I think the answers to this are complex, not just the greens you start with but how they're taken through different stages of the roast. Also there are some coffee flavors that you want to preserve, others you want to reduce or eliminate in the roast. To say a dark roast is always ready early or late depends. I've roasted a Sulawesi to second crack that was ready in three days. We just reviewed a blend roasted to second crack that wasn't ready until day five or six. Some light roasts are nevertheless fully developed and ready to drink early. Others are less developed to preserve some origin flavors and taste grassy without eight or nine days of rest. Some coffees need time for flavor notes to integrate. Others are better with particular flavors at their greatest intensity early. At least that's my take on it.

CO2 retention capabilities within the bean corresponds to it's degree of roast. As the roast progresses to hotter levels of development, the bean creates more CO2, and as well, looses it's ability to contain it, relative to a lighter degree of roast. A darker roast, speaking in terms of gassy shots that don't extract well early on, will be ready to pull or brew, faster than lighter roasts. But I wouldn't use that as a certainty in every type of coffee unless my palate agreed.

By the time a roast hits a BT of about 430°, it's lost up to 1/3'rd it's CO2 (by volume) that was produced in the roast.

Not an issue in New Jersey, but also the elevation at which the roasting takes place will affect the rest period. There are three(NOVO, Boxcar, OZO) major roasters in Colorado that I frequent alot. All three have told me that due to the elevation(around 6000') it takes at a minimum 7 to 10 days for their beans to produce a drinkable shot and 15 days to get peak flavor.

Loving your thoughtful insights! I suppose there really is no hard and fast rule regarding rest periods. Coffee is just too complex to fit into a tidy little box, which is why it's so interesting!

I suppose one takeaway to think about for me is related to solubility. As I understand, CO2 can hinder extraction, and therefore, fresh beans with overly present CO2 content will be more difficult to extract fully. Hence it would probably be wise to assume wait periods of at least a couple of days. But when it comes to peak flavor, rest is more dependent on the specifics of the coffee and roasting and will vary from situation to situation.

F1 wrote:Not an issue in New Jersey, but also the elevation at which the roasting takes place will affect the rest period. There are three(NOVO, Boxcar, OZO) major roasters in Colorado that I frequent alot. All three have told me that due to the elevation(around 6000') it takes at a minimum 7 to 10 days for their beans to produce a drinkable shot and 15 days to get peak flavor.

I've often wondered about the effects of elevation. Pressure decreases with increasing elevation so, if anything, I would have thought that the degassing process might go faster if anything.

I'm at 7380 ft elevation. Flavor profile evolves a lot over time of course, but if I drink 15 day old coffee, it's because I didn't have time to roast earlier and almost always find that the origin flavors have mostly faded away by then. My current bean was fantastic at day 2-5, evolved to something I found mediocre for a couple of days, then got really great (but different) again for the last couple of days. I expect it will stay this way for a few days and slowly fade away for good. I take lots of notes and consistently prefer lighter roasts with my best shots/brews coming in the first week. Could very well just be my preferences or the way I roast or some combination - so many variables....

IMO Yirgacheffe and Monsooned Malabar (which are two of my favourites) are fine after a day...at their peak from 2-6 days or so and are beyond their best at 10 days post-roast. These beans are typically ready at similar times to other beans.

I roasted some MM yesterday and tried them a few hours afterwards. They were great! Even better today.

It depends on the beans. I usually wait for 3-5 days, but in case of Malabar up to 10 days.

drgary wrote:Best way to know is taste it over time, not just when it's ready, but when it peaks, how long that lasts, and when it fades before staling.

I like your 2nd entry about complexity on this taste evolution question. It helps me make sense of a funny progression of flavour experience with an Antiguan bean I roasted for a couple years. Seemed the medium C+ was grassy to start, had an enjoyable apricot stint at 4 to 5 days, then lost it to astringency and came up with more mellow but good taste at 7 to 9 days. I thought at first I was imagining myself a fairy tale, but given I had 150 pounds to work with for a duration, the story repeating itself, started to believe it. I'm not buying of the crops from there any more, preferring steady results. Well, there I've told it.