Categories
Coffee Food

Roasty

Moka Kadir again. Took this one to Full City+ / maybe Vienna? Temps on this one are from the fancy new thermocouple I hacked into the roaster.

Vital Stats: 250g roasted, 77F Ambient, Target of Full City++ (447F). Post roast weight: 206g.

Time Temp Heater Fan Notes
0:00 229 100 0
0:15 243 100 0
0:30 256 100 0
0:45 269 100 0
1:00 282 100 0
1:15 294 100 0 Dropped Beans In
1:30 279 100 0
1:45 244 100 0
2:00 206 100 0
2:15 184 100 0
2:30 174 100 0
2:45 171 100 0
3:00 174 100 0
3:15 179 100 0
3:30 186 100 0
3:45 193 100 0
4:00 201 100 0
4:15 208 100 75 Quick fan kick to remove moisture
4:30 215 100 0
4:45 223 100 0 First Aroma
5:00 230 100 0
5:15 236 100 0
5:30 243 100 0
5:45 249 100 0
6:00 255 100 0
6:15 261 100 0
6:30 266 100 0
6:45 272 100 0
7:00 277 100 0
7:15 282 100 0
7:30 287 100 0
7:45 291 100 0
8:00 296 100 0
8:15 300 100 0
8:30 305 100 0
8:45 309 100 0
9:00 314 100 0
9:15 318 100 0
9:30 322 100 0
9:45 327 100 0
10:00 331 100 0
10:15 335 80 0
10:30 339 80 0
10:45 344 80 0
11:00 348 80 0
11:15 352 80 25
11:30 356 100 25
11:45 360 100 25
12:00 364 100 25
12:15 368 100 25
12:30 372 100 25
12:45 376 100 25
13:00 381 80 25
13:15 385 80 50 FC Starts
13:30 390 80 50
13:45 395 50 50
14:00 399 40 50
14:15 403 40 50
14:30 406 40 50
14:45 410 40 50
15:00 412 40 50
15:15 416 40 50 FC Ends
15:30 419 80 50
15:45 422 80 75
16:00 425 80 75
16:15 429 80 75
16:30 432 80 100
16:45 436 60 100 SC Starts
17:00 440 60 100
17:15 445 60 100
17:21 447 60 100 Stopped Roast
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Categories
Coffee

More Roasts

Since the HotTop arrived, I’ve gone through four roasts. The first roast (which I’ll call roast zero) was a total failure and I was quite bummed. That is, until I realized that in my excitement and haste, I had forgotten to install the rear filter. Without the rear filter, way too much air was drawn into the roasting chamber by the fan, which quickly stalled and then killed the roast. 250g of baked beans went right into the trash.

Once I figured out what I’d done wrong, the next few roasts went swimmingly. Here’s the data for roast of some of Sweet Maria’s Moka Kadir:

Time Temp Heater Fan Notes
0:00 167 100 0  
0:30 168 100 0  
1:00 177 100 0  
1:30 188 100 0  
2:00 201 100 0  
2:30 213 100 75  
3:00 226 100 0  
3:30 240 100 0  
4:00 253 100 0  
4:30 266 100 0  
5:00 278 100 0  
5:30 289 100 0  
6:00 300 100 0  
6:30 309 100 0  
7:00 318 100 0  
7:30 325 100 0  
8:00 334 100 0  
8:30 341 100 0  
9:00 347 100 0  
9:30 354 100 25  
10:00 359 100 25  
10:30 365 80 25  
11:00 370 80 25  
11:30 374 80 25  
12:00 377 80 25  
12:30 381 80 25  
13:00 386 80 25  
13:30 388 60 75  
14:00 392 60 75 First Crack starts
14:30 395 40 100 Rolling First
15:00 397 40 100  
15:30 399 40 100  
16:00 401 40 100  
16:30 401 40 100  
17:00 401 40 100 First Crack finishes
17:30 402 40 100  
18:00 402 40 100  
18:30 402 40 100  
19:00 402 40 100 Second Crack starting
19:30 404 40 100 Second Crack rolling

My second roast was some Ethiopia Organic Sidamo Dry Process Special Selection.

