Hello, I'm Jacoby! (Q's on espresso blending)

[Jacobybarista]

Hello everyone,

I'm from "The Greater Cincinnati" area, and I'm new to the entire scene of coffee. In less than a year's time I have gone from sipping white mochas from starbucks, to a passionate barista who also roasts his own beans.

I will be a frequent user of this forum, asking a range of questions. I would sincerely love all input from everybody reading, and you can be sure I'll try about anything suggested.

As of late, I've been reading up on espresso blending. There are sooo many different variables and suggestions, and my head is spinning...

So for my first experimental batch I blended:

50% Brazil Cerrado
25% Honduras Santa Barbaras
25% Ethiopian Harrar Longberry

for a total of approx. 1/2 lb of beans

I had heard Dry-processed coffees add desirable body to the espresso, while a brazil base is favored for a clean sweeter cup, and a bright central for fruit and a tinge more sweet... So what are the thoughts on this?

I roasted using a method I had recently picked up on in a post on this site, where I

Warm up for 90 secs on P1 1/4
then quickly punch in
1/2 A P3, then add 3 minutes.

I've got to say I was horrified by the differentiating first crack starts by the various beans, but things got a little better when I opened the hatch door a bit as was suggested. I let it go into first crack for a good 2 minutes, as I wanted to tame the tea and peach vibe that a city + harrar tends to offer. (This was what hit first crack first from observing the longberries in contrast to others).

So the result is honestly not what i had hoped for at all... From sight everything seemed to be going fine, but it appears as though the silver skin literally charred onto some of the beans! My fingernail easily scrapes it off, revealing a quite perfectly FC blend... But what happened?? Is this what charring is? I thought that was where parts of the actual bean burned?

So I'd seriously appreciate feedback on all parts of my post, and in the future I'll keep my posts down to 2 topics in one post max

[martin]

in the future I'll keep my posts down to 2 topics in one post max

Why for? Few enough of us ever do that! :-)

But just for practice, I'll hit just one question that sticks out like a sore thumb - why are you doing pre-roast blending before (?) having worked out the roast(s) and ratios that produce the result you want? Going at it that way, you have two hard problems at once: finding the right beans and ratio *and* making them all roast to a good outcome in the same roast batch. The latter is not always possible; as an easy example, melange blends are nearly always post-roast blended because they're all about combining different roast levels.

In case you haven't seen it yet, SM's Blending Basics is a must read IMO.

[Jacobybarista]

Wow that didn't even cross my mind! Thank you very much!

So will refraining from pre- roast blending prevent the charred silver skin problem I encountered?

[martin]

From your description, and knowing that bean (it's the Longberry, I'm guessing), it's not really charred or anything else bad, it's just... well attached chaff. Fairly common, as a minority of the beans if you're anywhere near second crack, for especially Ethiopia and Yemen dry-processed lots. I don't know if sticking with one origin in the roaster at a time will make much difference - perhaps, if you roasted the Longberry (assuming it's the chief culprit) lighter than you might otherwise in order not to overroast the other components.

There's a great deal of information lurking in the library. Although the reorganization it's had in the last year has made it look less intimidating, I can't help but recall fondly the old, too-long, page with all the item titles (well, maybe not of individual newsletters). The way you can't see all the titles in most sections until you've drilled down is perhaps unfortunate for casual discovery of things you had no idea you needed to know.

[Jacobybarista]

You've been a great help! I will be mulling through the library a lot to get a better handle on things like this