sweet maria’s roasted

Tom, Josh and Derek are back from the SCAA show. This whole cupper vs. barista thing was really on everyone’s minds. Also, our Rwanda roast did quite well in the Roaster’s Choice competition despite some very, very beautiful coffees we were up against. We were just hoping to make the top 10! Oddly, I had misread it as “Taster’s Choice competition”, and was at Costco looking for 30 Lbs of Taster’s Choice to enter … which wouldn’t have done quite as well as the Rwanda. Note that this is the exact same lot we roasted a couple weeks ago as our Roastmaster selection.

Continuing with the theme of using more complicated profiles for roasting we took this Classic Mandheling to City+ and a final temperature of 436 degrees, final roast time was an average of 16 minutes. To try and develop more character in the cup we started the roast off with the gas throttled down a bit until the beans began to show some yellowing. Then the heat was brought up to full blast until the thermoprobe read 370 degrees. This was about 10 minutes into the roast, then we dropped the heat back significantly to draw out the roast. Hopefully this will help maintain the structural integrity of the bean imparting more complex flavors and balance to the cup. We brewed up a pot today and it shows promise, we’ll see how it tastes after a full day of resting. The Liquid Amber was similarly profiled to build up a healthy charge on the front side of the roast and then draw out the already extended first crack which started at 406 and continued all the way until the 430 degree mark. For this espresso blend we favor a Vienna or French roast level so final temp was 460 degrees and total roast time was an average of 16:30. The batches were dumped well into second crack and continued to snap and crack as the coffee cooled in the tray. We’ll pull some shots late today or tomorrow after the coffee has had plenty of time to rest and see how we did. The Panama decaf was roasted to City+ with a final temp of 420 degrees and roast time of 15 minutes. For this decaf I built up the heat in the drum a little more slowly before lowering the gas to create a gentler first crack.

Wow - this Brazil is such a beautiful coffee, dark opal green color, remarkable preparation, fantastic to roast in the Probat. I used a roast profile where I reached 1st crack in 11 minutes and dropped the heat at the first pops to extend the time until target temperature of 430 f was reached. The Probat has a lot of steel in the drum and end plates, meaning that there is a lot of conduction of heat to the coffee, so you can drop your flame and “cruise” quite easily in this roaster. That’s not the case with roasters like the behmor, which is mainly radiant and convective heat, or air roasters that are pure convection. But the idea is the same, and roast profiles can be matched between different types of machines. It’s too early to really cup the coffee, but my goal is to preserve brighter tones in the cup, which should emerge as the cup cools down in tasting. The Colombia decaf was fairly light but colored quite heavily and had a loud pop. I think we’ll see oils emerge even though this is a fairly like 430 f roast, but that’s a way in which decafs can be weird. The Moka Kadir was a 460 f roast that I slowed considerably at the finish. Should have a lot of chocolate tonality!

I decided to stay a little lighter on the Rwanda Gkongoro Nyarusiza than I might have, based on some test roasts I did. I roasted pretty much full heat until the very beginning of 1st crack; average of 1:30 minutes, 403 f. Then I brought the flame down to the minimum amount I could to draw out the roast time and yet not too little to stall the roast. This is critical, because when coffee goes exothermic during 1st crack, you must be providing enough heat to the roast charge in order to keep things moving along. It makes sense in terms of pyrolysis in other types of cooking, and it makes sense in coffee. The key browning event in coffee is the Maillard reaction, an interaction between amino acids and reducing sugars, and it’s the same that occurs in the browning of beef! And it definitely wouldn’t be good BBQ technique to achieve a nice brown meat by letting it go cold when it’s half done, then crank up the flame again and finish it. Anyway, the Probat takes care of warm-up phase with the roasts quite well - we don’t have to diddle with the air and gas controls from the green-to-yellow-to-tan phases. We do make adjustments for the finish phases of roasting, and this is true with the Costa Rica La Libertad decaf this week, because you can easily race to the finish temp. of 428 f on this with too much “momentum”. So I also back off the flame severely at the start of first … in fact I make sure with decafs that I approach first gingerly. Classic Italian is our darkest roast for espresso, darker than Puro Scuro and Monkey and Moka Kadir. That said, we are still on the light side compared to other roasters. If you want shiny black pieces of carbon, look elsewhere. The fact is, we put such nice coffees in our blends, I just can’t abuse them with roasting until everything tastes like charcoal. 463 f is the highest finish temperature on the Classic, and it does depend a little of the atmosphere and “speed” and which you approach 2nd crack. That’s where you need the human in front of the roaster. In coffee, the numbers always DO lie, at least just a little bit. The thermocouple can shift a little, the air can be a little more humid, the gas valve can be set a tad more open or closed … that’s where an experienced roaster-person is so important.

