Tasting and then trying to replicate different Profiles

Notes from Roasting 201

Assessing the various roasting results

Today was an intense day of learning the nuances of roasting. Specifically selecting a coffee from the roasts we had already done the day before and then trying to create different profiles that end up as check points before, during and after.

First the tasting of the previous days roast:

We were given the SCAA cupping forms to evaluate the different roast profiles. Which resulted in the first two and the last one being excluded first. The first too were a little green, and the last one the unique flavours of the coffee had been destroyed by going to far in the roast like an Italian or French roast. In the end the coffee that had just gone past 1^st crack, and just before 2^nd crack at 420°F (the 4^th roast) or 425F (the 5^th roast).

Creating multiple roast profiles

Once the Results were in we were divided into groups and asked to roast to a 11,13,15 and 17 minute profile following the perfect profile graph, shown below:

This was quite a challenge and between us it took over 40 roasts to get 4 roasts to the perfect profile. The others were baked or the middle of the bean had not been roasted. The importance of understanding when to add heat and when to remove was illustrated by this process. You need to almost remove or add flame at the correct level almost 2 minutes before it needs to be.

This profile was not quite right because it did not peak towards the end, which means that heat was not added early enough at the end, the coffee was not baked but the texture was not quite right.

Mzukisi and Frog Quaffer had a very successful roast, shown below:

This coffee was the result of the below roast profile logged, which had a great spike towards the end:

We did finish a little earlier today, around 17:15

Tomorrow we will be concentrate on when to change airflow.