mgrayson wrote: Guatamala Blue Ayarza Espresso- Great day 1, Great day 3.

Just roasted up a batch of the Guat for filter. It looks great, so can't wait to try it.

mgrayson wrote:Well, a lot of energy has to transfer to the beans, and it's only coming from the air, so there has to be a temperature drop.

I hear you. Once the beans hit similar Temps as the original airflow, that should steady, right? I wonder if its safe to assume a 100 degree delta from initial temp to exhaust airflow.

Separately (more broadly to the community), is there any value in creating a separate thread that matches various Green beans with Ikawa Roast profiles? Id like to believe that given how many of us now own the Ikawa Home, there may be value in sharing bean recipes. Thoughts?

Zambia Isanya Kateshi, Filter Medium +, Day 3, prepared as espresso. First impression - earth. After a few seconds, spice, then a pulse of bitterness, settling into a long aftertaste of dark coffee. All of these still tastable after adding steamed milk. Quite comforting, which is a marked contrast to just post-roast, when it seemed undrinkable.

Greens from outside the Ikawa world due today, so things will get - well, probably frustrating.

Matt

I've spent this afternoon roasting greens from non-Ikawa sources. I'm trying their generic profiles - have to start somewhere. But now I have a problem - what to do with honey processed greens. Ikawa provides profiles for Natural and Washed, but not Honey. Any advice on how to approach it? For example: use profile X, but dump the beans after 2 minutes of development? Or is it simply "it's the same as washed for most of your generic roasting purposes." Or "you're doomed. Go back to Klatch."

Any advice welcome,

Matt

Good advice, certainly. But has anyone EVER followed good advice to beginners? It usually takes years of work to appreciate the importance of good advice. How many people start making espresso by getting consistent and then varying one parameter at a time to understand its effect? How many piano students practice slowly? Ok, so I *did* ask for advice, and here I am complaining. Apologies!

I'll dump my exotica in the freezer and do as you suggest. I quite like Guatemalan, so it won't be a hardship. And the Ikawa subscription looks to be the only coffee they sell that doesn't have hideously expensive shipping. Edit: No, shipping is free if you order enough....

Not sure if this is me falling into the trap, but I just purchased 6 different varieties from Ikawa (not the sampler) and got free shipping. Due to arrive Monday (4 day ship time, 20% off).

I thought about this a lot before buying. Even without the advanced editor, the generic coffee provides 30 different profiles - 15 each for espresso and filter. But there's also each Ikawa-provided coffee's curves and *their* 30 variations. And finally, you can choose a long development time and then go into the cooling cycle at any time prior to the curve's end. I was thinking, probably naively, that with, for example, a non-Ikawa Ethiopian, I might start with Ikawa's Ethiopian curves.

And one can do both. There are always the Ikawa coffees. And it's good that they provide a target. If I teach myself roasting without good examples from the same machine, I might just fix upon a mediocre result and think that that's as good as it gets. This happened the last time I tried roasting a decade ago.

You're right that it isn't a standard roaster, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to learn about its behavior. (And I only got 10 pounds of Guatemalan. And my family adds milk and sweetener - they'll be happy with it forever. And so far, of the Ikawa coffees, I like the Guatemalan best. So this isn't really a hardship.)