GroundLevelCoffee

I received a sample of the Arabica plantation ‘Catimore’ greens from Neil today. After a quick Google, I discovered that Catimore is a variety of arabica bean, and that region of India has produced some good greens over the years. The sample was around 300 grams and so I figured on two Imex roasts rather than one SC/TO roast.

Total roast time was 8 1/2 minutes at an ambient temp of around 26C. The roast is a full city+ with some beans hitting second crack. I had intended to roast to a full city, but some beans got a little ahead of me.

Roast aroma was very good, and the aroma of the just-roasted beans is promising. The roasting beans let go of a fair bit of chaff - suggestive of a dry-processed bean rather than wet-processed.

I’ll let them rest for 24-36 hours before first sample. With the roast just hitting second crack, the beans should be suitable for plunging and espresso.

Based on the roast aromas, it’s a bean I’d be happy to grab some of. Further reports to follow.

Further to the other day’s post about the Yemen Ismaili, I can almost guarantee it’s underroasted. Ground some this morning in the Zassenhaus, and it was difficult due to the hardness of the bean.

Aroma-wise there is a little of the blueberry, but not much; and not much flavour, either.

It’ll keep me in plunger coffee for the remainder of the week, and I won’t be sorry to see it finished. It’s a pity and a waste. Just need to remember to let the roast progress a little further next time. I think the factor that tricked me this time is that the chaff was pretty dark around the beans.

For the past few days we’ve been drinking some Ethiopian Harrar as a single origin (SO) bean through the espresso machine.

The bean was roasted in the SC/TO on Christmas eve. That’s eleven days ago. This bean is exhibiting a huge chocolate aroma and flavour as whole beans, ground beans and in our standard doppio latte style drink.

My previous experience with this bean has shown a fairly fruity aroma, but that’s nowhere to be seen in this batch. I’ve previously described Harrar as being ‘pastoral’, but not this roast in this brew method. I’d say the roast is full city - taken to the edge of second. The chocolate flavour is perhaps diminishing - being strongest on the weekend at around 7 days rest. I tried this bean when it was two days old, but there was no chocolate evident. I then let it rest for another 5 days and so I can ‘t comment on how the flavour has changed or developed over time.

Given all of the above, the next time I roast for espresso (every week - usually on a weekend) I’ll try some more Harrar but this time I’ll track its progress from a day or two out of the roaster through to around a week old.

Yes, it was a hot day, but that’s not the point.

Even though Christmas is just over, my roasting for presents hasn’t commenced. Due to a spread of family, our Christmas gatherings are usually scheduled for later in December or early January.

We have five groups of parents/siblings that I need to roast for. I figure each group should receive two separate lots of coffee, and each lot should be around 250 grams roasted. The primary consumption method is plunger (3 of the 5) and the remainder is drip. All but one needs ground coffee. And so a hunt through the green coffee stash/roasting spreadsheet yields the following suggested beans:

• Cuban Touquino Lavado (2 lots)
• Kenya Masai (3 lots)
• New Guinea Kimel A1 (2 lots)
• Sumatran Lintong (1 lot)
• Indian Mysore Plantation AA (2 lots)

That makes for 10 roast in all commencing with 4 today or tomorrow and concluding early next week with the remaining 6 roasts.

That should get me on the way to understanding my SC/TO.

Roasted a batch of Ethiopian Harrar this morning. It’ll be used primarily (exclusively?) for cappuccino/flat white style coffees.

The roast was a 320 gram batch in the SC/TO in air temperatures around 38C. The profile was all over the place. I started off with the standard ramp of 165C but had to lower and raise the temperature throughout the roast. I had to lift the lid a few times to reseat the foil cap before reaching first crack and so that phase of the roast lasted around 12 minutes. I bumped the temperature up to over 165C to complete first and then the roast seemed to start to come into second. Total roast was probably around 18-or-so minutes.
Dry-processed beans such as the Harrar usually roast unevenly and today’s was no exception. I tossed a few light-brown beans in the garden and the remainder of the roast looks OK. I’ll rest it until early next week and give it a whirl. I hope it’s not the best roast I’ve ever done because the profile will be almost impossible to re-create.

