Roaster: Behemor in a heated shed. Variable voltage has an effect as voltage dropped throughout the day, and consequently, 1C was later throughout the day. I'm thinking of setting up a Variac.

I am currently sticking to the 12 oz charge with a 1 min 40 warm up. I am new at this, so I am trying to establish some consistency before experimenting too wildly, although I am jealous of the control that other roasters are talking of. My logic is to reach profiles from end of 1C on in order to understand the developmental balance of Acidity, Flavour and Body.

R1 - to end of 1C. 12:50 start, 14:30 end
R2 - to 35 secs past 1C. 13:04 start 1C, 14:55 1C stopped, 15:30 roast stopped.
R3 - to 55 secs past 1C. 13:35 start 1C, 15:20 1C stopped, 16:15 roast stopped.
R4 - to end of 1C.
R5 - to 15 secs before end of 1C

I will likely cup on saturday, so 5 days post roast. But I brewed a pot of R2 at work today just to try an early roast because I never have. The aroma was unbelievable. The cup was amazing in a clean tobacco/leathery sense which is not what this coffee should hit. I believe it will change throughout the week and I am psyched to taste the progression. either that or R1 will pull out more of the acidic flavours. If this is going where I think it will, then I may roast lighter on the weekend.

Cupping Notes
First of all, you need to know that I roast for the four people in my office. One person has a palate equal to mine, another enjoys flavourful coffee, the other is a dark roast person that is expanding her repertoire. So this week I did something I have never done, but in the spirit of experimenting I brewed after 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours. Now I am cupping 5 days later, bad idea, because I am fully biased. I brewed R1 first after 24 hours. The aroma ground and while brewing was unbelievable complex and rich. But the cup lacked flavour. The cup improved in the days to come and by day three one of my colleagues and I agreed that R1 was a cup that demands your attention and there we were, sipping coffee and shaking our heads at how good it was. R2 and R3, although very enjoyable cups, tasted like a lack of flavour in comparison to R1.

So now cupping, you can see that this would be difficult to cup after that! So here is my completely biased report:

R1 - Dry aroma is clearly berry/ floral, enjoyable. Curiously, the wet aroma while cupping was subdued. The first sips were also subdued. As it cooled though a berry/floral/tea flavour emerged. That's as precise as I can get. The body was thin but the overall mouthfeel is none the less balanced.

R2 and R3 - my general sense is that as the roast level rose, the flavours became more subdued and the tea aspect became more predominant. A sweetness in the background emerged that I will call chocolate/leather because it was not a pure cocoa flavour. That may have been because of the tea flavour. Body and mouthfeel was smooth.

R4 and R5. Haven't cupped these properly and now I am 7 days past. In this range I feel like to coffee is just about there. Fruit and floral yes, but which ones? that's the thing, I can quite determine it. That is either because of my pallat or, more likely I would like to say, because I have not quite pulled out the flavour that it can offer. Brewed in a bonavita Drip it is a well balanced and very enjoyable cup with a rich hint of something fruit and floral. Just needs to be a touch more present to be identified. In the espresso machine R4 is better cup but only because of slightly more body. There is a flavour that is hanging firmly between floral and fruit, like right between, but I haven't found it yet. I am playing with parameters to see what I can get.

In the machine I really enjoy this coffee (R1). I find that Yirga's typically have a strong floral quality that I have a hard time getting an enjoyable pull out of. This same quality I very much enjoy in a brewed coffee. This Yirga however has a stronger tea component and a weaker floral quality that makes it excellent out of the machine. I also perceive a berry that wants to come out but is not quite there. Body is thinner, but the mouthfeel is balance and enjoyable with the lightness of the flavours. R2 however, is very pleasant dark roast sweet flavour but an absence of the characteristic flavours of this coffee. Interesting! I tried it in milk though and that worked great, but I wouldn't know it was a yirga (which can be a good thing in milk in my opinion).

So I now agree that lighter highlights this coffee best for my palate. I will do two roast today. One will be to recreate R1 to end of first crack, and the second will be 20-30 secs before end of first.

johnlyn wrote:Just out of curiosity, what do people mean by "roasting for espresso"? I have understood that one coffee may be better than another for SO espresso, but what is different in how it is roasted. Please PM me if you think it will divert from the thread.

For me it has less to do with degree of roast and more to do with the profile. It doesn't always work out, but I try to allow an espresso roast to develop for about a min longer than I would if roasting for brewed. I started this because of suggestions in the forum here and find it works well. YMMV.

what part are you stretching out?

tamarian wrote:Paul, I think you are right about it not being a great bean for SO espresso. I'll still try my best and see what I can do with it for espresso, and keep the option of using it as part of a blend, plus a few radical alternatives,

I now think it can be great for SO espresso. Just tried a shot that was good, 4 days post roast. It wasn't great, but reminded me of several great Ethiopians that needed well over a week of rest to shine as SO espresso (Amaro Gayo, Tchembe, Geredawha).