Time Temp Heater Fan Notes
0:00 167 100 0  
0:30 172 100 0  
1:00 181 100 0  
1:30 194 100 0  
2:00 208 100 0  
2:30 221 100 75  
3:00 235 100 0  
3:30 249 100 0  
4:00 262 100 0  
4:30 275 100 0  
5:00 287 100 0  
5:30 298 100 0  
6:00 309 100 0  
6:30 318 100 0  
7:00 327 100 0  
7:30 336 100 0  
8:00 343 100 0  
8:30 350 100 0  
9:00 357 100 0 Slight crackle
9:30 363 100 25  
10:00 368 100 25  
10:30 374 80 25  
11:00 379 80 25  
11:30 383 80 25  
12:00 386 80 25  
12:30 392 80 25 First big pops of FC
13:00 395 80 25  
13:30 399 60 75  
14:00 402 60 75 FC rolling
14:30 406 40 100 FC ends
15:00 408 40 100  
15:30 410 40 100  
15:45 411 40 100 Stop roast. SC just starting
Categories
Coffee

The Smells of Heaven

If you know me, you might know that I’m a bit of a coffee nut. We have a fairly nice espresso machine and grinder at home (Rancilio Silvia and Rocky) and I build at least two cappas most mornings. I think I’m pretty decent at it, to the point where we like the drinks we make at home much more than any of the local coffee houses.

I’d been re-reading a fun online novelette called Espresso! My Espresso! by Randy Glass which chronicles his journey learning to make really great espresso. His experiences were one of the deciding factors in going with the Silvia for our home machine, though Randy went one step further than I did; he started home roasting. When we picked up Silvia, we were not sure this whole thing would work out and didn’t really want to go all in right off the bat. Silvia has a great resale value and I figured if we hated it, I wouldn’t be out too much money.

Nearly a year and a half later, I no longer have any concerns about selling Silvia. In the intervening time, I’ve spent countless hours studying proper technique, trying out new ideas, reading alt.coffee, installed a PID to better control temperature, purchased a better grinder (the Rocky), bought a high-precision scale to measure bean weigh down to the tenth of a gram and spent a fair bit of time trying to put my old thermo class to work. It’s a very enjoyable hobby and it produces a rather tasty beverage each morning. After started to re-read Randy’s story, my interest in home roasting perked up a bit. There are some financial advantages to it too; green beans cost around 50 to 75% of what roasted beans do and they last up to a year. We’ve been buying 5lb bags of Black Cat from Intelligentsia and freezing off most of it. It works, but it’s a pain and the quality does seem to suffer when we get into that last pound and a half or so.

When my co-worker AJ offered to send me an air-roaster he wasn’t using (an iRoast), I jumped at the chance. I’m now home roasting too; yet another path to walk down and learn, and so far it’s been quite a good time, if a bit frustrating. The iRoast is essentially an air popcorn popper on steroids, with a bunch of nice features for roasting coffee. Unlike a popcorn popper, the iRoast can be programmed. The program consists of three stages; you set the air temperature for each stage and the duration and the roaster tries to send air of that temperature over the beans for the period.

I say “tries” because it seems like the temp you set and the temp actually delivered are wildly different. I’ve ordered a little k-type thermocouple (a fancy thermometer) to measure the temp in the mass of roasting beans to get a better idea what’s going on, but for now I’m going based on appearance, smell and the “cracks.”

When you’re roasting beans, there are stages the beans pass through. During the progression there are two “cracks”, that is two audible clues to what the beans are doing. The first crack signals the stage where the beans would now produce drinkable coffee and somewhere in the second crack is the usual desireable level of roast for espresso drinkers. Sadly, hearing the cracks over the whir of the iRoast’s fan is a bit hard. I’ve found that by specifying a fairly high level of heat near the end of the roast (slowing the fan down) makes it easier to hear, but I’m still not totally sure what I’m listening for. The thermocouple should help out in that regard.. More when it arrives.

Anyway, today I roasted up some Sumatra Blue Batak “Tarbarita” Peaberry to what I think is City+, maybe Full City. I decided to start keeping a journal with roasting times and temperatures.. Here’s the data from today. Ambient was 67F, it was raining, and these temps are all from the on-board temperature sensor on the iRoast.

Time Temp Notes
0:30 221 first stage at 360F
1:00 235
1:30 244
2:00 250
2:30 255
3:00 257
3:30 259
4:00 262
4:30 264
5:00 266 second stage at 470F starts
5:30 288
6:00 293
6:30 304
7:00 306
7:30 307
8:00 309 third stage at 455F starts
8:30 311 first crack starting? pretty sure.
9:00 311
9:30 316
10:00 318
10:30 324
11:00 327 very active cracking noise
11:30 335
12:00 340
12:18 342 manually stopped. slight sheen on beans?

Get to try it out on Thursday once it’s had a chance to rest. I’ve never had or made a single-origin espresso before, so it should be interesting…