Roast and Learn Together - December 2014

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

Time for a stellar Kenyan. I had the good fortune of trying this when it was only at Shrub and I'm thrilled that it was brought over to Sweet Maria's for smaller purchases. This coffee should offer a multitude of options for delicious results with varying levels of development. I'm thinking of some blind triangulation cupping of various roast development levels and discussing the differences for this month.

http://www.sweetmarias.com/store/coffee ... ya-aa.html
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[creative nickname]
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#2: Post by [creative nickname] »

Nice pick. I had just ordered some of this which arrived a few days ago, but I haven't had a chance to roast any yet. I like your idea to do some blind comparisons, and look forward to playing along!
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danaleighton
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#3: Post by danaleighton »

If I wanted to join in, are there some instructions or protocol to follow?
Dana Leighton
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TomC (original poster)
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#4: Post by TomC (original poster) »

We have some guidelines that were set up just so we're speaking as closely to the same language as possible. I'll link to it when I get in front of a laptop again (unless someone else is willing).

The learning comes from a shared experience and maybe nailing down some common findings, but ( I) try not to get too deep into more esoteric points because of the wide amount of variability between roasters, environments, etc. I'll be able to write more, later.
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kellzey
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#5: Post by kellzey »

I'd be interested too, as a first timer with my new Huky

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johnny4lsu
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#6: Post by johnny4lsu »

5lbs ordered...Looks good

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NoStream
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#7: Post by NoStream »

It so happens that I bought a pound of this immediately after it was released, having loved SM's Gatomboya AA in the past.

In any case, I'll taste Monday's properly-executed slow-start, fast-finish tomorrow and add notes below. (Properly-executed does not imply correct, of course.) Sadly, the fast-start, slow-finish was botched (tons of moisture in 1c from this coffee caused stalling and a 29% development ratio - I'll taste it anyway), so I'll probably buy a two pound bag so I can profile more. I'm currently experimenting with lowering my fan settings after struggling to retain aromatics in my roasts, so I'll probably use this coffee as a springboard for those investigations.

Green coffee: Gatomboya AA, Nyeri, Kenya
Green coffee density: High
Green coffee processing: Washed, Kenya Process

Roast date:10/24/14
Roaster: Quest M3

Charge weight: 150.0g
Charge temp: 400 F MET

Moisture loss: 12.8%
"Dry"/Ramp/Development: 5:12/3:21/1:39, 10:12 total (vs. 5-3:15-1:15 goal)
FC-start temp: 379 F
Finish Temp: 402.5 F

This roast went mostly according to plan other than an extended development time due to tons of moisture in the green coffee. In retrospect, I should've noticed and applied heat more aggressively for my slow-finish profile, which wound up stalling out.



Notes, 4 days post

V60
~1:17 ratio, 203.5 F, 2:20 for 179.5 g beverage
1.36 TDS, 20.34% extraction

Aroma: Honey-nectar, cherry, mango, cinnamon - so sweet!

Taste: Super intense with concentrated honey-nectar sweetness throughout the palate and a bit of a rustic molasses edge to the sweetness (not unpleasant). There's bright tropical fruit and a bit of spice. There's some red wine character reminiscent of a fruit-forward Malbec. As it cools, there's lime, blueberry, and raspberry, but this coffee is definitely a citrus and tropical fruit forward Kenya rather than a berry bomb - and that's most definitely what I prefer.

My flawed 29% development roast was actually pretty interesting and drinkable. It really brought out the spice character and a tobacco quality. I served it to some non-coffee-loving family members, and they loved it, but then again, they would've hated the roast that I loved. The overly long development time profile reminded me of what I was served in Wrecking Ball a few months ago.

Roasty
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#8: Post by Roasty »

Just roasted through 2 pounds of this, using it to experiment on my new Quest. I didn't have my Phidget for the first pound, so no artisan graphs. The last pound I just botched several times because of the crazy stalling that NoStream seemed to run into also. My last roast, and only graph of this coffee, I was barely able to avoid stalling by ramping up my Quest to full power (Which you can see sends the MET through the roof). Anyway, here is my info (I have still yet to play with Artisan much . . . sorry for the pathetic graph, I hope to figure it out soon):

Green coffee: Gatomboya AA, Nyeri, Kenya
Green coffee density: High
Green coffee processing: Washed, Kenya Process

Roast date:12/4/14
Roaster: Quest M3

Charge weight: 130.0g
Charge temp: 422 F MET

Moisture loss: 13.6%
"Dry"/Ramp/Development: 5:06/3:36/2:12, 10:54 total
FC-start temp: 383 F
Finish Temp: 405 F

I'll post the brew in a few days.


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

This Kenyan is incredibly good with milk, as a SO espresso it's dynamite. The cinnamon is very pleasing, and not a stereotypical dry distillate oddball that some cinnamon notes can be. It also seems to be a note that everyone is finding in common with this coffee. I got tons and tons of honey, plums and cinnamon.

Historically, I've found that Kenyan's either due to their size or density or both, really tend to need a long development time. Too short and the acidity is unbalanced/high with the undeveloped flavor profile.

If you have several profiles that are adequately rested, I encourage you to blindly triangulate and cup 2+1 and share your findings here.

I don't care what side of the fence you sit on with Rao's development concepts, they're all worthy of exploration and discussion. I'd just ask that you don't discount a particular profile because it doesn't fit in a prescribed window.
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TomC (original poster)
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#10: Post by TomC (original poster) »

I should have followed my intuition and ran a different coffee first, since this is one of the new roasts since I reorganized my Artisan 9.0 setup. I had played around with it early on, but saw some things I wanted to tweak. Tonight when I started, I went with the Kenyan first, which was a mistake. My graph is a mess and tons of things were wrong (no BT ROR, lots of artifact,etc).

Basically, I took 150g thru a fast start, slow finish like I intended. Dry at 4:00/373°, 1Cs @ 7:12/373°, with a 2:00 dev time finishing at 380°, which gave me 13.1% weight loss. I don't trust what my BT was showing value wise and will have to investigate that ( I have never had a coffee finish anywhere near that low).
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