Just now I am sipping a dark roasted washed Ethiopian espresso shot that was pulled right off the roaster. This is a new bean for me and I did my usual light roast of it before this dark batch that I am sipping. I chose this bean because it wasn't a hugely expensive prized Ethiopian, but likely has good fruit forward acidity. My thinking is that when roasting darker I will loose most if not all the acidity. But if there is a lot in the beginning, I may end up with some that would help support some sweetness. I ditched the steady declining RoR approach and focused on leveling out the BT curve just after dry and then add heat before FC to reach 2C in a reasonable amount of time.



So I did not quite match my roast plan that I used Artisan Designer for. I did succeed to stretch out Mailliard and preserve a ton of moisture for a healthy FC. During Mailliard, I almost had my burners off and air off with only the drum providing heating. My thinking is that this would preserve moisture. I did significantly increase air mid Mailliard when I bumped up the gas. Interesting how cool my drum was and I was surprised my MET (input air) temp was rather cool. I was a bit afraid to crank gas too much in this area of the roast since this is often where tipping can occur. My FC did cause a healthy crash, which I made no attempts to manage. I ended the roast after very high BT temps with some cracks which likely were some 2C. But otherwise 2C wasn't making much noises.

The espresso I am enjoying does have some sweetness and even some complexity. There is no signs of acidity. But the dark roasty flavors are present, but no more than the Saka Top Select. In fact it does taste pretty close to Top Select, possibly with more complexity. There is a long lasting flavor similar to these Neapolian style roasts. Now, I have no idea what the bean really has for flavors. I will have to wait a week for the lighter roast to settle in on a flavor. Meanwhile, I think the next few days are going to be interesting with this dark roast. I'm thinking it isn't going in trash.

I remember reading somewhere on the Saka website that their roast range is between 15 and 20 minutes. That is a key parameter. It seems they roast on a UG15 and a Geisen W15 from IG pics.

I contacted them and am purchasing a bag of each of their coffees.

Really interesting thread,
Maybe Neapolitan style includes lesser airflow and rpm, means more conduction and roasted slower to avoid scorching?

Alan, if I remember correctly, haven't you tried similar kind of roast back in the past ? that is really long and tasted very sweet ?

sareea wrote:Maybe Neapolitan style includes lesser airflow and rpm

I would think good air would be necessary for dry phase and end of development. I think I have heard too little air during development can result in smoke flavors with dark roasts. But once you finish dry, the drum carries a lot of useful heat to steadily warm the roast.

Donno about slow drum speeds.

I have looked into their instagram
One of their videos shows that they do back to back roasting, maybe thats why they soak with high charge temp ?


They do have a lot of smoke coming out of the roast in the end, so maybe really minimal airflow. Or really dark.

Almico wrote:I remember reading somewhere on the Saka website that their roast range is between 15 and 20 minutes. That is a key parameter. It seems they roast on a UG15 and a Geisen W15 from IG pics.

I contacted them and am purchasing a bag of each of their coffees.

That's great. If you provide tasting notes on them it will give a clear benchmark for what you report on your own roasts (you become the measuring instrument for both).

sareea wrote:Really interesting thread,
Maybe Neapolitan style includes lesser airflow and rpm, means more conduction and roasted slower to avoid scorching?

Alan, if I remember correctly, haven't you tried similar kind of roast back in the past ? that is really long and tasted very sweet ?

That's a blast from the past

35 Minute Roasts?!

If I recall my takeaway was that no roast can be that good to justify 35 minutes. I'm getting great FC roasts in 10.

That said, I would try a 20 to see what might happen.

Did delta BT exist at all back then?

Interesting idea...get some low grown Brazilian or similar and give this a try...