chanty 77 wrote:jpender (John), you asked me to post a picture of the Paradise Nuevo. Thanks to admin. who gave the link, here is the picture.

Hi Chanty. Photographs can distort and memory is changeable. But I remember thinking that the Nuevo was kind of a darker medium roast. Those beans seem quite a bit darker than I recall. And they look greasy too. Mine had zero surface oil, that I'm sure of.

So either my memory is worthless, the photo is exaggerating, or else Paradise roasts have some variability. It's funny, I ordered another a similar dark roast from another place recently. The person who had recommended it extolled their roasting consistency. It was the second time I bought some and I swear the coffee was roasted way lighter than the first bag. It didn't look or taste the same (again by memory).

I don't know what to tell you about your coffee. Over the years I've tossed numerous (mostly underroasted) bags into the compost, muttering about the poor Q/C from well-known roasters. Perhaps that's what has happened here. Or maybe they've decided to change their roast profile. But memory and photos aren't reliable enough to say with certainty.

You can tell very little about roast level from eyeballing beans. Since getting a Roast Vision it's been interesting to see how consistent different roasters are. Some are excellent and others.....

The owner of the company sometimes offers a $50 off discount code in the thread here.

jpender wrote:Hi Chanty. Photographs can distort and memory is changeable. But I remember thinking that the Nuevo was kind of a darker medium roast. Those beans seem quite a bit darker than I recall. And they look greasy too. Mine had zero surface oil, that I'm sure of.

So either my memory is worthless, the photo is exaggerating, or else Paradise roasts have some variability. It's funny, I ordered another a similar dark roast from another place recently. The person who had recommended it extolled their roasting consistency. It was the second time I bought some and I swear the coffee was roasted way lighter than the first bag. It didn't look or taste the same (again by memory).

I don't know what to tell you about your coffee. Over the years I've tossed numerous (mostly underroasted) bags into the compost, muttering about the poor Q/C from well-known roasters. Perhaps that's what has happened here. Or maybe they've decided to change their roast profile. But memory and photos aren't reliable enough to say with certainty.

No, it actually was oily & very dark. Flavor wasn't horrible, but too dark for my tastes. The company was very gracious and even sent me a bag of their Classico which was better. I'm trying so many different blends, and so far my favorites are B&W Classic & Traditional, Nossa Full Cycle, Olympia Sweetheart & Big Truck, one here in Milwaukee--Hawthorne's Revival. Loved Verve's Sermon--but the one time I had an exorbitant amount of broken shells that toop of almost 1/4 of the bag...so leery on ordering that again as they could not give any reason why it happened & admitted by the picture I sent them that it was A LOT of broken bits & shells.

PIXIllate wrote:You can tell very little about roast level from eyeballing beans. Since getting a Roast Vision it's been interesting to see how consistent different roasters are. Some are excellent and others.....

The owner of the company sometimes offers a $50 off discount code in the thread here.

You can't judge precisely but big differences in appearance mean something. In the case of the other roaster that I mentioned I noticed that the grounds were also obviously a lot lighter. I can't say as definitively about the Nuevo but, like I said, I didn't even consider it a dark roast.

The Roast Vision looks like a valuable tool for a home roaster. Since I don't roast it would never be more than a toy for me. I think if I were interested I'd just buy the sensor board from Sparkfun for $20 and roll my own. I'm not sure how I'd calibrate it but relative numbers would still be of value. It looks like I could also use it to see if my pulse rate increases with each shot. :-)

chanty 77 wrote:No, it actually was oily & very dark. Flavor wasn't horrible, but too dark for my tastes. The company was very gracious and even sent me a bag of their Classico which was better. I'm trying so many different blends...

With darker roasts it sometimes helps to pull short to avoid the roasty flavors. I often skip preinfusion, pull 1:1.5 or shorter. I'm drinking the darkest roast I've had in 15 years right now. Big, black, oily looking beans. At 1:2 it's really harsh and I spit the coffee out. At 1:1.2 it's lovely, like a dream!

jpender wrote:The Roast Vision looks like a valuable tool for a home roaster. Since I don't roast it would never be more than a toy for me. I think if I were interested I'd just buy the sensor board from Sparkfun for $20 and roll my own. I'm not sure how I'd calibrate it but relative numbers would still be of value. It looks like I could also use it to see if my pulse rate increases with each shot.

I don't roast and I've learned a lot from my brief time using it. It's definitely informs my starting dose/temp/grind setting for a new coffee. With things like this, calibration is everything. $250 not exactly a lot of money in a hobby like this one.

Why would calibration be everything? It seems to me repeatability is what matters unless you're sharing numbers with others.

I could afford one. But it would just feel out of proportion to me. I think I've spent something around $1500 on coffee gear, in my entire life. And anyway I love building little electronic gizmos. I think I spend more on those toys than coffee toys.

jpender wrote:Why would calibration be everything? It seems to me repeatability is what matters unless you're sharing numbers with others..

The fact that you are currently online trying to communicate with others about roast level while looking at photos of beans on a piece of paper towel should make it self evident that calibration would be useful to you and others but....... to each their own.

I guess I'll just leave it by saying it's been useful to me as someone who does not roast.

PIXIllate wrote: The fact that you are currently online trying to communicate with others about roast level while looking at photos of beans on a piece of paper towel should make it self evident that calibration would be useful to you and others but....... to each their own.

I guess I'll just leave it by saying it's been useful to me as someone who does not roast.

First off, I put the beans on a paper towel to show the oil & darkness BETTER. The original discussion was primarily about these particular beans not being oilier or too dark. It was the best way I could show a better description than words could.

PIXIllate wrote: The fact that you are currently online trying to communicate with others about roast level while looking at photos of beans on a piece of paper towel should make it self evident that calibration would be useful to you and others but....... to each their own.

I agree that calibrated values would be more useful. Just not "everything".

In this particular case it wouldn't matter since @chanty77 doesn't have a Vision Roast or calibrated equivalent.