Another Coffee Roasting Thread! Favorite Beans

So after reading about coffee roasting on here I decided I had to try it. I'm not even a huge coffee drinker, but home roasting sounds like something I'd really enjoy. So I went out this weekend and bought a Walgreen's corn popper for $10, an aeropress, a handpresso just for fun , and a hario skerton grinder though I'm still waiting for it to arrive. I also bought 2 lbs. of green beans from thecaptainscoffee.com which is just down the road from me. The shipped super fast and included an extra bag of beans labelled "merry christmas!" Awesome! I roasted up two batches tonight and was impressed with how easy it was. I bought a pound each of a Guatemalan Huehuetenango and a Flores Bajawa Ngura. I did a 75 g batch of each tonight and took it to what I think is a Full City +. I was expecting to barely hear the 1st and 2nd crack but they were surprisingly both loud and separated well so there was no confusion. I took each batch about 20-30 seconds into the second crack before cooling. The beans are a bit lighter than I expected but we'll see how it turns out. The extra bag the bean store included is India Mysore Nuggets, Extra Bold. I plan on ordering the 8 lb sampler from sweet marias after the holidays, but in the mean time, I'd like to hear about your favorite beans. I'll be looking to experiment with a good variety to figure out what I like best.

Here are the descriptions of the beans I have from thecaptainscoffee.com. I'll update with impressions once the beans are rested and sampled :

Guatemala, Huehuetenango, SHB
Pronounced Way-Way-Ten-Nang-Go, this is one of Guatemala's best and highest grown coffees. Crisp acidity and intricate flavors make this another "power house" coffee. Bold, yet buttery smooth.

Flores, Bajawa Ngura, Organic
Just arrived--Low acidity and a smooth, heavy body. An accompaniment of dark chocolate, vanilla bean, and sweet caramel flavors with an underlying dark walnut finish.

India, Mysore Nuggets, Extra Bold
More known for tea, India never the less produces some very fine coffee. Low acidity, rich body, long finish. Cedar, nutmeg, and hints of cloves abound. A wonderfully complex coffee.

My favorite(s) are Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe and Sumatran Blue Batak. I usually get the sampler and these two and I almost never have a bad cup of coffee.

summersolstice said:

My favorite(s) are Ethiopian Yirga Cheffe and Sumatran Blue Batak. I usually get the sampler and these two and I almost never have a bad cup of coffee.

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That sumatran sounds good! As for the yirga cheffe, I'm hesitant to believe strong citrus flavors and "brightness" could be good in coffee, but by the popularity of such beans, they obviously are, at least to many people. I guess I have just always thought of coffee as being more roasty/chocolatey. Perhaps getting into roasting will expand my horizons. I'll definitely give the yirga cheffe a try, or any other "bright" beans that come in a variety pack.

I was given some green beans but have yet to attempt to roast them. Seems like a good winter project. Any good advice or primers I should check out?

KingBrianI said:

As for the yirga cheffe, I'm hesitant to believe strong citrus flavors and "brightness" could be good in coffee, but by the popularity of such beans, they obviously are, at least to many people.

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I'm absolutely hooked on my favorite local roaster's Ethiopian Harrar - must be the fruitiness of the beans...

Harrar
When I was managing a couple of busy shops in the Denver area, we roasted our Harrar to what is called full city roast. This is something of a medium dark roast, not the level of espresso and well below a dark French roast.

The body of Harrar roasted to this level is best described as silky, yet dry. It has a finish almost like a dry champagne in your mouth.

The flavor is the most unique part about Harrar. This is by far the fruitiest flavor of coffee I have ever experienced. The acid level is very high (again, this is a good thing, think about fruit). The flavor is amazing layered with a subtle level of blueberry cheesecake. I know that sounds a little odd, let me remind you this is a bean picked, dried, roasted and brewed, no flavors added (aficionados don’t drink flavored coffee).

While the casual coffee drinker might notice that there is something unique about the coffee, they likely won’t pick up the blueberry layer in the flavoring. Certainly they will notice a fruitiness and a natural sweetness that makes the flavor both unique and outstanding. Most people with a hint will realize that, yes, there is a trace of blueberry there.

How do they get the fruit flavor in the bean?
Unfortunately no one really knows why Ethiopian coffee beans have such unique and distinctive fruit flavors. Some Hawaiian coffees have taken on the characteristics of the fruit crops that they grew beside for years. However, none of them have the same levels of fruitiness that characterize and Ethiopian bean. This to me makes the Ethiopian coffees even more amazing.

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scottthorn said:

I was given some green beans but have yet to attempt to roast them. Seems like a good winter project. Any good advice or primers I should check out?

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I'm a noob but these links should help.

http://www.sweetmariascoffee.com/forum/

http://coffeegeek.com/guides

There's a lot of good info at each. I pretty much read through everything I could find while waiting for my stuff to arrive so I had a pretty good idea what to do when it got here.