Fo espresso, you need to stretch it a bit to tame the acidity. I did 9 minutes to 1C on my fluid bed, so maybe 10-12 minutes on a drum roaster, or whatever is on the longer side for your roaster.

Brewing notes updated.

Hello, my name is Paul and I don't fully understand my roaster.

Ok, hopefully admitting my problem is the first step to getting better .

Understanding your roaster is a crucial part to profiling. I was getting close, but a modification has changed the playing field a bit. In the long run it will be a good thing. As it stand now, I just don't have a enough understanding. The truth is, even before I didn't have as much understanding as I thought I did. I wasn't willing to admit that before. I thought I was doing alright, but I've pulled out the magnifying glass. I'm being more critical about what happens during my roast and why. I'm contributing any amazing roasts I've pulled off in the past as luck. My typical good roasts are the result of me following the wisdom of others. At the very least, none have been the results of my knowledge.

Fortunately, now that I've taken off my blinders, I hope I can start setting up "if X than Y" results with my roaster. The X and Y will be variations of batch size, charge temp, heat application, transfer rate, adjustments, and air flow. The = will be what I can pick up in the cup. I know I'm not going to discover some amazing technique everyone else has missed all these years. I just want to discover why I do what I've been doing, and to hone in on how to maximize the agreed upon ideas specifically to my roaster. Hopefully, this will develop my own skills and I'll eventually achieve the goal of being a good roaster.

I'm not sure I would have reached this epiphany without Roasting and Learning Together.

Thanks!

The best advice I can give for learning your roaster, using your beans in your environment, is to start with as few variables as possible. That means buying one decent sized (10 lbs or more) of one kind of coffee, most likely a Guatemalan that displays pleasant results at many levels of the roast spectrum, and then just bang it out, take note, and most importantly, put far more stock in what your tongue is telling you over your metrics. As well, stick with one consistent charge weight for each batch.

Get consistent with one kind of coffee where you can bend it to your will repeatedly. You'll be able to apply what you've learned there to other coffees, somewhat, but there'll always be outliers (i.e. the Guatemala Acetanago Geisha is a PITA to get great results, which isn't typical of most Guatemalan coffees.

Specific to the Quest, what makes it such a tricky roaster is it's rapid change in themal dynamics. You're fingers are on one dial or another quite frequently if you want to really stay on top of what is going on inside the drum.

The total mass of the roaster is minuscule when you see how quickly charging a batch of room temperature beans can cave in your MET and ET. It takes a lot of pre-planning to avoid the pitfalls from under shooting or over shooting your desired ranges. But you can always simplify everything and just stick your nose over the chute, smell and check for yellow, follow a standard ramp to 1C (either full blast or try a consistent approach of 70-80% power for both fan and heat) and rely on your senses to steer your profile. Jim's approach is unassailable. It's only when starting to dig thru the minutia that the waters get muddier. Jim's method produces a perfect cupping roast, but may not be a suitable approach when wanting further development, since the thermal momentum going into the roast past 1C might leave you with too fast of a p1C development phase than what you want, or perhaps more roast notes ending up in your coffee. But that is more a result of too high a MET/ET towards the end of roast, more than anything, but I digress...

I have honestly considered adapting a small 3" or narrower flexible aluminum exhaust tube to exhaust the drum aroma right up front where I can slightly lean forward and sniff the roast without having to bouncing back and forth, keeping my eyes on the front of the drum, to the back to sniff, and staring at waveforms all at the same time.

pShoe wrote:.... I've never found the standard cupping procedure to bring out a coffee's potential. I don't have a way to make multiple pour overs at one time, but I do have a few small french presses. That is how I did my "cupping." I'm not big on FP either, but I did find it better than traditional cupping. I didn't mention all this just to waste your time, but because I didn't pick up on clear distinct flavors in the cup.

Simply pour the coffee carefully thru a rinsed paper filter. It's an idiot-proof, scalable way to nail your brewing. It will give you a lot more clarity and separations of flavor in the cup. The french pull up method works pretty well too, as a second place method. I'd do the french pull over the french press any day though.

TomC wrote:The best advice I can give for learning your roaster, using your beans in your environment, is to start with as few variables as possible. That means buying one decent sized (10 lbs or more) of one kind of coffee...

+1.

RE: Dec bean, have some bagging and boxing of greens to do and will roast while I am downstairs today.

TomC wrote:The french pull up method works pretty well too, as a second place method. I'd do the french pull over the french press any day though.

Me too. I'm going to try the pull next time, and than using filters and see which works best.

Thanks