A worthy goal Dave

There is some strong competition with most having way more experience than me so it's exciting to see how I rate. I will find out how mine rates for competition, but I know that it tastes better than the espresso served in all of the local cafes!

cannonfodder wrote:I will be happy if the tasting notes for my coffee do not include descriptures such as dirt and cat poop.

Agreed, nobody wants to hear "dirt" or "cat poop".

I would be ok with "humic earth notes and hints of merde de chat"

Pat

Aaron wrote:....There is some strong competition with most having way more experience than me so it's exciting to see how I rate.....

No doubt there. I'm a relative newcomer to the home roasting ranks. Just started last November with a Behmor and moved to the Hopttop in late April. I sent it off to JohnB in late May to modify the drum and add probes, so I was without it for almost a month. I only was able to log a handful of roasts once I got it back so my expectations weren't very high in terms of how I would rank.
Once I saw the list of folks competing in the Brewed sections (i didn't submit any espresso entries) it only confirmed those expectations. I have done a ton of research on this site with regards to roasting and I know each and every one of the folks competing in the brewed categories are extremely knowledgeable/accomplished roasters. I'm mainly looking for some constructive feedback on my roasts. I really do appreciate the opportunity and all the efforts of Jim, Henry, & the Sweet Maria's folks(my apologies if I'm missing anyone!) to put this together.

possibly over-extended drying phase during roast.

Got a chuckle (of mild relief) out of this. When I tried the coffee (Ethiopia Grade 1 Chelelektu Yirga Cheffe) a day or two out of the roaster, I found it grassy. I was FULLY expecting that in the notes. I guess it just needed more rest.

The closed and open brewing results are posted.

Congratulations to Rama and Marshal, with honorable mentions to Henry Chang and Mark Hanson.

The competitions' cuppers and judges were Aleco Chigounis and Dan Wood of Sweet Maria's. Aleco was with Ritual Roasters, and is an experienced buyer and roaster. Dan is one of the regular cuppers and coffee buyers at Sweet Maria's.

You can see from their tough comments that they believe there is a perfect roast for each coffee. This probably would not work as a hard verifiable proposition, for instance, in some sort of market survey; but as an aesthetic norm for a roaster aspiring to artistry, the idea of searching for the perfect roast for every particular coffee has a lot going for it. In any case, it's definitely a great attitude to bring to a roasting competition.

PM me if I need to make corrections or additions (sorry, no corrections to the standings )

UltramaticOrange wrote:Got a chuckle (of mild relief) out of this. When I tried the coffee (Ethiopia Grade 1 Chelelektu Yirga Cheffe) a day or two out of the roaster, I found it grassy. I was FULLY expecting that in the notes. I guess it just needed more rest.

Well, congrats, you did much better than me with the chelelektu. To be honest (although post results it seems more of an excuse than honesty) I roasted this up the tuesday i mailed out my espressos just to get in the drip contest. But i had trouble finding the sweet spot between grassy and baked. I guess i went grassy. It did a lot better at 203 than 200 I think. Maybe i should read the rules more closely - it looks from the pic like this was a regular ol' cupping.

Anyway, here's my two roasts on one graph. The background was the first roast, i found it baked so I re-roasted with a 40 second shorter finish. Too short. I'm gonna go retry, maybe lengthen the drying period a tad and chuck on a couple seconds at the end.


Mind chuckin' your roast up here?

UltramaticOrange wrote:Got a chuckle (of mild relief) out of this. When I tried the coffee (Ethiopia Grade 1 Chelelektu Yirga Cheffe) a day or two out of the roaster, I found it grassy. I was FULLY expecting that in the notes. I guess it just needed more rest.

Same issue/comment (i.e. "over-extended drying phase") with the Burundi I submitted in the Open.
I should have stuck to the higher charge temp I did with the PNG (PNG = 392 Charge/300BT@4:30 vs Burundi = 360 Charge 300BT@5:05) I submitted in the Closed category which did much better.

All in all I'm ecstatic with my results (seriously unexpected). I was just hoping I wasn't DFL, which I figured was going to be highly likely.

I think in interest of learning and spirit of community, it would be nice if home-roasting competition required that everyone posts their roast profiles and blend makeup. It would help us learn from each other.

I shall post my winning roast profiles

I took 3rd. I was scribbling "berry bomb " on my ziplock bag that I was rushing to the post office, but my dyslexic brain scribbled fruit bomb first.. I wrote my name and info on a separate piece of paper in the package , and probably should have corrected it while I was at the cupping, but they seemed to know it was mine.

Funny thing was, I really wanted to submit the Konga, but I figured a lot of people were going to as well, so I opted out. Im sure it would have scored well with the judges, being so powerfully sweet and berrylicious.

Congrats to all the entrants. The comments were made by Dan that the roast quality overall was quite better this year compared to last and that competitors seemed to grasp lighter "cupping " roasts this time around.

TomC wrote:
Congrats to all the entrants. The comments were made by Dan that the roast quality overall was quite better this year compared to last and that competitors seemed to grasp lighter "cupping " roasts this time around.

"cupping" roasts? roast free?