I roasted 2 more batches tonight with interesting results. I thought my popper was roasting a bit too fast yesterday which I've read will result in brighter coffee with more "high" notes at the expense of body and "roundness". Since I think I'll like more roundness in my coffee I attached one of those long orange extension cords (it's probably 50') to the popper in order to introduce a bit of resistance and slow the roast down. Well it completely worked. Here's a comparison between with and without:

-Flores Bajawa Ngura, organic, 75 g, ambient temp 67dF, gourmet kitchen popper from Walgreen's plugged directly into wall.

1C @ 3 min
2C @ 5 min 30 sec
roast stopped @ 5 min 50 sec

-Flores Bajawa Ngura, 75 g, ambient temp 65dF, gourmet kitchen popper from Walgreen's plugged into 50' extension cord plugged into same outlet as before.

1C @ 4 min 30 sec
2C @ 9 min 30 sec
roast stopped @ 9 min 50 sec

-Guatemalan Huehuetenango, 75 g, ambient temp 67dF, gourmet kitchen popper from Walgreen's plugged directly into wall.

1C @ 2 min 20 sec
2C @ 5 min 50 sec
roast stopped @ 6 min 20 sec

-Guatemalan Huehuetenango,

not tested with extension cord

-Indian Mysore Nugget Extra Bold, 75 g, ambient temp 65dF, gourmet kitchen popper from Walgreen's plugged into 50' extension cord plugged into same outlet as other tests.

1C @ 4 min 30 sec
2C@ 9 min 30 sec
roast stopped @ 9 min 50 sec


So as you can see, the roast seems much extended with the addition of the extension cord. Much longer than I expected. The 2 dF difference in ambient temp might have made some difference, but not this much. Hopefully the new process creates roasts with a nice full body and rich deep tones.

As an aside, my grinder won't be getting here before I leave for the holidays so taste tests of all these roasts will have to wait till I arrive at my destination on Sunday since they have a grinder.

I'm a big fan of most peaberry beans, as well as Nicaraguan Limoncello. lots of fruitiness in these.

1st crack is a lot like popcorn popping, while 2nd crack is more like the snaps from a burning wood pile, and usually quieter.

I have a Fresh Roast 8+ and a Behmor 1600 drum roaster. they each serve a purpose (FR8 for espresso/dark roasts, Behmor for City to FC+ and large batches up to 1lb)

malkore said:

I'm a big fan of most peaberry beans, as well as Nicaraguan Limoncello. lots of fruitiness in these.

1st crack is a lot like popcorn popping, while 2nd crack is more like the snaps from a burning wood pile, and usually quieter.

I have a Fresh Roast 8+ and a Behmor 1600 drum roaster. they each serve a purpose (FR8 for espresso/dark roasts, Behmor for City to FC+ and large batches up to 1lb)

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I agree with your descriptions of the crack sounds. 1st crack did sound like popcorn popping, and was a bit more sporadic. 2nd crack sounded to me like rice crispies once you pour on milk, a bit quieter and much more steady. Both were extremely easy to hear though, before starting I had worries that the popper sound would cover up the cracks and I'd miss the stages.

KingBrianI said:

That sumatran sounds good!

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It's really funny but when I was in Sumatra, at Lake Toba where the indigenous Batak tribe grows coffee, all they served was "Nescafe" - a light colored and finely powdered instant coffee. I guess the coffee grown locally was far too valuable for anything other than export.

I like me some Tanzanian Peaberry....mmmm....one of the roasters we buy from has it roasted to near perfection every time. It's full, robust, and roasty! What a way to start the morning.

YES! rice krispies is another good way to describe 2nd crack.

i also didn't mention i get all my beans at sweetmarias.com too. usually 5lb bags but one of these days I'll snag a 20lb sack

I have a Hottop roaster and LOVE it.

I roast 225 Grams at a time, for my espresso i ususally go anywhere from first snaps of second crack to about 30 seconds into second crack.

For regular coffee I ususally got anywhere from 1 to 2 minues after 1st crack ends.

My roast range in time from 17'30s to close to 20 mintues. (Much slower profile on the hottops, plus I programed it that way).

My favorites so far are Mocha Java from Whole Foods at FC+ and Guatemalan from a local coffee roaster roasted to FC. Both are wonderful, but are about $9 a pound for the green beans which is on the pricey side. My favorite from Sweet Maria's is the Costa Rican Tarrazu taken just into second crack. I am also a fan of the Columbian at FC and the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe which I roast to a deliciate City+. To my door those are under $7 a pound which is a steal for good coffee.

Some coffees are a lot higher in moisture content than others. The Guatemalan I'm running now is very moist and seems to benefit from a longer roast at a lower heat setting to fully develop the cocoa and spice flavors. The Mocha Java on the other hand is a very dry bean and usually goes straight from first to second crack quite fast; it seems to taste better when roasted at a full-on heat setting, and tastes "baked" when I try to roast it more slowly. The extension cord is a good idea.... you could also try wiring an inductive dimmer switch to an outlet, the type designed to control a ceiling fan, for even more control.

I'm roasting with the Behmor 1600, and I love it. It's one of my favorite toys.