Rich, on my rig I see second cracks around 415 with most coffees. So although I dropped at 408, that was a C++ or even a C+/FC finish. It tasted great as espresso, and I bet you could go all the way to full city and still get good results.

Roaster: Quest M3
Roast Date 10/12/2014

8.6% Moister @ 69.9 degrees

Charge: 150g / Result: 125g = 16.7% Loss

Drop at 350 - Heat 925 watts / Fan 3
@ 300 degree BT - Heat 1025 watts / Fan 3.5
@ First Sound/Pop of 1st Crack - Heat 775 / Fan Full

Dry @ 3:50
FC @ 395.4 / 9:17 (slightly longer than anticipated)
FC End @ 411.4 / 10:45
Drop @ 421 / 12:06
Roast Results: Full City... slight roll to Full City+ at drop



Tasting Notes - 10/17
Hario Pour Over
Warm Taste: Dark chocolate, slight dark sugar sweetness, slightly bitter and mild acidity. Full mouth feel w/ body.
Cool: Chocolate came out a bit more, sweetness and acidy slightly less than warm cup.
Overall: It's a fairly bold cup of coffee with decent balance, nice chocolate flavor with just a touch of sweetness and acidity. I took this a bit darker than anticipated, but look forward to trying it as espresso over the weekend. I'm still dialing in my Quest and feel I may need to reduce my fan and heat settings. MET always seems high compared to other charts and I do know the BT is about 5 degrees higher than most people's profiles. Next time I roast I would like to drop the batch a degree or two earlier. I welcome any feedback... first R&L

More espresso notes

This coffee surprises me how well it does at light roasts for espresso. I haven't cupped the more developed roasts individually yet, but will shortly.

Roaster: USRC Sample Roaster
Charge: 400g

These were my Saturday roasts:

and

Moisture loss: Roast 1, 15.4%; and Roast 2, 15.5%.
Finish: Roasts 1 and 2, FC.

Some problems hitting my targets with this bean, coming into Development with too little energy on Roast 1, and too much on 2. While I don't anticipate losing the "true character" of the bean -- whatever it is -- with either roast, I do anticipate that 2 will have more snap and life than 1, while 1 will be "richer" and more chocolatey than 2. We'll see.

We've got a very low inventory of browns, so I'll probably roast at least another couple of batches today, to the same "ideal profile" I missed both times Saturday. I think dropping the gas from 5" to 1.8" of H2O at 375F, while increasing airflow from 25% to 80% at the same time, should do it.

In the interests of humility, I decided to post these roast plots before tasting. There's either nothing quite like being wrong in public, or quite as amazing as how arrogance deceives itself into believing anyone else gives a rat's a$$. Will brew, taste and report my Roast 1 and 2 results tomorrow, and/or Wednesday.

Rich

I will be playing along next round, upgrade. Finishing up tweaking the machine and setup.

Yea, that's just beautiful

Hey folks, so sorry for a delayed post. I just returned from a family trip late last night and have been running on all cylinders for weeks. On top of my work with SM/Shrub and the SCAA, I am also in the process of opening a craft malts house in northern Colorado and am right in the thick of it with the County and Fire Authority, not to mention lining up the contractors on our build out for the malting vessel which is something we basically had to invent at its scale. I've had zero time. Less than it.

Here are my notes on the Brazil. I did 3 roasts on the Probat PRE 1Z electric sample roaster. I love the simplicity of this roaster and the open faced design which allows me to sample the beans throughout the roast to examine all their physical changes. Sample roasting has always been my favorite, and the electric sample roaster actually offers a wide range of roast profiles where trad gas ones can be pretty tricky to fool around with too much. I generally set my energy at about 80% and make no adjustments to this, but rather make all my adjustments to the air damper positioned at the rear of the drum. Closed, the energy is trapped in the drip and pushes the roast faster. Open, the cooler air from outside the roaster is drawn through the whole drum while also pulling energy away from the charge and slows the roast. There's also a 50/50 setting, but you could even play with 25/75 and vis a versa, though I get plenty of control with using full open or closed and 50/50.

My basic profile is that I charge the drum with 125g at 320F (analogue thermocouple in the rear of the drum) with the air on full open in order to prevent any scorching. At 1:30 when it bottoms out around 160F, I put the air at 50/50, and at 3:30 I put the air full in. I honestly don't pay too much attention to the temp reading after more hare temp other then noting around the neighborhood that I drop it at. I'm mostly focused on time and the development of the beans themselves. 1st Crack begins at around 7:50 (in this bean, but obv it's dependent on the coffee) and 30 seconds into it (8:20) I pull the air to 50/50 for 30 secs (8:50) at which point I draw the air to full open in order to evacuate the chaff. At that point I once again close the air fully to push the roast the rest of the war through, with 1st C ended at about 9:15 and I evacuated about a quarter of the roast in order to get an idea of what a really light roast of this would look like, so a very light City. I then let the rest of the roast go up until 9:35 which would be right at the door of Full City but with no cracks of second. So I have basically 2 profiles at least level wise to look at.

