Another topic I've thought of recently....

From the point where you drop a roast, to the progression over the next several days - how does the smell of the whole, roasted, bean change? Is there something you've noticed in the smell, which can correlate to certain choices you made during the roast? This could be all in my head but I swear that my best roasts are CLEAN smelling when I stick my nose in the pile of beans (yes I enjoy doing this LOL). I've found most roasts have a toastyness to them when I initially drop them, which fades after 24 hours, and fruit starts to emerge - this is more noticable with fruit bomb DP ethiopian coffee.

HOWEVER, I'm wondering if I have too much toastyness and its a sign of something I'm doing during the roast. I usually don't develop a bean more than 25F (from FCs to roast end) - so fairly light in general - but obviously this isn't the whole story of everything that happened with the bean during the roast. The obvious thing would be too much energy during ROR, but maybe I have too much heat during maillard, or in some cases maillard is too long. Just curious if there is any correlation, and something I could potentially try.

This is something I spend time thinking about that too Joe! I think smell, being the more acute sense in comparison to taste is a better reference for initial impressions of a roast. Plus the trier is obviously used for similar reasons during the roast. In terms of whole beans I think I usually find that the coffee smells more or less the same a day off roast (this is my experience, others probably have better roasting skills and their coffee smells like "candy" right out of the barrel). But that being said, I usually smell the whole beans multiple times a day while they rest up until I cup or brew them. I find that they smell like bread when fresh and then as the days progress and more CO2 is being driven off, the nuances become clearer. I view it like fog being driven away really, the fresher the beans the "foggier" they are, the attributes are obscured by gasses, then with more time things start to "clear up" and your initial impressions are either reinforced or changed. I usually start to smell good stuff more clearly about 3 or so days after and if I did scorch or roast too fast, I can smell it immediately after roast and it doesn't go away.

When I give someone a bag of coffee I've roasted, the first thing they do is squeeze the bag and smell...and "ahhh"
It's a very reassuring reaction. Mostly folks other than me aren't smelling for fruits. They're smelling for good fresh roasted coffee.
If I tell tell them to watch for the sweetness or the berry or the spice, they look at me askance.
I do love the smell of fresh roasted coffee after about 2 days. But, even more, I love the smell of the grind. And, I think the ground coffee often smells different from the whole bean.
I've learned over many years to really appreciate the progression. From newly roasted, to a few days after, to grind, to brew.

Yes, the dry grounds do smell different. They will ultimately be your first 'real look' into how your roast turned out as you're releasing all those locked up enzymatic properties. The fragrance (smell of the dry grounds) can tell you a lot more than WB but then again, that's only talking about coffee w/o water. During triangulation cuppings some people can tell which is the odd coffee out simply by smelling the dry grounds. Granted that's a very select context and not the whole picture of the coffee but it goes to show how much sensory information is coming out of the coffee in that stage. With WB it's much, much harder I believe.

Yeah I'm not talking about dry fragrance of the grounds. I'm also not talking about a layman's sense of smell of the beans in a bag - they're not going to pick up on what I'm talking about.

I'm just referencing if anyone has correlated a roast brewing well in the cup, with how those whole beans smell after drop, after 1 day rest, 2 day rest, etc. It also probably varies by origin. Difficult to track but my hypothesis is if I'm getting faint toastyness 2+ days post roast, I did something wrong. Meanwhile, as I said, these beans from George Howell are very "clean" smelling. I believe I can confidently say that all of my best brews have been from roasts with fantastic, clean, smelling beans. I don't have much left of this Panama Elida bean but I'm going to take it much lighter next time - first crack was so faint, I missed it and sure enough did go darker as I see some beans with a little bit of oil sneaking out (hard to tell from color because they're a natural). Will be interesting to observe the initial smell with that lighter drop.

Interestingly, if I take a bean darker, to full city plus, the initial smell after 30 minutes post roast is actually better than a light roast - more sweet. However, 5 days later, the actual sweetness in the cup (taste) is better with a lighter roast.

Yeah, I hear you. I am conflicted about the WB smell @ drop being a reliable indicator of future taste in cup. GH stores their coffee in valved bags and it is never 2 days old when it gets to a customers door I would think, unless you are quite local. Maybe they hose a little nitrogen into the bag before they seal it? I mean, GH cups all their production roasts to ensure they taste within spec so the whole bean smell post drop could be part of the build up process to the cupping table. Maybe none of their batches smell "toasty" in the tray or 1 day off roast or maybe they do but the toastiness goes away sooner. The only real way to find out would be to smell a batch of GH dropped right out of the tray and see what you get or brew a cup of 1-2 day old GH but neither is realistic You could email them and ask if they rest their coffee for a certain amount of time.

I guess I have never been around a batch of dropped coffee that smelled so fantastic in the cooling tray I couldn't wait to drink it but that obvi doesn't mean it's not possible. I have had a cup of coffee 30 minutes after drop on 11kg that was incredible but smelled like roasted coffee at drop and another cup that tasted "foggy" brewed 30 minutes after drop but then great 2 days later. The "clean" smell could just be related to good airflow evacuation during the roast or a coffee with no plateau/'hump' pre-FC or crash and flick *sigh and shrug*