I have met the beans

[martin]

I think they won, sort of.

Hi! I wasn't expecting to get any greens until I order the roaster (probably an SR300, but I hope to hold off until Tom's shared his impressions of it, and the pros and cons relative to the fancier model), but at the family gathering yesterday I found myself holding this surprisngly dense, gaily wrapped package. So of course I'm going crazy here with eight wonderful pounds of green beans and nothing to roast them in! (yet - another package, much lighter, had the gift certificate)

Well, nothing as in none of the small appliances. There's the dusty old popcorn popper we haven't used in years, which closer inspection reveals to be an original Poppery. And I do have a heat gun, though no appropriate dog food bowls...

So after lunch I dragged my faithful assistant, Cally, out to the porch where I raised quite a mess o' chaff, but fear I didn't do so well on the evenness of roast thing. In fact, despite the snow cooling (1), I think that even the average bean may have overshot the "anywhere between C and FC would be fine" target. Oh well, it's just the Brazilian Cerrado DP. I still think that was a reasonable choice, as Tom's notes suggest it has plenty to offer anywhere from C to FC+, but the DP part did make for an interesting chaffstorm just about the time I was wishing I had better light for the operation. :-/

I'll let them sit for a while, but I know I'm gonna have to try brewing a cup this evening!


(1) oh, the snow. this was a small batch of 3 1/2 oz in a small mixing bowl with a nearly hemispherical shape. The "dog bowl" writeup talks about the right depth of beans being quite important, but never expressed that in, y'know, depth, so I took a flying guess. Ended up about 3/4" deep in the center. So anyway, when I thought it was time to stop, I grabbed the bowl (oven mitt is my friend) and took four steps over to the door and set it down in the snow. Picked it up, tossed the beans, set it back down for a bit, repeat... seemed to cool them off mighty fast. The light fall of flakes that settled during this may have helped some, but it seemed like it wasn't much more than a minute from smoking hot to cool enough to stick a finger into the beans.

[Worldsafari]

I like the use of snow as a cooling method. It snowed for a short bit in Portland yesterday, had I been roasting this might have been an approach to cooling I would have attempted. Happy Roasts

[martin]

To be honest, it was an expedient - I hadn't really thought too much about what I was going to do about cooling the beans, and with the mistakes, er, I mean learning experiences I had with that first batch it rather abruptly reached a point where I wanted to move to that stage very urgently... and there was all that snow sitting there, not six feet away... BTW, I later decided that although some of the beans had gotten scorched on one side or an edge, the average roast was not nearly as dark as I had thought. Didn't have any trouble using up the beans, so i had to roast again.

My second batch was the same weight of El Salvador Finca Matalapa, and that one everything went really well... except, once again, examining the beans (and grinding, etc) later made me wonder if they'd really all gotten through first crack. This seems so weird - maybe it's because the usual problem is (or seems to be from what I've been reading) having the roast turn out to have gone past the target, but I keep coming up short. On average, at least.

The third roasting I had two somewhat uneven batches. That Brazil DP keeps getting the better of me, though this came closer to what I'd intended. Must remember that if it's not in first crack at ten minutes that gentle but firm heat, and patience, are better than trying to rush things along. Maybe something similar happened with the Guatemala Huehuetenango Finca La Maravilla, which was a bit uneven but came down somewhere not too far past first crack, as intended. I've been enjoying these two mixed half and half, and there's something amazingly reminiscent of still-warm chocolate chip cookies in the dry grounds...

Okay, I'm hooked, but I knew that was all but certain to happen. Pls cn hv nice roaster nw? Thx!

PS: I'll probably be looking at the Homeroast list more often - although forums have their good points [searchable archives!], I'm more comfortable conversing on a mail list. And of course I never, ever take my list via digest. :-)

[coffeegeek55]

Just killing time here and lo and behold I believe I have found what might possibly be your first post here (?)Martin. Yeah, the espresso won't let me sit still for a minute!!! Anyway, it appears you are one ( and Lionel) of the more active forum members here. Always thankful for your valuable input that you have given me about home roasting. Keep the flame burning, or in your case, keep the Nesco agitating!!! Take care my good caffeinated friend!!!! Jim

[martin]

Let's give this a try - pull our chatter back from innocent people's introduction threads.

Why, yes, today I retired two of the older jars of beans, and a quick nosecount suggested that I was running out of surplus roasted coffee. Two batches, one a light City roast of the "Platos Fuertes de Huila" Columbian nanolot blend; the second, not yet closed so that I can sniff the beans every now and then, the old Sumatra Takengon Classic taken to the land of second crack. Both were from that first sampler, and I've set myself the goal of finishing off a couple more of those lots before I buy any more greens.

The Columbia looks kind of... well, lightly roasted: rough surface, light & varied browns, lots of patchy colored beans. The Sumatra is, in absolute terms, much less varied, yet it's still surprisngly so for this degree of roast. I seem to recall that that's just how this Sumatra is unless you push it even further towards the dark side. Based on recent experiences, I'm going to try really hard to let these both sit for three days before I brew 'em. We'll see how well that works - think I've got enough other beans left, maybe...

