I just came home from another Bay Area Roasters Group meet-up hosted by Berkeley Co-Roast, organized by Dani Goot and myself. We had a larger turn out than expected, no doubt due to the wonderful space we were allowed to use (seriously Berkeley Co-Ro is awesome). And once again, a pattern repeated itself. Henry Chang, (Chang00) one of our own, nearly beat everyone, including myself who only placed in the middle of the pack. Henry took 2nd only to a very impressive new professional roaster in Ukiah, Black Oak Coffee. I'm giving a free plug to Black Oak and highly suggest folks check them out, because I can vouch for how darn good their coffee is on a consistent basis. Steve Cuevas carefully profiled the coffee 10 different ways to hone in on what best gave a chance for sufficient maillard development to create flavors that otherwise were rather mute. In all honesty, there were only about 3 very good examples on the table out of the 16.

Henry is far too humble to ever mention it, so I'm doing it for him. Ask Jim Schulman who's repeatedly one of the most consistent, impressive home roasters in our competitions and he'll agree with me, Henry is generally the first name mentioned. We thought we only had 9 participants (Henry and I being the only non-pro's), but it turned out we ended up having 16 participants and nearly 30 people there to cup and discuss the chosen coffee. Some just flew under the radar.

The coffee was a challenge, it was a past crop washed Ethiopian that only seemed to present well in a narrow roast range (very narrow) and it wasn't very sweet nor very bright, but it did have some nice florals and soft, balanced flavor overall.

So here's my thumbs up to Henry Chang and home roasters in general. By and large, he beats most of em! We're going to have to tease him out of hiding and hopefully he'll discuss his approach to this slightly challenging coffee.

Interesting, also when did Jim S move to the bay area? Admittedly, it's been more than a decade that I saw him in Chicago.

Jim has been judging/participating in our roasting competitions for longer than pretty much anyone. Henry's skill is a recurring theme amongst most judges (Tom Owens, the Highwire Coffee crew, Jim and myself). I wasn't implying that Jim moved to the bay area. But he definitely should.

Coming in second in competitions, to some out of the blue new comer, has become something of comic destiny the roasting gods have put on Henry. But he is easily the most consistently top rate, day in, day out, any coffee for any brew method, home roaster I know.

What a cool event - does the presence of Sweet Maria's in the Bay Area really drive the home roasting scene there?

I love public cuppings, I can't imagine a meet up with you guys - I think I'd be talking/listening/theorizing for hours, that would be SO FUN. Newer to the forum but was there ever a time someone organized mini H-B member competitions, or doesn't even have to be competitions but people roasting a chosen bean, sending in the roasts to someone like Tom or Jim or a group for evaluation and discussing the results via skype or google hangouts? Kinda like the mill city focus on the roast but done more casually and regularly. I think there'd be a ton to learn and benefit from with that.

Do you know what Henry roasts on?

It's really cool to see that with proper time and technique, home roasters can be just as good if not better than pro roasters.

dale_cooper wrote:... Newer to the forum but was there ever a time someone organized mini H-B member competitions, or doesn't even have to be competitions but people roasting a chosen bean,...

I would encourage you to post for an OH meetup where 4-5 of you roast an identified bean and then meet up in someone's home. Done it in WI and here in MN and it a growing experience for all those who participate. Gathering in groups creates exponential learning.

TomC wrote:... Steve Cuevas carefully profiled the coffee 10 different ways to hone in on what best gave a chance for sufficient maillard development to create flavors that otherwise were rather mute.

I would be very interested to know what those 10 different profiles were.

This is really inspiring. Also I am a firm believer giving credit where its due. Had Henry said anything about his process that we can learn from?

I live near LA I wonder if there are any roaster meet ups. If not I will start another thread and try to get one going. Cheers

Almico wrote:I would be very interested to know what those 10 different profiles were.

I pre/post weigh samples, tracking weight percentage loss. I am currently adding bean temp probes, so I don't have actual profile to look at the moment. I track time of colour change, and how heat was applied (I don't have a read out for gas, so it's tracked by the look of flame)

Ok the profiles.
they range from 10%-11.7% weight loss, and first cracks times from 4:30-7:12 (most developed for a minute after f.c.). my boss was into 10.9%-11.3%, I enjoyed 11.3%-11.7%. What I got out of the samples was A) doesn't easily lose weight B)Not much bright acid/origin left. The taste for anything under 11% was sooo grainy, and past that it tasted better but was showing it's age. It had a mild berry like taste, I wanted to transform strawberry/blueberry flavour into darker notes to hide age, hopefully getting a stone fruit. My goal with the roast was to treat it like a Medium hopefully the ''dark notes, bittier, and added body'' would work.

the main roast
it was difficult to achieve 11.7%, so when I roasted the full batch I decided to hit F.C. around 9:00 (aiding in more loss), and develop for about 2:00 min. (due to a slight loss of heart at F.C. I had to extend del. to 2:30). I didn't want my drop temperature to be to low in fear of underdevelopment (due to the longer time to F.C. It would of been fine to take the lower drop temp at 2:00 development). Final weight percent loss for the batch ended up being 12%.

Post thoughts of the roast.
if I had a second batch I would of kept development after F.C. at 2:00. I give a lot of credit to the fact we work with a lot of medium-French roast, allowing to explore development at different levels of roast.

Hope that was helpful. I'll keep you guys updated (I should be doing a post for my Roasters Champion profiling)