Roasts tasting significantly better on day 1 and 2

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

Before home roasting coffee, I typically bought coffee from local roasters that I felt really hit its stride on days 4-6.

Now that I've been roasting for over a year, I've noticed a trend since I start drinking it the next day until its gone . . . Day 1, 2 and sometimes 3 are my favorite. After this, it seems like on day 4 the coffees flavor has often drastically changed for the worse and gets worse as time goes on.

What I'm tasting is astringency and unpleasing bitterness. I love wild, berryful, bright coffees, so I almost exclusively roast DP Ethiopians and some Kenyans. I do tend to roast slightly darker than what most 3rd wave roasters do. On days 1-3ish, I get the bright, fruity flavors I'm looking for. Those flavors often seem to disappear by day 4. I store my coffee in airtight containers that have a valve for off-gassing

My Theory: Since I roast darker, the notes I'm getting on days 1-3 are more a product of the off-gassing of the fresh coffee, which then settles into the actual flavors unlocked by my roast on day 4+. I roast small batches (130g) so often my coffee doesnt make it to day 4. Maybe I steered more toward darker roasting instead of lighter roasting because I was drinking my coffee up before it could hit its stride in my lighter roasts?

I believe Blue Bottle doesn't serve coffee more than 3 days old. Maybe they have it right?

Would love to hear feedback. I can provide more info if needed.

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johnny4lsu
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#2: Post by johnny4lsu »

Every cup of blue bottle that I've had has been below average.

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SlowRain
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#3: Post by SlowRain »

I'd say it may be because of the darker roasts, too. I've had similar experiences, and that's what I chalked it up to. Now, I find some of my coffees need almost a week to rest before they hit their stride.

lbdina
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#4: Post by lbdina »

I usually roast 8-12 oz batches, usually to FC, with a heat gun and bread machine. I always end the roast before the start of 2C. 98% of what I drink is espresso, so I'm not doing much brewing. If I brewed more coffee, I'd probably be roasting lighter. You say you roast darker than most, but not to what level.

I'm finding I like 3-5 days rest for FC roasts. I find that the first few days after roasting, my coffee has a sharper edge and is brighter than I like. I occasionally do lighter roasts and they are definitely brighter and fruitier, and they seem to benefit from even a longer rest, about 5-7 days (at least for my taste).

espressobsessed
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#5: Post by espressobsessed »

there's a long long thread from 6-7 years ago somewhere on HB on this topic. replying here as its the most recent mentioning of this discussion, and want to share some thoughts.

The idea of an optimum "rest" time for espresso, IMO, is specific to the roaster used and the altitude of the coffee being roasted (as well as freshness and the green coffee's proclivity for a specific taste). I came to this idea after someone who worked at an intelly BC shop worked for me and was adamant we needed to rest our espresso. he was bringing a different paradigm/approach that conflicted with ours, and made assumptions that he didn't recognize were approach-specific.

My conclusion: an ideal rest time for some espresso depends on the roaster's ability to remove roasting gas byproducts from the drum rapidly. How many CFMs can your roaster produce while carbon related compounds are being generated as a byproduct? If your coffee is bathing in CO2 at roast end from pyrolytic reactions, then generally speaking, I find a coffee needs a longer rest period. Though you might be tasting other things contributing to astringency or acridity that carbonic compounds are often implicated in. I still need to think some of these ideas further, but in practice, I find it is easy to get a profile that is optimum within 24 hours. How the internal pressure of the bean changes during roasting too should effect the rest time needed.

In practice, I find also that certain Probat roasters need longer rest times! Not necessarily a bad thing, just a different (and fun and useful) tool to produce different results. Lower altitude coffees will react differently to these variations in thermal inputs (conductive/radiation/convection) compared to high and very high altitude coffee (denser cell structures alter expansion/internal pressure).

But I might be wrong ;)