850.0g, straight out of the bag, unsorted. Objective metrics of the coffee were as follows, 10.6% moisture content of the green coffee, 727g/L density. Green aroma, mild, soapy, a bit more sour smelling than most higher scoring coffee I usually seek out.

Charged at 380°F @ 2" WC no fan, turning point occurred at 1:27 and yellow-tan right around 4:52 when I increased to 2.5" WC. As the coffee hit 300°F at 4:55, I put the blower on it's lowest setting and hit a deep tan @ 6:00, creeping my heat up to 2.65". At 6:30, up to 3" ( my gauge goes to 10" WC but I've never roasted much past 3-3.5"WC)

First crack was gentle and started at a bean temp of 376 at 9:16. I made only a slight bump in the airflow higher to about medium high speed for this unit as I transitioned the heat down to 2" to let it coast with it's momentum (I have a plenty thick drum). I let this coffee finish a very long stretched first crack at around 12:05 when most of the pops had died off, with a temp at that time of 398°F with the roast ending seconds later at 12:20, 400°F.

Obviously, no graph to share yet, since I haven't done the wi-fi-Phidgets-Artisan project all the way thru. But you can see from the notes It was a very well developed roast with nearly 3 minutes of post first crack development time. This roast had a 15.0% weight loss, it's final density was 405g/L out for a volume increase of an impressive 34.5%. The bean centers were well expanded, yet still with some texture to the surface. Tonino color measurements averaged 105.



Brewing results: Batch One



This coffee was moderately sweet, a bit flabby in structure and taste, lacking acidity and developed a significant amount of astringency pretty early on. Good mouthfeel and finish, yet sorta indistinct and dirty. I knew that this coffee couldn't handle this level of post first crack development without getting overwhelmed with astringency and loss of structure, so I knew my next profile would need to be a lower total roast development (I measure in terms of weight loss % initally) yet keeping in mind that it's altitude and density required a fairly high initial "punch" of heat. So, I sorta had an idea of what to try next for my second (and last) attempt at it.

I mentally built my final profile based on the "faults" in the cup from the first. Being a dense, high altitude washed coffee, I wanted to keep the momentum high early on and just finish it quicker, aiming for slightly less development time to try to retain more acidity and definitely less astringency. I felt that the coffee had sufficient sweetness, but it likely was diminished by the total roast time and competed with the overall flabby cup notes and "dusty" tasting astringency.



This coffee's thorns were it's difficult to evade and unpleasant astringency. Without this stumbling block, I have no doubt that buyers would score this coffee an easy 89.



Monday night I took the remaining coffee, sorted out every single broken or misshapen bean, every defect I could find, processing damage, etc. I ended with 992.8g for my next batch ( a fair bit more than my initial 850g, but I have a good feel for my roasters behavior).

Charged at a slightly higher 390°F at 2" WC, turning point still consistent at 1:30 at 208°F, heat bumped a bit more aggressively to 2.75" with yellow-tan hitting 5:30 I cranked up to 3.15 and put the blower on low. At 6:50 I slowed down my aggressive incline by bringing my heat down to 2.85" and then shortly after bumping the fan to 80% at 8:05. First crack came at 10:44 at 379°F (softly again) and the heat was backed off to 2". I ended the roast at 12:28.

I felt going in to the second profile that I wanted to extend the period thru the Maillard phase/time, lest the results end up tasting underdeveloped, (keeping in mind I'm using a slightly larger batch) yet finishing at very close to the same amount of total roast time, and a curtailed post first crack development time.

This second roast was again, scrupulously sorted, all beans with less browning were culled and removed as well as any newfound processing defect beans. My competition lots were quickly filled, sealed and shipped the next morning (2 day shipping). This second profile had a weight loss of 13.2% with a Tonino color reading of 126 and a final moisture level of 4.6%. The beans showed good expansion, but not as exaggerated as my first profile, and a hair more texture, mostly flat center cuts.