My homeroast web app is coming together, but slowly, as these side projects tend to do. Tonight I got (I think) all of my roasts entered, at least minimal data. In theory that means that if I were to finish the greens summary page I could get a reasonably accurate figure for the stash's current size, since the one measurement I always recorded was greens weight.

[coffeegeek55]

Wow. I feel like I just jumped into a DeLorean and was actually there with you when this all took place!!
Now tell me more about this home roasting web app. Jim

[martin]

As you know, Jim, I've been keeping some records of my roasts. I've also been reading about that BehmorThing, but it's so Windows-specific that it needs their .NET baggage, and seems to lock the data away in a file format specific to the database library it uses, and... So I thought I'd toss something together, and if I'd done just that I'd probably have it ready for y'all to take a look at, but as it is it's got some ways to go. I've got all my greens and roasts entered, though not the roast notes, and have working views for looking at most of this. Getting at the views for consumed lots isn't quite there yet.

homeroast-demo.jpg (120.98 KiB) Viewed 9306 times

It tracks Offerings (which I fill in by simply stealing Tom's descriptions, so far only of beans I've acquired); my Green Lots; withdrawls from my greens; and my Roast Lots. And the relations between them (withdrawls is the relationship with added data between the greens and the roasts). Oh, and where I say "my" there I mean "or any other registered homeroaster", but that takes yet more work, as I've been using the admin interface to get my data into the system. Data entry is more work than displaying stuff if it's done at all well. :-)

[coffeegeek55]

That looks and sounds awesome. I certainly need something like that to get and stay organized with my roasting. Any idea when you will have the finalized edition ready? Jim

[martin]

I had planned to give this three days of rest, but last evening was so busy I never even had my early evening cup. Probably just as well - this is a wild bean, and so lightly roasted I expect it won't peak until the weekend.

So as I mentioned in one of our digressions somewhere in this forum, these beans smelled, right after roasting, mostly of strawberry. In the four days it's been resting the balance between the strawberry and the other berry (maybe it is blueberry, as Tom says, but I don't remember the smell of blueberry and think of this as gently rotten berry) has shifted, and as Cally put her finger on when I handed her the jar, a caramelly sweetness.

I pass over grounds and wet aroma, as I was into the brewing ritual and had limitied attention to give to such things, as is usual. Grounds smelled much like the beans, and when I took the lid off the CCD there was a bunch of berry sweetness. But that was all just offhand on my way to the cup.

Y'jnow, Jim, I'm not sure it's only five fruits & berries. I wouldn't want to try to count - I suspect I'd get a different sum every cup - but there's lots, and varied. Early on the familiar strawberry and blue/overripe berry dominated, but as it cooled they got more restrained and things got hard to sort out. Towards the end, when it was near body temperature, I'd get, yes, Tom, a *stong* nosefull of peach as I pulled another mouthfull out. And then it was gone, until next time.

Now I'm torn. On the one hand, this was a fascinatingly complex cup, constantly revealing new flavors and balances, and for all that I really want to brew it SO again, maybe many times again. On the other hand, it is as Jim said a wild ride, and I'll bet it would be less wild without losing that which makes it unique blended with the Java. Or, hmmm, I have some of that Cerrado DP left, too, which has gone well with other bright, berry-full beans.

Hmmm... has to be ten minutes since the last slurp, and there's a fascinating smokey, woody, slightly spicey taste that's developed towards the back of my palette and upper throat. And a hint of a smokey leather when I breathe through my mouth - think an old fringe leather jacket that's spent too much time in bars while you mixed the sound, back in the seventies when the bars the band played in were mighty darned smokey.

Fascinating. Who cares if it looks like a melange of at least three uneven roasts, the beans are midget sized, and you need to cull it by hand? :-/

[coffeegeek55]

Martin - thanks for a very detailed breakdown on your experience with the Shoye Union. I did not get near the flavor experiences as you. But then I only did a couple of presses, mostly using this bean for espresso blending, which works well as long as you keep the percentage low. I did detect some of the caramel and of course the fruit but no peaches. I do get the distinct blueberry notes and strawberry and something a little off. Maybe this is the overripe ( or underripe?) fruit taste that you mention. I want to say so kiwi showed up briefly but then again I think kiwi has a somewhat strawberry taste to it, maybe a little more tart.
I just roasted a batch of the Shoye Union 2 days ago to FC+ . Sadly, 2 days ago is when I started getting the flu and I have progressively declined from that point. So, I have really been unable to smell or taste anything for the last few days, and, probably won't be 100% for a few more days to come. I will tell you that roasting the Shoye Union to FC+ gives you a very even roast. The very few lighter beans that are present are the quakers. Anyway, at this point I am unable to discern the aroma or flavor of the Shoye Union.
Let me know how the melange comes out. The Java should work well with the Shoye Union. But as I said previously, this Sidamo(Shoye Union) will quickly overtake a blend if you don't keep the percentage low.
I did in fact try the Shoye Union with the Cerrado DP and Java as a espresso. Not that great. I have found that the Peru Cusco(at FC+)and Java(at FC+) work well with the Shoye Union(at City+) I find the Peru Cusco to have more character than the Cerrado DP.
Jim