I'm not sure I saw discussion of this in here, but someone posted it in the Bullet R1 facebook group and I'm very intrigued. I'll be trying to replicate it myself in a roast on the bullet in the near future. I just find it fascinating, and secretly love, that this curve is the opposite of everything we talk about in this forum. Very long (baked... heh) and the ROR is increasing, then decreasing.

This type of curve seems to be similar to the "heat soak" type methodology we sometimes discuss on here. Additionally, I think some people on here have found success with stretching out the roast to first crack, with the focus simply being on entering first with sufficient energy and then have a nice descent from there.

Thoughts ?

https://legacy.sweetmarias.com/library/ ... t-profile/

Back to the drawing board???

If you are referring to the declining RoR, etc., 'rules' from Rao's book, then he has stated that he is assuming high-grown hard bean washed coffees roasted on, for lack of a better term, Probat UG-ish-style roasters - and thus, implicitly the temperature measurement technology, e.g., probe placement restrictions, that go with that style of roaster. Pretty much none of those assumptions are applicable to what you have posted - neither the green processing, nor the roaster technology, nor the temperature measurement - so why would one think that the 'rules' must be applied?

As an aside, FWIW, if I had a Burundi honey-processed - which I have never roasted - then I would start by watching this video from Neal Wilson @n3roaster a few dozen times: https://video.typica.us/videos/watch/12 ... 4aa0c6b8c0

As a second aside, SM was one of about 200 coffees that received a Bronze in the filter category. (There were about a dozen silver winners and one gold winner in the category. There are 11 categories.) At Golden Bean, Bronze doesn't mean what one might assume.

As a practical matter, small changes in slow ROR should exaggerate the change in ROR curve while bean temperature gradually rises. What looks like a crash or flick in that roast may only be a small fluctuation that doesn't adversely impact flavor development.

Funny to read this as I've been thinking about changing my approach to roasting...over the last year or so as I've been disappointed in most coffees and roasts...it's not that they taste bad...they just don't taste incredible...I have been chasing a ghost in that I've yet to taste or smell a roasted coffee that remotely compares to the first few roasts I ever did which was 5 years ago...the funny thing is that they bucked conventional wisdom and took 20-25 minutes to reach first crack. But the smells and tastes of those coffees blew anything away I've done recently while trying to follow the general normal guidelines....so I'm going to do a little experimenting with drawn out drying and pre first crack development. I do remember that when first crack hit...it went on for a couple minutes and then I dumped the beans so I definitely wasn't stretching out the post crack development...I'm not sure I need to draw out drying time...but that time between the end of drying and first crack...I'm going to play around with that...

Just one person's perspective: though I think it's a valid point that Rao was writing primarily with those classic drum designs (and sizes) in mind, the impression I have often gotten on HB's roasting forum and several other forums across the web (whether intended or not by proponents of Rao's rules) is that everyone is trying to achieve Rao's rules on their roasters (no matter the roaster type: anything ranging from commercial drums, to Mill City 500g and 1kg, to Quests, to hacked DIY models, to fluid beds, to modded corn poppers).

In that sense, it seems funny to me to exclude roasts that are outliers of Rao's rules on the basis of differences of machinery when, as I said above, if I were beginning as a roaster (on some sort of home, non-commercial machine) and looking for tips online, my perspective is that the predominant message I'd find online would have to do with charging hot enough, having a descending RoR, and not exceeding 25% dev time? (regardless if I have a popper, a Quest, etc)

Maybe my experience has been skewed that direction though, and online forums are more balanced in this regard. Even so, to agree with Jason above, I feel sometimes like my best roasts are behind me (back when they didn't all follow the norms), and that it'd be better to just continually keep an open mind and palate without boxing myself into dogma (no matter whether it's Rao's, someone else's, my own, etc)

+1 ^ All of this.

Rao does make it clear that his advice is limited to commercial sized, classic drum roasters.

I have to admit that I've had some tasty roasts on my Aillio Bullet that break Rao's rules.

+1 to most of the above on comparing apples to oranges

Could it also be that regardless of roast profile our tastes develope and our brains become more accustomed to good roasts so the WOW factor is less?

Compare it to thrill seekers requiring more adrenaline, car enthusiasts lusting for more power even when the previous car already snapped a few necks, etc.

Going from a mediocre bean/roast to a decent bean/roast is major step, from decent to good another one, but then you may well walk into the realm of the law of diminishing returns. There sure are differences when comparing good coffees but when measuring them with the wrong scale the subtle nuances likley go unnoticed...
Just recently I noticed my 'baseline' has gone up considerably when getting a 'house roasted' medium cappa with two double shots on the go in a decent looking coffe shop: most coffee elsewere tastes horrible and this was real acidic right through the milk.
I too thought for a for a bit that my progress in roasting is less...I currently suspect the progress is there but it's found in the finer nuances of the final product OR my palate is at it's ceiling. Would it not be great to have a time capsule roast from the past to compare...