I'll roast another batch today, not sure how much I can incorporate. I'll give it all a try and see what happens. Any tips on preheating the hive? It would be a challenge to load it when hot...

Also lighter roasts is not something that's particularly appealing. The heat management on the Robot, given my environment, becomes impractical. As for all the roasts tasting the same when dumped at 225, I seriously beg to differ. I've now tried 4 different blends and they are very distinct.

Ok new batch roasted. I preheated the Hive, it took a lot less time this time around. I still doubt I'd be able to get this down to 8 minutes. Naturally I wont know what it tastes like until I try it tomorrow.



The results:

I looked up your boat. Quite the adventure you have going on with her. My hats off to you just on the coolness factor.

the color of the beans IMO does not reflect 225 drop temp (as far as I can tell from a picture), if I go over 212 the beans start to shine real quick, bleeding oils. I have a Robot too and have no issue pulling beans roasted to 208 C- 212 C without doing more than pouring boiling water in the basket letting it sit for 20 sec and redoing that before pulling shots.
Perhaps your BT is a bit enthusiastic?

I wouldn't know as I have no basis of comparison here. I'm using the pnp version of the Hive so I don't know if that's a bit enthusiastic or not. If there's someone who can provide a frame of reference it might be helpful...

sure, for now I'd go with what works. If your beans taste good and don't sweat oils you should be fine !
That last profile looks a lot better than the previous one, I'd suggest to try shorten up the total time. If you hit tipping/scorching you can always back off the heat for the next round, if the process is anything like my Illy can-on-a-stick repeatability is low.

I think the only way to bring the time down is to get more aggressive with pre-heating. The reduced time is nice since it's a lot less effort. You're right about the taste in the cup. It's easy to over think things and get too complicated, then forgetting it's about the taste in the cup.

I haven't pulled a shot with the latest roast yet, those beans need to sit for at least a day or they are too in your face. I'll try them today and report back.

As for the greens, it seems I can at least store them for a month on the boat in a ziplock bag. I might get a bit more "scientific" with the next lot of beans that should get here in the next few days. I'm thinking that I should put some to the side and "age" them. Try a small amount once a week (maybe month) after a set amount of time. That way I don't have to start at zero with a new batch every time I order.

TenLayers wrote:I looked up your boat. Quite the adventure you have going on with her. My hats off to you just on the coolness factor.

I see you're into woodworking, that's awesome, you will like our little boat then

Adventure is about right, we get our kicks from cheap (even free) thrills..

Just pulled a shot with 50% (left overs from previous batch too) of the beans I roasted yesterday. It was pretty good until the last part, a bit of a burnt after taste. I suspect that the beans may have been burnt by the hot Hive. I'm not 100% sure, but will be able to tell when I have another shot tomorrow.

I'm not convinced the beans are burnt, it might just have been part of the after taste...

The coffee is actually pretty good even though I don't care too much for this blend...

I'm probably due to roast another batch today or tomorrow, will update again if people are still interested.