Coffee Roasting Thread - Taste Testing

I've been roasting for about 17 years. I do commercial roasting as a side business in a large roasting, but I use popcorn poppers and a Freshroast 500 for daily roasting. I've destroyed 12 hot air popcorn poppers, but they do such a good job. I can do a I write up on how to make super fresh coffee really cheaply elsewhere.

What are you roasting, and what's the taste?

Sulawesi Bone Bone Kaliciri - Indonesian provence long known for great coffee. City to full city roast.

Strong mouth feel, full bodied, full tongue coating, low acidity, buttery smooth, ripened fruit flavor, fresh apples, dark chocalate, licorice, hot chocalate. Really smooth, almost syrupy lliquer, naturally sweet.

I've roasted ten different Ethiopian coffees in the last two months. Let me tell you about Ethiopian coffee. We here in America think when we start talking about South and Central American coffees we're being cool. Columbian, Costa Rican, Guatemala. Forget all that. Coffee originated in Ethipopia, and it still grows wild in places. There are new coffees coming out of Ethiopia that are mind-blowingly good. We used to think that you either got a high acidity spicy coffee or a full bodied smooth, low acidity coffee. That's all changed. Ethiopian interior coffees have it all in spades, and they roast very consistently. The bean sizes have increased, and bean density has evened out through better cultivation.

There are farms in Ethiopia so small that they have to band together with other farms to form cooperatives because their output is in some cases less than one hundred pounds of coffee, but man what coffee!! Here are a few to look for.

Yirga Cheffe Baraka Buna - very light mouth, smooth, with a light finish, yeasty, toasted bread, fresh donuts, citrus fruit, those sorts of flavors. City to Full city roast.

Ethiopia Llubabor Baaroo Cooperative - medium mouth. very low acidity, smooth smooth with sweet accents on the side of the tongue, very enjoyable and bouncy on the pallete, cotton candy, hard candy, leather, mild smoke.

Ethiopia Yirga Cheffe Dry Profess Gedeb Asisa - dry process coffees just taste richer right off the bat because less water is used in the separation of the fruit from the seed, full mouth feel, light acidity, sweet, butter biscuits, hard candy, ripened fruit, potato chips, wonderful finish, all around just a lively coffee.

Ethiopia Kaffia Michiti Cooperative - another small cooperative that has very small output, very hard to get but worth it. full mouth, medium acidity, strong finish, hard candy, ripened fruit, licorice, dark chocalate, citrus notes in some places, lively finish.

Tommorrow I'll be diving into some Panama Horquetta La Gloria - going to do a retrospective companson between a very fine South American coffee with all these Ethiopians we've been drinking.

I roast from two to three times a week. We drink coffee straight out of the roaster at times. Typically we'll let it breather for 24 hours, but straight out of the roast is unique.
I roast about 2 cups at a time.

I buy most of my coffee from Sweet Marias. (not an advertisement!) But I will order coffee from anywhere that sells green beans, up to and including 132 pound bags from a wholesaler if it's really good. This is a great
time to be a coffee enthusiast as more varieties than ever are making it to market and more people are able to make their living from growing coffee.

 

For those mentioning getting into roasting; it couldn't be simpler and the payoff is well worth it. The beans are cheaper, too. Serious gourmet fine coffee is going to run from $5 to $9 per pound in green form, which is not cheap compared to Folgers, but it is way cheaper than $12 per pound from Starbucks.

West Bends go on ebay all day long for $25-$30, some alot more. Just make sure
it has circular convection. I've bought several at Goodwill for $5.

If you ever wondered about freshness, some things you probably didn't know.

The majority of coffee sitting on store shelves is approaching 2 weeks at best, 2.5 weeks on average, and over a month at worst. Stores that don't sell coffee that fast will routinely have coffee on their shelves over a month old.

Many groceries will argue this saying that it's "only been on the shelf a few days." That may be, but the coffee wasn't roast a few days ago. With few exceptions even gourmet coffee is at least one week when it hits retails shelves.

Roasted, ground coffee deterioates the fastes, roasted quite a bit less. Putting it in the freezer does not preserve flavor, in fact it harms it. Putting the coffee in the refrigerator slows down oxidation a little, but not enough to matter. Storing it an air-tight container is the only way to slow down oxidation, and it does help. Roasted whole bean stored in air tight containers is the best. Roasted, ground coffee is pretty much so exposed that even air-tight containers don't make alot of difference.

