Coffee Roasting-Best Practices- Scott Rao [Book] - Page 5

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

Books here. Thanks. Always learning.

RusticR
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#42: Post by RusticR »

My copy arrived in only a couple days! Very useful book I'd say, likely his best yet (I have Scott's three other books) On page 46 bottom bullet point says "If the RoR declined steadily before first crack and stalls or flatlines during first crack, the gas was too low." On the next page in discribing two illustrations he writes: "The roaster lowered the gas too much in the middle stages of the batch, causing the low flat RoR after first crack." I wonder if the first 'during' shouldn't be 'after'?? Totally agree with pg 40 regarding delta span settings! Anyone else think of Rob Hoos' book when reading pg 65 "Why I don't care to manage the time spent in the so-called Maillard phase"? I'd recommend this book to any serious student of coffee roasting!

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CarefreeBuzzBuzz
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#43: Post by CarefreeBuzzBuzz »

Hmmm, on the gas dip candidates

Look at the graph at the top of page 48, then look at the graph on 49. What do you see as the difference in these?

On 48, the ROR goes from 10 to say 3 (70%) in say 1 1/4 minutes.
On 49, the ROR goes from 4 to 1 (75%) in say 45 seconds.

Really hard for me to get precise with the cropster graphs. In any event the first one is a soft crash, and the second one a hard crash. They both look pretty steep to me. Is the real difference in the second one that there was already low gas going into FC, so then Rao recommends the gas dip. So you need both low gas and steep decline to be a gas dip candidate? In other words try lower heat going into FC first????
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Brewzologist
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#44: Post by Brewzologist »

Michael; Here's how I interpret what Rao is saying in this section:

1) The first and best way to try to fix a crash is to try lowering gas and/or doing it sooner before FC.
2) If #1 doesn't work, then try the gas dip method to fix the crash. The downside of gas dip vs. #1 is that it might impart a more roasted flavor.

I can say in my lowly experience on the Huky that I've found this approach to be true. I think this has less to do with being at low gas and a steep decline in terms of when to use the gas dip. I think it has more to do with a bean which is difficult to control.

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CarefreeBuzzBuzz
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#45: Post by CarefreeBuzzBuzz »

And my next question, who thinks they can manage their gas with the precision suggested? Not sure with any analog meter one can have this precision. This is different than my current protocol and I intend to try it out and see how it goes.


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chuckcoffee
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#46: Post by chuckcoffee »

Only a couple chapters in and already working on some things: moved my BT probe 1cm away from spindle, measured actual RPM and watched flow of bean mass through a plastic door to see if the BT probe was immersed....

Steve.. interested in your findings on your Huky. Maybe worth a separate thread. ... My book ordered ..waiting for arrival

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EddyQ
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#47: Post by EddyQ »

CarefreeBuzzBuzz wrote:Look at the graph at the top of page 48, then look at the graph on 49. What do you see as the difference in these?

On 48, the ROR goes from 10 to say 3 (70%) in say 1 1/4 minutes.
On 49, the ROR goes from 4 to 1 (75%) in say 45 seconds.
It's really hard to comment on this without the book.

Looks like I need this book. :roll:
I'm sort of amazed at how obsessed folks get with efforts to rid this crash. I too have spent significant time and think the efforts have paid off to some extent. I'm quite certain I can tame the crashiest coffee. But even with that, I still feel I need this book to do it some other way to squeak an even better roast out.

My guess the book has a lot more to offer than getting rid of the crash. There are quite a number of useful tidbits I've learned from Scott over the years. But what Scott seems to do best is get us all thinking, experimenting and trying something new.
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mtbizzle
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#48: Post by mtbizzle »

Brewzologist wrote:Only a couple chapters in and already working on some things: moved my BT probe 1cm away from spindle, ...
I'm trying to figure out the details for a BT probe for a lil' Kaldi Wide right now. Are there BT placement insights you could share? I can tell there are a handful of parameters I should try to meet for my BT probe... Trying to figure out as much as that as I can now in hopes of finding a probe that works very well for the Wide v.s. guess/check & error correction, probably having to go through several probes...
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Brewzologist
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#49: Post by Brewzologist »

I can't speak to where to place the BT probe in your roaster except to say it should be immersed in the bean mass. Hence the reason for being able to visualize your normal charge and drum speed in a plastic window on your roaster if possible. Also, it's good to then make sure your probe tip is ~2cm away from faceplates, drum surfaces, etc in order to minimize conductive/radiation heat from those surfaces, which would throw off your probe readings. Hope this helps.

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Randy G.
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#50: Post by Randy G. »

Marcelnl wrote:it should not be a big deal unless you find yourself answering too :lol:
Depends on the applicability and value of the answer. I have told myself that around the house I am the only one who makes any sense, and I am starting to find that this is an accurate statement. No it isn't. Yes it is. Now shut up. Don't talk to me like that.
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