Pre Roast Prep/Sorting



I use a full spectrum light source and sort using a matte black pad. This is only about 1/5th to 1/4th of the way thru, the accumulated pile to the left and around 150g or so being inspected on the right. If I were competing using a natural processed coffee, I'd be using my black light to see any significant variations in "glowing" and cull them out too. Most naturals would all have some amount of luminosity, I'm just looking to standardize and "even" things out. A good UV light would help spot some stinker beans in washed coffees too, but my old UV flashlight self destructed and my new one just arrived today.





Brewing results: Batch Two



I brewed a sample via Kalita Wave 1 hour after roasting and was rather floored by the cup results. The brew was intensely claret red, with deep, juicy sweetness, stellar well woven acidity that embraced the whole cup profile well, incredibly clean, crisp flavor notes that seemed to me to be quite buoyant, mostly the previously described cranberry-apple juice/cherry cola. The finish was intense and slightly floral. This coffee might only sing a few notes, but it does them quite well and with good harmony and backbone. If I could have handed this coffee straight from the cooling tray to the judges table, I would have.



I got up the next morning to ship it off and brewed one more pour-over to confirm that it was indeed a quality profile, and was shocked to find the intensity of the rose petal florality that was quite evident in the cup, and built momentum as it cooled.



The only interesting part, the effect of aggressive pre and post sorting



Now for some interesting experiments, I saved the coffee from the second batch that I sorted out post roast. Remember, I had removed every disproportionally sized large bean, tiny bean, defect, damaged bean and even beans with very wide open seams. I took a proportional sample of these "defect" beans and combined them with an isolated sample in pretty close to the original proportions to brew and assess. The results shocked me, the cup had a lot more punch up front,( at first I was dejected thinking my decision might have blown up in my face) a more weighted, denser florality, but very quickly went "dirty/dusty" and off on the palate, leading towards a less than impressive finish. I felt pretty confident that I had significantly cleaned up the cup and left a more resonant, lingering pleasing finish.

I brewed the coffee at work these last 2 days in my traditional Clever method (un-sieved this time around), and found the coffee to be quite good, but not screaming at me good. I felt like the immersion brew took a bit of the much needed acidity off the top and dinged the flavor separation a tad. But brewing it again tonight, now 4.5 days post roast, it's yielding some impressive results compared to what I started with in the first profile. The impact of the florality and it's clean nature really buoys the cup forward. There's abundant cherry cola sweetness. The florality was more complex than just rose water and lead towards an Oriental perfume note (in fragrance lexicons). My nemesis astringency is starting to peak it's head out a bit more in the cup now, but it's slightly hidden in some pleasant mild distillates like cinnamon oil (very, very faint), but sometimes woody astringency can be assessed in a pleasant way like this if it's subtle.

I'm extremely excited by my results. I think it will carry well if the intense finish hits the judges the same way it hit me. I think the point "adders" to my cup are the amazing and clear rose flavors that seem very resonant. In all honesty, I'm curious to read the cupping notes of those who nailed it better, because I feel quite strongly that I coaxed the best out of the bean that was possible, while leaving the cup killing astringency behind. It's always a balance and I strived for a sweet, developed, clean cup. I have some strong personal opinions on roast prep for something like this, but this post is already unbearably long, so that will have to wait for later. I'd like to think that this roast lands in the top 10, any more pride than that might leave me eating some bitter humble pie which I'll gladly eat if it doesn't play well on their table. I wouldn't have paid the $35 for guaranteed 2 day shipping to get it there by Thursday if I wasn't confident in what I had on my hands.


One interesting finding was just about an hour ago when I ground the test coffee for the Tonino (espresso fineness), the scent out of the grinder was pure Welch's Grape Juice.

Good luck to everyone, and share your impressions of your roasts!
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TomC
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#128: Post by TomC »

Thread stickied for easier finding until the results are announced.
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roastimo
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#129: Post by roastimo »

That is a beautiful essay TomC, an education.

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JavaMD
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#130: Post by JavaMD »

Thanks Tom, great and helpful discussion!