How To Preserve/Develop Big Sweetness - Page 2

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
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spromance (original poster)
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#11: Post by spromance (original poster) »

samuellaw178 wrote:With more resting, the super sweet nature subsides to allow the origin flavor to become more obvious.
So, I cupped the remaining amount today, 3 days post roast. With crossed fingers I took a few sips. Still, incredibly sweet. I did notice other flavors and some defects, but I attribute that to (1) more rest time / increased solubility and (2) tasting this time with a more critical eye to try and discern if the big sweetness was a similar artifact to what Sam would experience with his old stovetop roaster. In other words, I don't really think the sweetness has faded, even though some new flavors have come to the fore.

It's not as though my approach has been very methodical or that this second tasting verifies much of anything yet per se, but I am intrigued. This sweetness seems 'here to stay' and if this sweetness is available in beans such as these and others assuming I can make some fundamental changes either to how my equipment roasts, or how I use my equipment to roast, I'd say this could redefine the ceiling of quality I expect at home on my particular roaster (which is quite exciting!).

At this point, the big question still remains: how do I approach trying to recreate these flavors in a larger batch?

I think my first plan is to see if by lowering my full batch size (from 250g down to say 150 perhaps), using a lower charge/soak temp and a higher ramp temp, I can achieve a similar DTR with a full batch and see how that tastes. One would expect this won't translate perfectly, but it's the only starting point I can think of. The DTR specs of the sweet sample roast were 30.8% - 38.5% - 30.5%. For a profile with 1C occurring at 8:30 this correlates to a 3:45 yellow, 8:30 first crack, and 12:15 drop. Maybe that's crazy*, maybe not. But, even if this sweetness is an elusive mirage, I kind of think I've got to try chasing it for at least a little while and see what happens.

*One might expect this high starting speed that trails off might set me up for some significant scorching and tipping...I guess I'll find out soon if it can be pulled off with a significant smaller batch size and if not, it'll be a short lived experiment.

Any other suggestions of what to attempt? or try?

Intrepid510
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#12: Post by Intrepid510 »

You know this has been something that I try to do a lot because there are so many professional roasters out there who I feel do not value/roast for sweetness in the cup. I am not sure why they do not, but you end up with coffee that has a good fragrance however the taste is vegetal.

To that I think you need to disregard everything you hear from professional roasters or people you hear about drop temps etc because your roasting set up is unique to you. You can take what you hear from people as far as stretching out development times to be able to accentuate the sweetness in your coffee, but don't worry about the minutia.

I guess what I am trying to say through all the rambling is just try to roast by feel instead of logging everything in your roast. Sometimes you just have trust yourself and what you are seeing/smelling in the coffee as your roast. So just go to it and roast and adjust your roasting as you go through it and let that pen sit on the floor as you focus on the coffee. YMMV

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happycat
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#13: Post by happycat »

Sweetness is something i can get consistently since i used Scott Rao's methods.

High charge temp (I do 400-415 for batches of 250-300 in my Quest)
Declining rate of rise of bean temp with no flat parts or bumps
Drop in early 400s

You have a long stretch of flat in your ROR curve in middle. You also have a bump and dip in the end of the ROR curve. Might be cardboardy, cerealy.

You need lots of enery at the start so you can have a continuous downward slope in ROR as you progress to the end
LMWDP #603

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keno
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#14: Post by keno »

Here's another approach to maximizing sweetness from a former roaster from Intelligentsia:

Balancing Act Of Sweetness - My Most Viewed Post, Updated

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aecletec
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#15: Post by aecletec »

spromance wrote: The DTR specs of the sweet sample roast were 30.8% - 38.5% - 30.5%. For a profile with 1C occurring at 8:30 this correlates to a 3:45 yellow, 8:30 first crack, and 12:15 drop.
The analytical approach is laudable, but given that chemical reactions will vary with internal bean pressure (higher temp = faster) and I don't think the relationship is linearly 1:1, a direct extrapolation might not give you the same tasting coffee.

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drgary
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#16: Post by drgary »

From the first post, one thing the OP did differently was roasting a much smaller batch size. I would try to approximate that roast and gradually increase batch size. It could be that fewer beans lets more air pass through so they're actually heated more gently through the roast.

Even though I'm a member of Team HB, consider me an intermediate level roaster. On my very different drum equipment, to preserve sweetness I take the drying phase a bit slow, I don't extend the browning (Maillard) process too long -- or too short, which emphasizes sourness, and I try and balance reducing unpleasant acidity with not burning off the sugars with too high a temp or too long in development after first crack. The post linked by Ken just above suggests not racing through the yellow stage of drying, which is the start of the Maillard reaction, where Deaton says polysaccharides are changed to monosaccarides, giving you ample sweetness to work with. I'll have to experiment with that.
Gary
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What I WOULD do for a good cup of coffee!

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Almico
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#17: Post by Almico »

drgary wrote: I'll have to experiment with that.
I tried one this afternoon. I set up my heat so RoR would slow down around DE and coast to 340*. Then I bumped the heat to "speed through the next phase" and turned it down in anticipation of 1C. I turned it down a bit too much and got a little valley during post 1C. I just Aeropressed a cup right out of the cooling bin and it was impressive. It's a CR natural so it might need a day to breathe.


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FotonDrv
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#18: Post by FotonDrv »

There is a lot of good information in this Thread!
That Light at the End of the Tunnel is actually a train

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FotonDrv
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#19: Post by FotonDrv »

Intrepid510 wrote:You know this has been something that I try to do a lot because there are so many professional roasters out there who I feel do not value/roast for sweetness in the cup. I am not sure why they do not, but you end up with coffee that has a good fragrance however the taste is vegetal.

To that I think you need to disregard everything you hear from professional roasters or people you hear about drop temps etc because your roasting set up is unique to you. You can take what you hear from people as far as stretching out development times to be able to accentuate the sweetness in your coffee, but don't worry about the minutia.

I guess what I am trying to say through all the rambling is just try to roast by feel instead of logging everything in your roast. Sometimes you just have trust yourself and what you are seeing/smelling in the coffee as your roast. So just go to it and roast and adjust your roasting as you go through it and let that pen sit on the floor as you focus on the coffee. YMMV
Paying attention to time and heat settings and your eyes and ears and nose all seem to work in a dance with a hot roaster :D
That Light at the End of the Tunnel is actually a train

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drgary
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#20: Post by drgary »

I was interested when reading Rob Hoos's book that he would keep everything uniform and vary one stage by less than a minute. That would yield big taste differences. I think it's much harder to roast by the senses alone without timing things or watching the curve. Sure, it's easy to know you charged hot or dropped not far into first crack. But other variables affect taste also.
Gary
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What I WOULD do for a good cup of coffee!