One Roaster's Manifesto- coffee roasting book

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

I reviewed an upcoming book on roasting that will be released shortly. A project that Robert Hoos has been working on for quite some time. It offers some new perspectives on approaching a profile that should prove helpful for many. I have no commercial interest in the project at all and I was actually reviewing/copy editing the book before reviewing the coffees Gary chose from Nossa Familia (Roastery that Robert roasts for) in our recent HB review.

I think we all benefit when experienced pros share their methods and reasons for things pertaining to developing a roast, so I'm excited to see this finally come to fruition.
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zammie
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#2: Post by zammie »

Wow, thanks for the info! Any idea when the book will be available? In your opinion is the book targeted towards the casual home roaster or fellow pros (i.e. technical in approach)?
dizzy

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SlowRain
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#3: Post by SlowRain »

I always feel bad that my Chinese isn't very good. There seem to be so many coffee roasting books available here, but there seems to be a huge hole in English-language books, which seems odd considering the US, the UK, and Australia seem to be leading the way. Hopefully Rao's book, and this new one, will be a sign of things to come.

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TomC (original poster)
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#4: Post by TomC (original poster) »

zammie wrote:Wow, thanks for the info! Any idea when the book will be available? In your opinion is the book targeted towards the casual home roaster or fellow pros (i.e. technical in approach)?

Ordering will be available this Friday and I believe it will ship shortly thereafter. I don't know the price. Initially, his roastery will be making the book available to customers since they're already set up for ordering, shipping of goods.

It's a book you can read thru in one long sitting. It's not Dostoyevski, I think it's under 70 pages, hence the "manifesto", so that's something to keep in mind. The best way I can describe it is if you took a condensed review of the scientific literature that's out there and blended it with what experience he has as a professional roaster; combined them and made it relatively easy to read and understand why things happen in the profile and what they reveal in the cupping table. It doesn't cover everything in a roast profile, but it focuses in on some interesting points.

In my opinion, the best way to get improve once you've mastered your equipment and have the foundational knowledge is to focus on your sensory/analytical skills and being consistently able to make micro adjustments to a profile,always looking for ways to improve the results in the cup. This book doesn't really touch on the basic foundational stuff, it already assumes the reader knows the terminology and gear commonly used in roasting. Personally, I welcome any addition to the lexicon of coffee roasting. I wish we had this stuff back when I got started. For experienced roasters, the book might just be an agreement with what they've already carved out, knowledge wise, put in plain text (minus the use of the word "modulate", I couldn't convince him to change that). :mrgreen: But I imagine most will be able to garner some valuable insight from it. Just keep in mind, he's a professional roaster, not a professional writer.
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SlowRain
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#5: Post by SlowRain »

Would you say it's a natural followup to Rao's book? Maybe not in the sense of agreement on roasting methodology, but in a sense of taking roasting profiles to the next level.

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TomC (original poster)
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#6: Post by TomC (original poster) »

I think it's a very good question. I'm trying to come up with a decent comparative explanation. Maybe we all like ice cream and Roa's is strawberry and Hoos' is chocolate... I don't know how well that helps. His short book expounds on development,ramping, etc, the why's and how's and what the cupping results based on timed samples pulled from the roaster and a few other things. In my opinion, it reads like someone with a lot of passion and curiosity and the experience to drive the project, but is just starting to get his feet wet. There's plenty of talking points within the book that will likely be expounded upon more down the line ( I'm only guessing). Only because it's not a 400 page breakdown of every minute detail associated with turning green coffee brown.
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heavyduty
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#7: Post by heavyduty »

Tomorrow came sooner than expected.

Paul

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yakster
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#8: Post by yakster »

Thanks for the link, love this quote from the interview:
Rob Hoos wrote:Many times, home enthusiasts can be just as particular, if not more so, than people that roast for a living.
-Chris

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cimarronEric
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#9: Post by cimarronEric »

Cimarron Coffee Roasters
www.cimarronroasters.com

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keno
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#10: Post by keno »

Review of the book is available here at Daily Coffee News:

One Roaster's 66-Page Manifesto on Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee

Edit: Oops, just noticed someone already posted the link above.

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