For my 3rd profile I wanted to stretch out the drying stage in order to help sweeten the cup. I kept a pretty similar/short development time so that I could hope to push the raisiny fruit with the cocoa notes too. I charged the same weight and temp and made my same first adjustment at 1:30, but I did not make my second adjustment of fully closing the air until 4:55. This made it so the 1st C didn't start until 8:45. 1st C Ended at 10:05, so similar to the first roasts, but then I was checking the coffee for fragrance for the right drop time. I wanted to wait until I could smell that raisin past the more vinegary pungency. I ended up finishing the roast at 10:20.

Here are my tasting notes from today (including some notes from some brewing via Clever dripper and Compact K3 grinder as well as a classic B&D countertop home brewer and blade grinder visiting friends on my family trip):

Roast 1 (standard profile, light City) - Bright honey sweet, layered dry fragrance, more honey on break. This is clean and fairly creamy though there's a little more texture to the finish. there's molasses, honey, and almond throughout the cup with more almond through the finish. There's also some golden raisin, but it's mostly unrefined sugar. It's soft, sweet, with a light cream in the cool cup, but the finish is even more almondy.


Roast 2 (standard profile, Full City) - More roast and cocoa in the dry fragrance, with a nice bready sweetness on break. the warm cup has a roastiness but is also very chocoaltey. In the clever this brewed up like chocolate cake, with a long syrupy finish but also some texture in the finish with the roastiness. The cool cup is flourless chocolate cake, with a dry baker's cocoa finish.


Roast 3 (Stretched drying, standard dev, City +) - Mild cocoa and nutty sweetness on the dry fragrance. Mild honey and raisin on the break. The warm cup is super raisiny with a rich finish like Mexican drinking chocolate with cinammon, clove, and vanilla. The body is thinned out a bit compared to the other roasts, it's more of a syrup than creaminess, and long sweet finish. This roast brewed so sweet in a little Black & Decker countertop drip brewer ground on a blade grinder. it was one of the best cups of coffee I'd had in a real long time with it being so sweet and drinkable with the raisin and spice. As it cools it just gets more and more syrupy and sweet. there are a few roasty tones in there but they completely support the profile. miss coffee like this so much.

Roast Notes

• Roaster: JGR (Jolly Green Roaster), USRC 1lb Sample Roaster
  Roast Date: October 18, 2014
  Charge: 400g
  Moisture Loss: 15.4%
  Finish: FC

Tasting Notes

• Brewing: Bunnzilla + Royal Coffee Maker (balance beam siphon. 54g coffee/900ml water);
  Aroma: Roasty. No noticeable florals;
  Body: Lots. Slightly juicy (characteristic of the Bunnzilla).
  Acidity: Low, almost non-existent;
  Sweetness: Very;
  Fruits: Mild dried fig, plus very slight hint of dried mango -- which accounts for all of the mild acidity;
  Nuts: Absent;
  Chocolate: Dominant flavor of this roast. Strong, but not quite intense. Reminiscent of chocolate syrup made with best quality sweetened cocoa and vanilla. No hint of chocolate other than cocoa, but very smooth;
  Other: Definite presence of vanilla, mild rum. No spice;
  Complexity: Not very.
  Overall: Hot chocolate, made Spanish style, with water instead of milk.

Rich

It's a revelation for sure, is it not? Chris Schooley says "This roast brewed so sweet in a little Black & Decker countertop drip brewer ground on a blade grinder." And here I am with my $1500 grinder and my carefully controlled 200 degree water and 4 minute pour and rinsed filter. And also, this is a Brazil coffee - that is, a coffee that Sweet Maria's is on record as saying they couldn't possibly rate at 90, because it's, well, it's a Brazil.

This gives me hope and, maybe a greater willingness to say what I like. And, I do like this coffee. Sweet raisins and sugar and molasses and cinnamon are some of my favorite flavors to be found in coffee.

I'm having a cup of this month's roast and learn right now and the golden raisins predominate. For breakfast I had an Americano blend that was a celebration of Roast and Learn coffees. 4 oz. of this months Brazil, 2 oz. of September's Lintong Aek Nauli and 2 oz. of July's Yemen Mokha Ismaili. With a little steamed mild, it is a delightful drink.

I roasted mine in my RK drum. I'm hoping to get a roast done in my Huky before I post my results, but I appreciated Chris' comments so much I couldn't resist a quick response.

Here's the profile of my RK drum roast done on 10/11/2014. I entered the data manually in my Roastmaster app.
Charge 2 pounds, 1cs: 10:15 at 410f, finished with BT of 450 (full city).


Tasting notes: yesterday I did a pourover 60 grams, 1 liter of 200 degree water. This was a super sweet, raisiny cup.


DickC

Chris:" and at 3:30 I put the air full in"
I think you meant fully closed?