I recently ran into a problem that I am sure we all have from one time to another. I was roasting a pound of espresso beans and was washing the dishes at the same time. Well, the beans reached second crack and I didn't get over to the roaster before they had got to a FC++, a little too far for this particular blend.

I ground a few samples and gave it a try, but found there was a marked ashy/ashen taste at the usual dose and temperature for this blend. Okay, I had burnt the beans; however, I didn't want to throw out a pound of freshly roasted coffee. Now what?

So, I did some experimenting and came up with a solution. Then I decided to check the HB forum to see if this had been mentioned before. (Note to self: do that BEFORE experimenting next time!) Well, it turns out to have been well described before, but sort of as an aside to other topics, so I thought it would be worthwhile repeating it now.

The answer is to updose and drop the temperature.

I ended up updosing from 15 g to 18 g, which required a loosening of the grind to achieve a 24 second extraction. The temperature was then dropped from 93 degrees to 91 degrees.

The result is that the espresso went from ashy to sweet and rich. Hooray!

I was, by the way, using Sweet Maria's Amber Espresso Blend, a favorite of mine for home roasting. Nothing wrong with dropping your temperature first and staying with a lower dose. I certainly agree that a lower dose with more headroom under the showerhead preserves the flavor nuances of a blend or single origin coffee. In this case, the lower dose reduced the ashy flavor but the resulting cup started to get too sour. Thus the answer here was to updose and drop the temperature.

Interesting in that I just finished a batch of Sweet Marias Liquid Amber Blend this morning. It (230 gm)was roasted to about 30 sec into second crack on my HotTop B and cooled very quickly then resting for 6 days before tasting. Liquid Amber is a monsooned coffee blend that Tom suggests a lot of rest before tasting. I settled on 16- 16.5 gm doses and given the monsooned coffee component I upped the temperature to 202-203* DId you happen to notice that this blend really requires a coarser grind setting to get proper 50-60 ml. extraction in 25-26 sec.?

The result was a truly exceptional rich bodied espresso. For my last bit I only had 9gm left so I added another 6 gm of Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley (light City+ -FC) and lower the temperature to 200 and that was surprisingly good too. I may have to try some more of this or at least experiment with monsooned beans a bit. Off topic but has anyone tried Malobar Gold?

I don't know if you were using the old Amber blend from last year or the new blend (with different Monsooned beans) from this year. This is the first time I have used the new blend, and that's a bit too far into second crack for my tastes. I usually wait about two to three days with the Amber blend. It gets a bit too stale for me by the second week. This time I had to taste it right away, because I was worried that it would be burnt.
And it was. I haven't had too much success integrating Monsooned beans into my DIY blends. The Amber blend has always seemed pretty impressive to me.

I have the previous batch of Liquid Amber before SM was looking for new monsooned beans. My roast had a small trace of oil on some of the beans only and was not dark or ashy at all. Perhaps its a difference between HotTop and Behmor roasts. I think the HotTop cools the beans down MUCH faster so 30 sec into 2C on a Behmor coasts further into the roast then mine which especially in 40* or colder outdoor temps these days cools quite quickly.

This was my first HotTop roast with this batch of beans (preiously used a variac controlled popper) and it was much more impressive espresso. The predominant features of this roast to me are smoky caramel flavors with pretty intense creamy body. I have enough for 1 more 230 gm roast. I was getting nearly ideal pours with this batch from 7-12 days after roast without a hint of it getting stale, flat or muddy. My next order from SM will include some of this blend

There may be a difference between the roasters, I am sure. However, I will say that the OLD Amber Espresso blend roasted fine into second crack with no problems. In fact it gave a sweet, chocolate cup. The new blend is slightly different, and I think it should be roasted a little lighter to avoid the ashy flavor.