Completed my third roast in the SC/TO setup this morning. The first roast was the other day and comprised the Uganda Okoro White Nile and was without a spacer. I disconnected the SC heating element the other day and scored a spacer this morning (25cm springform ring tin), and so proceeded to do two roasts:

1. A Kenya Masai. Batch size was 320 grams. Temp indicator was set too high (225C) and some outliers just started to hit second when I pulled the roast. Total time was around 10 minutes. It’s for plunging this week. A nice, even roast, though.
2. Next was some of 1-1-1 blend (Brazil Yellow Bourbon, Kenya Masai and Yemen Ismaili). Again a 320 gram batch. Kept the temp down to around 155C-170C on the dial - no idea on bean temp, though. First commenced at around 8 minutes and I lowered the temp to when the thermostat cut off - around 155C. Held there for the rest of first - about 4 minutes. After a minutes pause at around 12-13 minutes, I ramped up to 170C until second commenced. Pulled the roast around 30 seconds in. Again a nice even roast. It’s for espresso and so will be tried around Tuesday/Wednesday of next week.

As long as I can get reasonable temperature control, and find a way of cooling the beans quickly (apart from the hairdryer on cool) and can find a way of getting the beans out of the SC quicker than hand-scooping, we’ll be OK.

First impressions of the SC/TO? Fairly easy to roast with; a bit of fiddling to setup until a semi-permanent roasting station can be located; adequate batch size seems to be around 320 grams at present - but I’ll try others when I’ve got a reasonable profile I place.

Roasted up a batch of the Ugandan Okoro ‘White Nile’ this evening. It was the first batch in the SC/TO and so the profile is anyone’s guess.

The roast was performed without a spacer between the Turbo Oven and the Stir Crazy, and I haven’t disconnected the heating element in the SC yet. As a result the roast was probably too fast and it is somewhat uneven.

The roast of 300 grams took about 11 minutes with first being reached at about 8 minutes. The roast is something of a melange, but some beans hit second and the remainder weren’t too far off. Probably a Full City or FC+ overall.

The initial aroma was somewhat grassy (reminiscent of the Bugisu), but it had changed to a very peanutty aroma around 1 1/2 hours after roasting.

By most accounts the Bugisu benefits from a three-day-rest and so these should be sampled on Saturday afternoon/evening.

Having completed nearly 380 roasts in a little over two years, I have a swag of statistics regarding batch sizes and roast costs. My two poppers were comparable in cost to the XU1 heat guns, but completed less roasts each and, at a smaller batch size, end up costing about three times as much per roast kilo. The stats are:

Poppers: 57 roasts for 4.6kg giving average batch size of 81 grams for a cost of $8.65/kilo of greens roasted.

XU1 Heat Guns: 77 roasts for 15.3kg giving average batch size of a little under 200 grams for a cost of about $2.60/kilo.

Ozito Heat Gun: 57 roasts for 15.1kg at an average batch size of 264 grams at a cost of $2.65/kilo.

Imex: 187 roasts totalling 28.5kg at an average batch of 152 grams and a cost of $7.00/kilo.

And so a Heat Gun is the cheapest per kilo of roasted greens (around $2.60), followed by a long way by the Imex ($7.00 and dropping with every roast); with the popper a short way back at $8.65.

As a rough estimate, assuming a roasting drum and BBQ is good for 10 years at one kilo per week (my standard usage plus additional gifts, etc), the numbers work out at around the same price as a Heat Gun per roast kilo. BBQ roast is, say, $750 up front for 500 roasts, then about $1/roast for gas equals $2.50/kilo. More roasts of smaller quantities mean the numbers wash out at around the same.

I haven’t crunched the numbers for a SC/TO setup, but would expect something around $1.50 to $2.00 per kilo. $200 setup good for 3 years at 1 kilo/week equals $1.33.

But it comes down to more than the numbers:

• Ease of use
• Ease of profiling
• Quality of the output
• How well the roaster’s standard output is matched to estimated or likely usage

All good fun.