No big deal, right?

You can store green beans for well over a year with no problem. Roasted, unground, coffee is another matter. Here's the key, the richer the smell, the better the flavor, of course. But, that smell you are smelling is flavor you could have been tasting. Coffee does not rich a pick of it's odor power until several days after roasting, The key is to drink it before that so you taste that flavor rather than smell it. The only way to do that is to drink it shortly after roasting, ideally 24-72 hours. Coffee ground and drank in that time frame is the best possible coffee experience.

A simple hot air popcorn popper with circular convection (the hot air flows in from vents around the side rather than the bottom) will roast coffee in about 5-9 minutes, it will separate the chaff (actually better than commercial roasters) and you can roast just a few cups at time thus always having maxmum freshness.

The West Bend Poppery II is the best hot air popper to use. I've used 7 or 8 different varieties but always go back to the West Bends. A good hot air popper used for coffee roasting with last for years. I've have one last for 7 years using up to three times a week.

The main difference between coffee and popcorn is that popcorn pops, opens up, and it's done. Coffee is more complex because of the chemical complexity of the bean, which is actually a seed from a fruit similar to a cherry.

UNless you have a powerful vent hood, best to roast on the carport, your house will smell like a coffee shop, wonderful smell but can get overpowering.

Coffee beans goes through not one, but two separate "pops," or "cracks" as they call it because there is a distincy cracking sound. First crack characterized by pops that range from slow to fast in frequency, very sharp bursts. Second crack is much faster and not as loud, and you will start seeing smoke. For most roasts, when you finish the first crack and start hearing the second crack starting, you're done, unplug popper and get it into a cool, metal container as quickly as possible. Your roast continues after the popper is turned off, and continues until the temp gets lower. You will obviously see a change in the color of the beans, when you reach a dark brown, you're at a full roast. If the beans start to get a little shiny, oily, that's a City or Fully City roast. If the beans are very dark and very oily, you are well into a French roast quickly headed to an Espressor roast. Keep going and the beans will shrink down to very small size, crumble in your fingers, not be shiny at all but like burnt wood, and that's a Spanish roast.

Always let your roast warm up for about a minute. From warm up to finished full roast is going to be between 15-20 minutes for roughly a cup of coffee. You can drink it right out of the roaster, and it is incredible. I call it "super fresh" and it is. You get 100% of the flavor right out of the roast, nothing like it in the world.

We make our coffee in a Chemex brewer, it makes it very well. I normally use a French press when it's just may, which makes a thick, rich lliquer and leaves sediment in your cup, or "sludge," as it is called.

We use two drip coffee makers, a Porsche Design, made by Bosche and designed by Dr. Porsche, and we use a Krupps and a De Longhi Italian made espresso make, and an electric burr grinder. Avoid Bunn coffee makers because the water is all hot, you get a wider flavor profile with different water temps as drip makes have a range. You can throw hot water directly onto a quantity of coffee and get good extraction, as in a French Press, but drop brewing you don't get that extraction exposure all at once. Using slight less than boiling water, and natural spring water, gets better results.

Pardon my evangelistic ramble.....after 18 years of roasting I still get giddy and I enjoy it as much now as I did the very first time I roasted. My Italian wife loves coffee and especially espresso so she has me roasting about every other day.
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Exactly right. The great thing about the hot air popper is that it actually separates the chaff better than just about any other roaster type. Chaff is a thin coating left on the beans from the removal of the meat. When your roast is in the first 3 minutes you will smell a yeasty odor and the chaff will start flying off. Chaff is not separated in commercial roasting very effectively and can actually add a bitter edge to coffee flavor. Hence the excellent results with a simple hot air popper.

Carbon dioxide loss is a process resulting from the roasting of the beans and happens most intensively during the first 24 hours. The beans also "cure" during that time in which the oils and remaining matter in the bean settle into the bean profile. One of my favorite things is to grind and roast while the beans are still hot off the roaster, the freshness of the taste is positively flabbergasting.

