Roasting Competition by Mill City Roasters - Discussion Thread - Page 4

#31: Post by **Goldensncoffee** » May 5th, 2015, 7:56 pm

I did 2 batches on the Quest yesterday. The first roast was 6:10/3:57/2:23. I took this 32F past 1C start to a finish temp of 418F.

The second roast was 6:07/3:44/2:39. This roast was taken to 421F.

I cupped these tonight and I couldn't believe the difference between the two. The second roast had some nice acidity and was way sweeter than the first. As the cups cooled, the second roast had some really nice berries.(this was almost room temp) I wasn't impressed with the mouthfeel of either of the roasts...It just seemed kind of...thin? I'm not sure how to describe it.

Looking back at my graphs I see a slight dip in BT reading in roast 1 when overlaid with roast 2. Roast 2 has a better declining ROR. I think I'm going to hit this with more initial heat and shorten the dry phase a little bit and see what happens. Any thoughts?

How are all your roasts coming along?

#32: Post by **Boldjava** » May 5th, 2015, 9:44 pm

Goldensncoffee wrote:...

Looking back at my graphs I see a slight dip in BT reading in roast 1 when overlaid with roast 2. Roast 2 has a better declining ROR. I think I'm going to hit this with more initial heat and shorten the dry phase a little bit and see what happens. Any thoughts?

Are you able to post your graphs?

How are all your roasts coming along?

Not sure. I had 40 lbs of this squirreled away in order to nail this coffee. Serena and I are both entering blindly to see how our roasts fare.

The boss found my cache and kept selling those 4-lb kits! <Grins>. I better come up to speed quickly and nail an early roast with the very diminished reserve. Mercy...

#33: Post by **string bean** » May 5th, 2015, 10:34 pm

Big shoutout to Nick and Steve @ Mill City Roasters for fixing the ordering process and helping me get the last kit. You guys are awesome!

Sorry boldjava, I'm partially to blame.

#34: Post by **Boldjava** » May 5th, 2015, 10:57 pm

string bean wrote:Big shoutout to Nick and Steve @ Mill City Roasters for fixing the ordering process and helping me get the last kit. You guys are awesome!...

I haven't talked to either of them since <winks>.

May 5th, 2015, 11:11 pm

I totally understand.

#36: Post by **millcityroasters** » May 6th, 2015, 6:45 am

Boldjava wrote: Not sure. I had 40 lbs of this squirreled away in order to nail this coffee. Serena and I are both entering blindly to see how our roasts fare.

The boss found my cache and kept selling those 4-lb kits! <Grins>. I better come up to speed quickly and nail an early roast with the very diminished reserve. Mercy...

Fair's fair. You and Serena will have to figure it out with 4 lbs each like everyone else.

Maybe when Serena nails it on the first roast, she'll take pity on you and share her greens to help you out.

-and don't worry about pooching a bunch of coffee. The law firm always needs coffee and they'll drink almost anything with gratitude.

Personally, if I was going to take a whack at it, I'd try something like this (from the Tim Wendelboe thread courtesy of NoStream and pretty much exactly how I like to roast)

NoStream wrote:
Charge at, as an example, 220c (reminder: this is roaster and green coffee dependent!)
Wait for 1:00-1:30 to apply significant heat (avoids astringency and underdevelopment)
Apply plenty of heat through dry and ramp
Decrease heat immediately before or during first crack
Development time in the range of 1:00
Total roast time of 9:30-11:30

On my roaster, I usually bump the heat slightly at the start of first crack too keep my ROR stable, but otherwise this reads pretty close to what works for me.

#37: Post by **Goldensncoffee** » May 6th, 2015, 7:09 am

Heres the roast that was the best so far.

#38: Post by **Almico** » May 6th, 2015, 8:33 pm

I just bagged up my entry. I roasted 8oz at a time. The first 2 samples were...yuck. Too slow. My most successful roasts were 11 minutes with a 2:15 development. Dropped at 420*. Yuck disappeared and left a nice, clean cup with creamy mouthfeel, enough acidity to be interesting and plenty of mocha.

It's a tricky coffee because of the wide variety of bean size. My batch has at least 10% tiny peaberry and another 5% large peaberry and regular beans from 18 size to 10. I resisted the urge to cull my submission and figured you gotta dance with who brung ya.

#39: Post by **SJM** » May 6th, 2015, 8:37 pm

Wow....I had to roast Tanzanian Peaberry and Mexican Pacamara to get that wide a discrepancy in bean sizes

#40: Post by **Almico** » May 6th, 2015, 8:42 pm

Maybe I'm spoiled, but I have never seen this much variation in one bag of greens. Probably should have screened the beans myself and roasted similar sizes together, but that's not my job.