Yup, Rao is coming back to Montreal as co-owner of a new co-roasting space called "The Canadian Roasting Society."

The Canadian Roasting Society is pleased to present a coffee roasting Masterclass with Scott Rao. This masterclass is unlike any other offered in the world. whether you are a novice roaster or a veteran with decades of experience, Scott guarantees you will leave with plenty of useful new ideas and methods to implement at your roastery.

The class will include:
Two hours of lecture
Thirty minutes of Q&A
Cupping and curve analysis of the "Roast Defect Kit" to demonstrate good, baked, and underdeveloped roasts.

Bring all of your curiosity and most pressing questions. We guarantee your satisfaction or your ticket is free.

Also, as a bonus, come back after the roasting class for the grand-opening party of CRS, complete with a Demo and competition on the Decent Espresso Machine, beer, wine, and lots of lovely coffee people.

Grand opening is November 17.

https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/11/4 ... asterclass

The 'masterclass' is $300CAD, but the grand-opening party is open.

Anyone else going to the class and/or the opening? I signed up for the class; and will probably drive down from Ottawa for the day.

There were about 40 participants. Chuck and I were by far the oldest people there .

As for the class being 'worth it,' well, it depends on your perspective. I would say the content was worth $150-$200, but then add in the cost of flying Rao in from California and his travel expenses and you're pretty close to $289 (the remaining $11 were service fees). I am a consulting statistician and the fees/costs are right in line with what I have charged for similar sessions.

For RoI, if you are a professional roaster, then Rao more-or-less covered what he would do if he was starting a consulting contract with your roastery. $300 is an absolute bargain from that perspective. As a consultant, Scott's experience is mostly with small-medium gas drum production roasters like Probats. Thus, if you're using something else, then you'd have to interpret what he is prescribing within your context. For example, his primary means of adjustment is gas; he doesn't do much with airflow or drum speed during a roast.

What you are paying for is his experience, and his opinions formulated based on that experience. Chuck showed him some of his roasting curves from his Huky and Scott was immediately able to prescribe something to try for each curve presented. Of course, we don't know if Rao was 'right' yet ...

Other than what is covered in his book, the biggest insight that I learned from from the class was that roasting can be viewed from the perspective of controlling the release (and rate or release) of water from green coffee. If you have his book, then have a look at the graph from page 30. Essentially - in my words, not his - the simulation curve (brown) is "wrong," and the experimental data (blue dots) is "right," i.e., the first sentence underneath the graph is "wrong." You time your gas changes with respect to the changing slopes of the decrease in moisture content, especially those slope changes around/before first crack ... as a corollary, the shape of the bean temp S/RoR curve (what we can approximate with a probe) is not the goal, as one can adjust the gas to get a pretty bean temp curve/constantly declining RoR that doesn't hold up in the cup. However, proper (in his estimation) timing and adjustments of the gas will give pretty graphs and good cups (which is what is in his book).