Warning: Once you start roasting and drinking your own, when you drink other coffee that is several weeks out of roast, it will be instantly noticeable in the taste. I have found personally that I don't hate less than the freshest coffee, I will still drink it at times because of the hospitality it represents, but I have learned to appreciate the fine subtle differences in coffee flavor. The more you love coffee, the more coffee you love. So, in anything roasting allows you to actually appreciate the full range of flavors in the coffee profile.

There is nothing like having complete control over the way your coffee tastes, roast it just like you like it, grind it just like you like it, then prepare it just like you like it. Has a tendency to set higher standards in your social circle, too. My friends are constantly giving me coffee they find on vacation or in other cities, or other blends.

 

This is Sweet Marias hot air popper tutorial. I always let mine warm up before putting the beans in. But essentially this is the process. People inevitably develop their own habits.

I immediately put mine in some large metal container to spread it out and shake it for a few minutes to stop roasting.

If some of you guys decide to do this, post your selections and notes on here. There are so many green varieties it's great to have suggestions based on what someone has gotten from the roastings.

Some other things that you will notice is bean density. Some beans just give right in and roast quickly, you'll have color change in about 3-4 minutes. Other beans hold out to the bitter end and will not finish roast until you have full heat saturation from the roaster. Bean density is highly variable, and very much related to the bean flavor profile.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR6V_mHXHnE[/ame]

 

Many people will roast for an entire week at a time. I do that if we are going out of town. Roasting several times a week just gets the uber-fresh taste. A week out of roast, in my view, is the upper limit of getting premium fresh flavor. I've found that things go downhill rapidly after that.

I regularly blend coffees together both before and after roasting. Sometimes a coffee that does better at a darker roast is mixed with a coffee that optimizes at a lighter roast, so it's best to roasting them separately. The results can be very good. Typically I'll take a good full bodied coffee with boldness, low acidity, and mix it with a spicey, light, acidic coffee to get that balance in the middle. This really makes for some outstanding cups of coffee, and blending varieties is endless, and endlessly interesting.

Right now, for instance, I'm taking these really smooth Ethiopians and blending them with South Americans like Costa Rica or Guatemala, and getting great results. I believe Ethiopian coffees are going to outshine the South American coffees as the full bodies staples of gourmet. The Ethiopians are way molder, even smoother, and still have those spicey, citrusy, rarified flavor notes, so really you get it all whereas previously that was generally though of as a compromise solutions.

Expect to see alot more out of the Ethiopian coffee commodities if the country can stay stable.

I'd say grab a popper, order some beans, and go for it. To get set up roasting your own for way less than a Ben Franklin is a great deal, you'll be glad you did.

 

Hey hombre! If you have any questions let me know. Listen closely for the first and second crack....it will be obvious. First thing you will notice is a yeasty smell and the chaff starts to billow out of the popper.

What brand of popper did you get?

I roasted some limited supply coffee from Timor Succo Estado this morning. Incredible! Like plumb cobbler, tobacco, mild amaretto, nutty, super smooth on the tongure, light mouth feel, just incredible. Low acidity, one of the smoothest and just plain refreshing coffees I've ever had. I did a city roast on it. Highly recommended. Medium density bean, fast easy roast.

 

Just roasted only the second or third coffee from India that I've ever had. This is
by far the most interesting.

This is a India "tree dried" Mailiali Estate Amrita. Certainly the first "tree dried" I've ever roasted, and I have no idea what that is supposed to mean for the flavor.

Did a full roast, almost a City, just a few shiny beans, mostly medium to dark brown. Medium grind and ran through the chemex with a single white filter, semi boiling tap water, full capacity.

Really a heavy, thick, mouthfeel on this coffee, and a medium acidity, very "bright" on the tongue, almost tangy, but not for long. The top and sides of the tongue get this really rich fruity, smooth, sour-bread, ripened fruit, big swath of flavor, and a strong finish. This coffee is really strong.

I would speculate that tree drying results in a fuller flavor since the flavors probably steep in deeper due to sitting on the branch longer, must be because this coffee is just like "pow" but nothing outlandish, really smooth, but a big flavor.

Highly recommended, it was $6.75 per pound.

I use a seller called "Theta Ridge" for my big bags, and I just realized that their green per pound prices are almost all less than $5, many less than $4, some even less than $3!!

I am not in business with them, and not advertising for them, I buy coffee from them. You can order almost twice as much at these prices, so I'll gladly pass that info on.

