Simo C: Whenever a new batch of green beans arrives, in order to find the best (or right) production profile, our standard approach is to have three different profile roasts first, and compare the three different profiles of the coffee. Having a powerful tool as Cropster, gives us the possibility to investigate all our previous profile database. Based on this and adding the technical information of the coffee (such as humidity, bean size, etc), and the sensoric expectations, all those factors will help us to find the right direction while profile roasting.
We know from QC cuppings that across the three different roasting methods, even with a different roasting end time of up to 90 seconds, you still clearly retain the characteristics of Kenyan beans, such as red currant, berries and floral notes. The difference lies in the intensity of sweetness, fruity notes, and acidity, which will vary with the length of the Maillard reaction.
Figure 1 shows a Kenyan coffee and the three profile roasting attempts.
* Blue curve: Intense acidity, floral notes
* Yellow curve: More sweet, body and mouthfeel
* Red curve: Balanced between sweetness and acidity
For people unfamiliar with profile presentation in Cropster (and it’s built in roast compare reports), each of the blue, red, and yellow curves represents the bean temperature curve and the RoR (heating rate) curve for the three roasts. The place marked by the small circle corresponds to different roasting events. The left side is the “turning point” and the right side is “first crack”. The three beans of the three curves have the same temperature and the same development time.
As for how to select the best (or right) curve and determine the length of the roasting time, it depends on the origin of the raw beans and the physical characteristics of the green coffee. For me, the historical roasting data Cropster stores always leads me to make the right decision.
2) Roasting target: Roasting Goals
The roaster’s job is to create a roast profile which will allow coffee to develop in a way that will give you the best taste.
For me, the most important roasting parameters are “drop temperature” and “batch size”, and the two interact with each other and need to be clarified before starting roasting. In addition, since the gas setting at the beginning of roasting is also dependent on the “amount of roasting”, in order to ensure the target roasting duration, the temperature of the beans is crucial. Here are some key values I use for my roasting, for your reference:
Lower bean temperature range
200 ° C: when the full load rate of the roaster is between 50% and 100%
170 ° C: when the full load rate of the roaster is less than 50%
Roasting duration
Filter coffee: 8-12 minutes
Espresso: 10-13 minutes
Development Time Ratio (DTR)
Filter coffee: the ideal development time ratio is 10-14%
Espresso: The ideal development time ratio is 18-22%
Other roasting values and tools that will be measured and recorded:
Development level of the roasted coffee (color measured with Colorette, Colortrack or Lighttells, etc)
End temperature (with Cropster)
Development time and Development Time Ratio: for professionals those 2 elements are key factors for the roasting process (with Cropster)
Total roasting time (with Cropster)
Cupping score (with Cropster)
3) Heating rate curve and RoR peak
It’s essential for every roaster to try different profiles and taste the coffee in order to determine the curve. The RoR curves vary depending on the roasting machine, the batch size and the positioning of the probe. The following values are a summary of my personal experience and are for reference only:
1) The peak RoR usually appears within the first 3 minutes of the roasting process.
2) The peak RoR will affect the total roasting time, but also depends on the type of coffee, freshness and density of the green beans.
3) The peak RoR of the bean temperature is also affected by other environmental factors, such as ambient temperature and moisture.
4) RoR interval of 60 seconds works fine for me.
Blue curve : In order to maximize acidity and floral notes, the bean temperature RoR curve is very high with a peak of 38 ° C / 60 seconds.
Yellow curve : In order to extend the roasting time and seeking for body, sweetness and complexity, the peak RoR is relatively low.
Both curves have the same values for: drop temperature, turning point, and development time.
My rules for a good roast and reliable curve are as follows:
1) My curve will always be gently descending
2) My curve will have a certain RoR when it’s starting to crack
3) My curve will have a certain RoR when the roast is finished
Please Note: The RoR curves will vary from roaster to roaster. The above curves are taken from a Loring Kestrel S35 and 20 kg batch size.
My advices to my fellow roasters!
Start with buying good quality of green beans! Bad beans will never taste good no matter how you roast them.
Take some time to find a good roasting machine. There are many good ones out there!
Record your roasts! Cropster has always been and will be my favorite logging system, and I have used it every day for the past 6 years.
There are many factors affecting your roast, approach them one at a time. Don’t get confused! Get notes and study your roast profiles.
Taste your coffee daily and do blind cuppings! Do comparative cuppings to update your profiles.
Keep learning and stay updated with the latest news in the specialty coffee industry.
For years I’ve been promoting the idea of a steady decline in the ROR (rate of rise) during roasting. Recently I’ve heard of some “educators” publicly discrediting the idea of a steadily declining ROR, so I think it’s time to address this issue.
When it comes to coffee, we all know that Arabica is (mostly) better than Robusta. But dig a little bit deeper into Arabica, and you’ll find that there’s an entire world of different varieties out there. If you’ve ever seen the words “SL-28″, “Pacamara” or “Catuai” on a bag of coffee and had only a vague idea what they meant, this is for you.
Strictly speaking, varieties of coffee are separated into two distinct camps: varieties and cultivars. Varieties occur spontaneously through either freak mutation—for instance, growing much larger cherries than other plants of the same variety1—or through natural hybridisation with another variety (in rare cases a different species!). Cultivars are much the same, except that the changes are created or cultivated by humans.
The Anatomy and Morphology of the Coffee Plant poster, available from here.
In fact, Arabica itself is a relatively recent hybridisation of Robusta (Coffea canephora) and another, lesser known species of coffee called Coffea eugenioides2. In the area in Eastern Ethiopia where this happened, there are thousands of natural varieties of arabica growing in the wild!
One of the most knowledgeable coffee professionals in the world and a wonderful teacher, Peter Guiliano—director of the SCAA Coffee Symposium—recorded a video in 2012 that deals specifically with varieties. It is just under 30 minutes long, and represents a quick run-through of how Arabica made its way around the world, and how the different commercialised varieties and cultivars you would encounter today came about. It caps off with a very short description of the sorts of flavour profiles you can expect from some of them. It is well worth your time.
A legendary coffee variety that originated on the Boma Plateau, located in southeastern Sudan near to the Ethiopian border. This area belongs to a region considered to be the birthplace of the Arabica species. Sudan Rume has long been used by plant breeders as a source of “quality” genes, but is rarely planted because it doesn’t produce large yields.3
As prices of coffee go up, let’s hope more of these low-yield but delicious varieties are grown commercially. A while ago, Tim Wendelboe did a cultivar cupping at the Los Pirineos farm in El Salvador. Out of more than 50 cultivars, he rated Sudan Rume the highest.4
If you’d like to go deeper, the SCAA offers a handy Botanist’s guide to Specialty Coffee;this Wikipedia page has a concise list and description of many commercial varieties; for an overview at a glance, check out this illustration by Emma Bladyka for the SCAA Symposium. If you didn’t watch Peter Guiliano’s video above, you really should.
Sự khác nhau cơ bản giữa các độ rang và cách nhận biết
Câu hỏi đặt ra là Barista có cần biết rang không? Theo Cọ, câu trả lời là có, nó cũng giống như roaster ngoài cupping cũng nên biết pha để biết mình rang có bị lỗi gì hay không vì hương vị cà phê khi cupping và khi pha có thể khác nhau rất nhiều.