Things are starting to even out a little more with the heat on the Probat and our roast times are back in the 15-16 minute range, which is ideal for this Full City roast.  Dry-process coffees tend to produce a wide range of color once roasted and this Golocha is a perfect example.  There are a few quakers to cull out but leave the just slightly lighter beans in there to really enjoy the origin characteristics of this coffee.  First crack came on around 402 degrees and final roast target temperature was 440 degrees.

When Tom re-cupped this Kimel peaberry he noticed that a Full City roast seemed more apropos than a lighter roast. Going a bit darker brings out the complex spice palate in this vibrant coffee, in fact, I totally forgot to change the label to reflect this reassessment, so my apologies. For today’s roast we took each batch to 440 degrees and they timed out at about 14 minutes–first crack began at 402 degrees. The reason these batches finished a couple minutes faster than normal is: I cleaned the jets on the gas fired Probat and WOW did it make a difference. I’d become accustomed to roast times more in the 16-18 minute range and every so often Tom would say “we really should clean those burner jets soon, it’ll make a big difference”. The Probat has a basic layout of 26 gas jet burners that each have a flared tip, by unscrewing each of these I was able to thoroughly remove any build up of carbon that was blocking the pathway for the gas. Now it is running hotter than before and I had to monitor the heat level much more carefully to keep each batch in the same ballpark time-wise. It was a fun challenge and a good way to learn more skills to provide a quality roast for everyone to enjoy.

All of our coffees have their merits but this particular Antigua is a truly special lot. Tom, Derek, and I cupped it this morning and were blown away by the sweetness and fruited qualities in our sample roasts. The lightest test roast was amazingly lively but one notch higher the flavors were more balanced and seemed about perfect, this was a City to City+ roast level. We targeted this on the Probat and ended up going only to 425 degrees with the roasts finishing around the 16 minute mark. First crack came on at 401 and continued up until 411 degrees.  As Tom mentions in the review, the care taken in processing this coffee really shows in the way the bean holds its structure with a beautiful crease and very little swelling. We hope you will appreciate the emphasis on the origin flavor characteristics with nary a hint of roast flavor to cloud this fantastic Central American coffee. Can you tell how much we like it here?

Sorry I’m a few days late with the post but we’ve had a busy week since we added so many new coffees over the weekend. This coffee is a very mild one and we went for a light City roast to draw out the origin character. This meant going only to 432 degrees on the Probat with a final roast time of 18 minutes. I did do slightly larger batches than normal which accounts for the longer roast time. We have enjoyed the results for the past two days here in the warehouse, and noticed more spice notes today after 48 hours of resting. The cup is pleasant, balanced and has the waxy body Tom mentions in the review.

One glance at a handful of this green coffee and you know you’re in for a treat. It is beautifully processed and this lot got out of Honduras in top notch condition, not a fate that most coffees from this nearby country share. For our roast today we are aiming for City+, on the Probat this means a final temperature of 435 degrees and a roast time of 18:30 minutes. First crack happened at 399 degrees around the 12:45 mark. The resultant cup should have the crisp acidity, balance, a touch of apple and aromatic wood notes in the finish, as  mentioned in the review. It’s mild, it’s balanced, but as it cools I think you’ll taste more and more. Approachable coffee! Sometimes we notice coffees changing a bit over time but this one has held its character quite nicely since Tom first cupped it.

We are at the tail end of the ‘07 crop of Ethiopian coffees and this Special Selection Sidamo was one of the best lots from a less than stellar crop cycle. Processed using a labor-intensive method similar to the Misty Valley, this coffee has loads of character and a rainbow of bean colors at the Full City roast that we targeted for today. You may have seen our recent Tiny Joy newsletter that breaks down the whole Quakers in coffee phenomenon and this is the coffee that led to that newsletter. I spend a good bit of time culling out as many of these little light colored devils in the cooling tray but it is impossible to spot them all and some of them are even desirable for this cup to retain its true character. This coffee has wonderful blueberry notes and spice in a complex cup so we kept it in the City +/Full City range. That meant a final thermo-probe temperature of 440 and a roast time of 16:20. First crack happened around the 13:00 mark at 415 degrees. As a fun experiment try brewing a pot of this coffee with no lighter beans and then brew a pot with some of the lighter beans left in, there should be quite a difference in the cup characteristics and you might find that you like one better than the other.