Products ? Theta Ridge Coffee

 

That is true about Indian coffees. I saw a documentary recently that covered the Indian coffee market. They have alot of developing farms, and only a few buyers. These examples showing up at Sweet Marias are domestic coffees sold only to local markets are reaching export quality. There actually is an "indica" coffee bean type that has been most evidenced in the Mandheling region as "Sumatra Mandheling" which is a highly acidic coffee and a very hard bean.

Caffeine content is almost exclusively a function of growth elevation, with lower grown coffees having a higher content in "robusta" beans found in Folgers, Maxwell House, etc., and higher beans have both less caffeine and richer flavor.

We will only see more premiums coming from India.

 

Alright!

I might dust off one of the hot air roasters and do a roast and post it.

Few pointers:

Let the roaster warm up for around 2 minutes.

Put in about a half-cup of beans.

Put the cover on.


VERY IMPORTANT: The difference between the first and second crack takes a while to learn. Here's a clue, the first crack is a slower crack, and a louder crack, with a little longer duration of the sound. Second crack is fast, quick, and usually terminates in smoke. How far you go into the second crack determines what roast of coffee you have. If you complete the second crack you will have Spanish Roast, which is one cut above cigarette ashes and makes a ridiculously insipid coffee that, well, Spanish people like, probably just because it's weird. All the beans must go through the first crack, but not all the beans will go very far into the second crack, but all the beans must enter the second crack. Again, the duration of the second determines the roast. If you are billowing smoke and have trouble seeing the roaster, turn it off and get ready to try again, and give the beans to someone you don't like as much.

TIMING: If you pre-heat your roast, you should be past the chaff, and well into color change and headed towards first crack in 5-7 minutes, maybe even starting first crack. If it is a soft bean, this
will happen sooner. At the very outside, you should be into second crack, or finished, in between 15-20 minutes. If you are getting nothing after 7 minutes, say, just a little chaff, and no color change,
do the "heat enhancement." Roasters work different in different weather. 50-60 degrees is the best temp to roast in.

If they show a little bit of shiny and are nice dark brown, you've got a "Full Roast." The chart below incorrectly calls it a French Roast, but French roast requires dark beans, more like what it calls "Italian."
That whole chart, and most of them, are way skewed because they start calling things roasts when they are nowhere near that roast level, but the ardent new roaster in a big to have the tre chic cool of roasting coffee posts their own coffee roast chart that shows nothing like the amount of roasting required. On the chart below, they jam five roast levels into only mild changes in the roast coloration. You
will develop your own internal sense about roasting, too.

HEAT ENHANCEMENT: If you aren't getting any cracking at all, or it won't go to second crack (which happens) take a piece of tin foil, fold it, and wrap around the top of the popper, leave it on until your second crack starts and it runs a bit. Be careful doing this because the plastic can get very soft, and hot. Check your roast, you should see brown to dark brown, and you might be seeing oil, if you see oil, stop roasting. If the beans are all slick and really shiny and black, you've got espsresso roast and you over-roasted.


I've been roasting 16 years and I try to pay as much attention as possible to each variety of beans I roast. For example, I just roasted some Panamanian beans this morning on the Freshroast 500. I roasted, and roasted, and they weren't changing color very much. Finally I backed off the fan, and cranked the heat up, so the beans are barely moving and getting bolted by heat. The beans went immediately into a dual crack, first and second crack combined.

Look at the attached graphic, try to print it in color to use a reference. Alot of first time roasters do one of two things, they either way under-roast, or way over-roast, depending ont he performance of the machine.

When you stop your roast, immediately put the beans in a ceramic bowl, or larger plate, they need to spread out as much as possible.

Best to roast outside, and leave the freshly roasted beans outside for the first few minutes.

Most roasters wait 24 hours for the beans to lose carbon-dioxide.....strictly optional. I love it as fresh as possible and a grind it right out of the roaster. I like smoke to be coming out of the grinder, and just that fresh feeling. NOTHING like it, it's really cool.

Store in an air-tight container, but not in the freezer or fridge. Green beans will keep for a few years. Roasted coffee, well, I've rattled on about that elsewhere.

Good luck....I hope your first roast turns out great!! Post pictures, can't wait to hear about it.
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