(Hopefully) Useful Home Roasting Tips - Page 6

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

Ken Fox wrote:Roasting with my sample roaster is a totally manual process; I decide how much heat to supply so there is no issue with "messing with the temperature," rather I have to decide how much heat is applied for each and every second of my roasts, both before and after first crack. Each and every part of the roast profile can be controlled if you have control of the heat input (and/ or the airflow).ken
I've been struggling with my Probat sample roaster. Even though I've been able to tweak it enough to get around 9 minutes to the first crack, around 4 minutes between the first and second and total roast times of 12-14 miuntes, the results have been undrinkable. The worst results occur when I try to roast any of my Monsooned Malabar blends.

Probat recommends a load temp of 400 degrees and also recommends making temp adjustments by airflow rather than gasflow.

My impression of this roaster is that it is overpowered for its maxium capacity of 100 grams, (I am sure Probat's German engineers would take issue with that assessment). The temp gauge seems to be useless. The probe is located in the drum in a place where I would think I am getting bean mass temps, but those temps don't jive with any of the temps I would expect. Mostly the read is much lower than I would anticipate at the various stages of the roast.

So Ken, my questions to you are:

Do you roast by airflow with your sample roaster?

I know you are using a 350 degree load temp, do you think an even lower load temp would be better for a tiny 100 gram batch?

Is there something else I should be doing to improve my sample roaster results?

Thanks,
Doug
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Kill all my demons and my angels might die too. T. Williams

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cafeIKE
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#52: Post by cafeIKE »

I'm probably talking out school, what with me and my lowly uberHotTop, but when I've tried elevated drop temperatures or controlling temperature via air flow, the roasts are inferior.

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Fullsack
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#53: Post by Fullsack »

Thanks Ian. My Hottop experience has been the same. I thought a gas powered sample roaster would be a different animal, maybe not. It might be that, everything I needed to know about roasting, I learned from the Hottop :)

At this point, I would be happy having the sample roaster results equal that of the Hottop.
LMWDP #017
Kill all my demons and my angels might die too. T. Williams

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Fullsack
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#54: Post by Fullsack »

Abdon wrote:When I moved overseas I found out that the electric grid is woefully underpowered (rated 100v@50hz, fluctuating up and down from there)...
I have been in Shinjuku for a week, accompanied by my La Pavoni travel kit. I was wondering why my shots were turning out on the cool side and why I couldn't steam worth a darn. Obviously, the usual 12 minute warm up isn't enough with the weak power grid. Thanks for the info, my shots should start improving now, with a longer warm up.
LMWDP #017
Kill all my demons and my angels might die too. T. Williams

seacliff dweller
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#55: Post by seacliff dweller »

Fullsack wrote:Thanks Ian. My Hottop experience has been the same. I thought a gas powered sample roaster would be a different animal, maybe not. It might be that, everything I needed to know about roasting, I learned from the Hottop :)

At this point, I would be happy having the sample roaster results equal that of the Hottop.

I have been looking around trying to replace my roasters - sirocco, alpenrost and i-roast to get a better "sweet spot" for my roast and I was looking at hottop, probat and many others. I decided to build my own and so far the results have been very good. In my opinion, the roasts I have done are better than what I did before with the 3 other roasters. My unit is a manual one utilizing convection oven technology with pid control. I have posted the photo here at home-barista.

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Fullsack
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#56: Post by Fullsack »

Ken Fox wrote: (5) The natural tendency is to want to have things "happen," e.g. to experience first and second crack, but your best results might come from terminating the roast at a lighter roast level, e.g. before the onset of 2nd crack. In order to do this, you are going to have to learn the thermometry of your roaster past the onset of 2nd crack, in order to anticipate it and to end the roast before it starts.
Hope this is useful to at least a few people.
ken
Very useful, thanks Ken.
Terminating the roast before the beginning of the second crack was a challenge for me. Before reading your thread, I determined the crucial points in the roast by sound. A few snaps into the second crack and I hit the eject button. Thermometry was not always a reliable indicator. Presently, I use a high powered flash light to inspect the beans during the final stages of the roast, (the HotTop has a window, but does not provide a way to remove beans to inspect a sample), and have been observing a change in the beans right before the start of the second crack. Pre second crack beans become a bit larger, shinier and the texture changes markedly.

My humble addition to an incredibly informative thread.
LMWDP #017
Kill all my demons and my angels might die too. T. Williams

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Fullsack
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#57: Post by Fullsack »

Ken Fox wrote:Doug,

Those are some ugly looking beans! I've had some beans with a lot of defects, but the beans you photographed are worse than anything I can recall roasting, certainly within the last few years. Just on sight alone, and without regard to who was selling them, I'd make a point of not reordering any coffee that looked like THAT!

ken
Ken,
You're right, about the ugliest I've seen. I have been buying beans from this vendor for over 4 years and this lack of quality was something new. On the outside chance someone figured out who the supplier is, subsequent orders of these particular beans have been very good.

Doug
LMWDP #017
Kill all my demons and my angels might die too. T. Williams

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