Wow Ken
Thanks for the update and the super-great post. I'm inspired.

Looks like you got yourself a pretty nice "little" machine there, and I'm very sure you will enjoy playing with your new toy much as I have enjoyed playing with mine. It's a huge bonus that you got to spend time with Mr. Diedrich. I always appreciate getting face-time with knowledgable folks because it's more than just fun, it is truly enriching.

BTW - I feel this way about participating in these forums as well. I'll pause to say THANKS to everyone here (and at CG) that have offered the benefit of learned wisdoms to help me along the path.

Somehow, I envision lots of tests and extra roasting in your near future. I'll suggest buying a fairly large bag of some reasonably tasty (and *very* inexpensive) coffee that friends and family may enjoy even if the roasting profile for any given batch is sub-optimal.

Oh - and as a fellow home-roasting enthusiast who has recently changed to a new and very different roasting format after years of getting good-to-great results, I will echo Jim....

another_jim wrote:In other words, have fun learning to roast all over again

Ken Fox wrote:I'm going to ask you, gentle readers, to completely disregard everything I have ever posted on the subject of coffee roasting.

No problem, Ken, that's what we've been doing all along.

Ken Fox wrote:A lot of the information I received today basically contradicts a lot of what I've learned over the last 6 or 7 years...
...Stephen does not like the term "drying phase" and does not think one should seek to get the moisture out of the beans early on in the roasting process...
...Another point he made which was similarly discordant with my previous impressions was that first crack should not occur until 11 to 13 minutes into the roast...
...Likewise, he did not like the idea of an interval of 4 to 5 minutes between the onset of first crack and the end of the roast, rather he felt that 2 to 2.5 minutes was better...

Is this stuff really so radical? It simply seems like a change in emphasis or style. As Jim said, a different machine may work better with a different profile. And the "drying phase" thing -- who cares about what label we give the early part of the roast?

Ken Fox wrote:He certainly believes rather strongly about his approach, which he believes produces the best results.

Does he sell his roasts commercially, so that his claims are subject to the judgment of the marketplace? Or are we merely hearing his personal rants?

Ken Fox wrote:My days of being dogmatic about this stuff are over.

Easier said than done. So far it appears that you have merely been harangued by different dogmas. Hopefully in a few months you will have forgotten all about them, and you'll be roasting away on your new machine with great results.

AndyS wrote:Does he sell his roasts commercially, so that his claims are subject to the judgment of the marketplace? Or are we merely hearing his personal rants?

I don't believe Stephen's company sells any coffee at all, but his brother Martin's does and is well respected for it (See Kean Coffee reports on this site and elsewhere). In addition to feedback from Martin, Stephen also has constant reports from his many commercial roasting customers. So, whatever Stephen's opinions may be, they certainly weren't formed in a silo.

AndyS wrote:And the "drying phase" thing -- who cares about what label we give the early part of the roast?

My thoughts when I read Ken's OP was to question whether we are talking about widely different roasting styles/curves or is it just a matter of nomenclature?

peacecup wrote:Does this mean you're also going to be less dogmatic about consuming the stuff within two weeks of the roast date?

I had related experience when I moved overseas and could no longer reliably obtain freshly-roasted coffee. A review of my earlier posts here on HB demonstrates just how much I focused on bean freshness - basically I went to great lengths to get 1-2 day-old beans.

When I moved to Sweden I was more or less constrained to buying "best before" date Italian-roasted beans which I assumed would produce the same flat, crema-less, awful-tasting swill that I got whenever I used stale (i.e. > 4 week-old) American-roasted beans. To my very pleasant surprise I've found blends from a few Italian roasters that far-exceeded my expectations, and in fact taste as good or better as the best N. Am. blends I've tried. I've even gone to the length recently of contacting the roaster and coordinating my purchase with the delivery to retailer here. This assures me of the "freshest" beans, but there are at best a few weeks past roast date. And I know first-hand that as long as the 1-way valve is working, these beans stay "fresh" on the market shelf a month or two, and preserve quite well in the FREEZER for a couple months after that (by the way, a roaster here once gave me the same "never-freeze" advice, which I kindly disregarded based on your own well-executed study).

So, I raise up my cup to the end of dogmatism.

PC

I'm willing to be "dogmatic" (in regards to myself I'd prefer to say "insistent") when it comes to freshness in coffee. My "dogmatism" in this regard is based 100% on my own personal experience. Likewise, I'm very comfortable with using freezing for preservation of freshly roasted coffee, as I have tested this extensively and I know that neither I nor any of the tasters I've worked with on my "experiments" could reliably tell the difference blinded, either.

It is always important, however, to define what one means and why one feels that way when it comes to opinions like this. In my case, I drink almost entirely espresso when at home, and almost always use single origins. The single origins that I prefer tend to be "fruity" or to have a chocolaty component. Both of these I have found to have fairly brief "peak flavor windows" when these qualities are most evident. Once these qualities fade, I no longer like the coffees better than most any other "good" but "stale" coffee.

When it comes to blends, they tend to have different flavor profiles than what I am looking for. My own experience with blends I have liked (mostly in the past) was that they also had peak periods of usefulness however those were a little less distinct, perhaps because the several coffees in the blend would peak at slightly different periods, post roast.

When it comes to using something like Italian espresso blends purchased off the shelf with no roast date, my only experience has been with Lavazza Super Crema and to some extent, Illy. My usage of these blends was off in the distant past, and I'm sure I would regard the shots I made in that era to be undrinkable now, given how my taste in coffee has evolved. My own experience with this stuff is so limited and so "stale" that I really have no opinion on using it.

ken

Carneiro wrote:Nice roaster, great thread! Congratulations!

I already had more than two coffees (Brazilian) flat just around 4 minutes after first crack using the Quest M3. And get nice roasts with a longer first phase.

I'm curious: does he advocate for a first 2-3 minute of little flow, medium air flow until the first crack and high air flow at the end (well, that should help to get what he advocate, to keep more moisture during the roast and to finish it faster).

I think Peter Dupont says something similar using Diedrich, the initial phase with little air flow and no flame - but the roaster has a great thermal mass to work like that.

Márcio.

He uses minimal airflow early on, then increases to about half through the drum, then later to all through the drum; this is done with a 3-position damper that controls air flow through the cooling tray vs. through the drum. This was more temperature (BT) based than it was "time-based." He uses the burner flow (e.g. heat input) as his "speed control," like an accelerator in a car. The roast he did with me was for seasoning the drum, but I did not see him fiddle with the gas at all. It was set on about 7" of water column on the gas flow gauge. He did say that normally he uses a timer/stopwatch when he roasts, which he did not have handy at that time so that probably explains why there was not fiddling with the gas flow.

ken

Whale wrote:Ken, congratulation on a great looking roaster.

I just love big control panel that will allow you to introduce whatever modification and controls that you are sure to dream up!

What is in the cooling pan? At first I though it was the trier but it is in its position. Is there now a mixer?

Enjoy! And please post pictures and comments of this learning experience.

Sylvain

Hi Sylvain,

I don't really see any role for mods in this roaster, and would be very reluctant to do them. The only useful mod I can think of would be to PID the gas flow. The way the gas is set up, there is electronic ignition that is controlled with a valve and various safety devices (presumably to meet various codes and to obtain safety certifications). I am not competent to modify gas plumbing and given the risks (such as burning down my house) I'm not real interested in doing this.

There is a bean scoop in the cooling pan, which it turns out is included with the roaster purchase (no T-shirt, however ).

The only other picture I have of my visit to Diedrich is one taken of both me and Stephen Diedrich next to the roaster. There was simply no time for photography and I did not want to push my luck. As I indicated earlier, I had been scheduled to meet with someone else who did not come in that day. The meeting with Stephen was total happenstance; when I bought the roaster I had asked if I could have a demonstration of it at the factory and I was told no, that only Stephen could do that and that he was too busy to do that sort of thing. Since this is what I ended up getting, I was delighted to take as much as I could get. Unfortunately, Stephen WAS very busy, fielding phone calls and dealing with other issues for other people during our time together.

I decided to get what I could get out of the visit, to try to get as many of my questions answered as I could, but to try to be as unobtrusive as possible.

ken

Randy G. wrote:My thoughts when I read Ken's OP was to question whether we are talking about widely different roasting styles/curves or is it just a matter of nomenclature?

It's probably mostly a matter of emphasis. My intention is to start out with a version (there wasn't "ONE" version) of Stephen Diedrich's suggested roast profile, to see how it tastes. Once I have done this a few times and once I get a feel for how it works with coffees I like, then I'll tweak it and see how that works.

As I have stated in other threads, I don't think that introducing "scientific-sounding" terminology, or references to chemical reactions adds much to the discussion, at least for home roasters. I'm not at all sure that we really understand when these things are happening in the roast process, especially when one introduces the variability that comes with roaster design and profile differences. I think it makes more sense to keep it simple, concentrating on correlating easily observable roast parameters including time, temperature, and physical events (cracks, color changes). This is, in my experience, the easiest way to communicate with other home roasters, and to reach some common ground with others about what we are doing and what sort of results we are getting.

ken

I've been home-roasting for a bit under a year now. I'm still using a heat gun, but looking to upgrade. I have a science background, so I've tried to apply the 'scientific method' to my roasts. I've found that there are too many variables even with my primitive equipment to determine what I've done to get to approach the perfect cup of coffee. Nevertheless, I personally appreciate hearing about the physical changes and chemical reactions going on, even if they don't influence my decision-making for a roast.

Congratulation on your new roaster. I have been roasting on a diedrich-hr 1 roaster for approx. one year, and I am looking forward to hearing how you will profile on your new roaster. My roaster is an electric one, and will not be comparable with your results - but the user-manual that comes with the roaster says the same things you have said. I have experienced that roasting on a Diedrich often comes in conflict with methods use by others. What I struggled with for a while, was following the Diedrich's advice on having 1st crack in 11-13 minutes, and at the same time have a finish of 4-5 minutes. I often cupped coffee with to much roast/burned flavour - like it was overdried. If I finish a roast with 4-5 minutes after 1st, I must have a 1st crack in 8-10 minutes. I am still trying to figure out how this works on the Diedrich, and Im wondering if roasting on a Hr-1 is very different than roasting on the Diedrich gas-roasters. I know for certain that the turning point on the hr-1 roaster is higher than the gas roasters, and maybe the "drying-phase" must be a bit shorter on the Hr-1. The electric roaster has the same IR panels as the gas roasters, so it should in many ways roast similar. The gas version has of course much more control, the electric roster reacts very slow on changing the heat.

My first roast that was successful who followed the Diedrich recommendation on 1st crack, had a finish in 2,5 minutes. This roast did not have very acidic taste, which one should expect. When I was roasting for espresso I got real problems with the 11-13 minutes, and often got burned flavour in the cup.

I have been looking at this roaster for a time, and maybe some day I will buy one myself. Can I ask approx. what the cost is for the Diedrich ir-1?

Good luck with your new machinery, Im looking forward to hearing about your roasting on the Diedrich in the future:-)