☕ Coffee ☕: Ingredients, Roasting, Grinding, Brewing, and Tasting

[jammin]

Oh you're gonna love this then....

Artisan allows you to enter project 1C temp as a setting(same with drying and 2C). Artisan will then give you real time estimates of when this will occur as the roast develops.

 

[TrickyDick]

Oh you're gonna love this then....

Artisan allows you to enter project 1C temp as a setting(same with drying and 2C). Artisan will then give you real time estimates of when this will occur as the roast develops.

Crap. Spending too much $$ lately. Swmbo will not be happy....
I'll probably need to wait BUT, the kit is ready to ship NOW.
Also Randy says the new heating element is more powerful and he was for instance able to roast 360g to FC in 14 minutes, claimed a high Charge temp (400-425) would scorch beans. This after I asked if the CT can be set to avoid the nagging beeps... The book says that you will apply enough heat early on to get good inner bean development. Too low a CT seems to be a potential big problem in that respect.
I sure do want to pull the trigger....but...I probably need to wait at least a month.


Edit- Yeah um.. I couldn't resist.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Mashing a Saison this morning, and enjoying a few cups of Gedeo Worka, compliments of @jammin. It's a lighter roast than I normally drink, just because I never have had good luck with the light roasts maybe I just never gave them enough rest time. When I got this one it didn't smell much like a coffee, but when I got to it today it smelled amazing as soon as I opened the bag. The bloom provided a heavy blueberry scent, and in the cup im getting blueberry with a subtle hint of citrus, just a little spice as well.

Very nicely done, sir. I was disappointed I didn't get to try it the last week, but it was well worth the wait.

View attachment 1432999246261.jpg

 

[TrickyDick]

Downloaded and installed Artisan on MacBook. The upgrade kit arrives Thursday. Hope its not too hard to operate the Artisan application.
So does it just monitor what the Hottop is doing, or does it assume full control over the hottop?
I'll probably be doing several roasts on Thursday to try it out. Can always give some beans to the mother in law (only other coffee drinker in the family).

TD

 

[jammin]

ICYMI: Sweet Maria's dropped 10 new coffees yesterday.

I don't always go for gauts as they can be kinda boring IMHO. HueHue's are usually a solid pick though, esp when you can find them in a Pacamara varietal. This one right here sounds like a really fine selection and probably the most appealing of all the new offerings - im getting 5lbs:
https://www.sweetmarias.com/store/guatemala-huehuetenango-hoja-blanca.html

If you missed the last Colombian(like i somehow did), this one looks pretty solid. Im leary of the notes claiming "deep sweetness" with a rating of only 8.6 on the cupping chart. Im getting 2lbs anyways after missing the last boat
https://www.sweetmarias.com/store/colombia-herrera-finca-las-florestales.html


If you've never had a Yemeni coffee before, you really ought to consider trying one. They are unique to say the least and becomming more and more scarce (due to conflict in the country). Most of the coffees are dried on roof tops and patios. The beans often look like they are swept up off the floor (b/c they probably are) and you'll wonder what in the actual heck you just bought. Let me tell though, this coffee must be tasted in order to understand. The flavors are like no other origin and can do well into darker roasts if you're into that. KILLER for an addition to an espresso blend (pair it with an ethiopian). They almost always prefer a good rest too. If you're used to drinking your coffee the day of or after - roast this early and camp on it for 4 or 5 days.
this was my selection of the two, although both looked fantastic (i got 2lbs)
https://www.sweetmarias.com/store/yemen-mokha-bani-haraz.html

 

[TrickyDick]

Thanks for the heads up! I nabbed some of the Yemeni beans on your recommendation. Looking out for some Kenyan and Ethiopian beans soon. Let me know when you spot a great bean from these spots, as you've not steered me wrong yet!!

 

[TallDan]

Thanks for the heads up, @jammin. I ordered all three along with some ethiopain to blend. Thinking about it, should have thrown in some decaf for the wife as well, she's been drinking more coffee lately...

 

[Michigan_Wolfman]

What he said...

 

[TrickyDick]

Oh you're gonna love this then....

Artisan allows you to enter project 1C temp as a setting(same with drying and 2C). Artisan will then give you real time estimates of when this will occur as the roast develops.

Seems about 354-356 1C usually begins or about to begin.

I took decent temp and time records and used that on the second half pound of Ethiopian beans I had. Tweaked it a bit for the second roast to get the 1C at about the 75-80% of total roast time. Worked pretty good. Had a couple flat spots on the manual ROR graphs with 30 sec resolution, and had a slight rise too, which I'm hoping I can learn to eliminate with the artisan to help me.


Finished the Rao book. It was short. Also read his Ebook about espresso extraction, which was filled with interesting information. It's making me want to buy a coffee %TDS meter now though. Must... Resist.....
Instead I bought another of his books: everything but espresso.

TD

 

[jammin]

those TDS meters look pretty cool. it would be very useful for grinder calibration. i *think* you can actually rent one from espressoparts.com. i know they used to rent out scace devices as well.

 

[TrickyDick]

those TDS meters look pretty cool. it would be very useful for grinder calibration. i *think* you can actually rent one from espressoparts.com. i know they used to rent out scace devices as well.

I found a cheap TDS meter on Amazon for $9.99

The Hottop USB upgrade kit was delivered. It also permits more precise control of the heating element in 1% increments instead of 10%, and of the fan in 10% increments instead of 25%. I am told also it is a more powerful heating element.

TD

 

[jammin]

^thats huge. Looking forward to hearing your progress w/the roaster upgrade.

Really interested to hear how the TDS meter works out. The original coffee specific meters were very spendy

 

[TrickyDick]

Swapping out the new parts took SIGNIFICANTLY longer than I expected....

Seems to be working. Doing the dry roast now to burn off any oils, etc.

Hope that the digital connection stuff works after putting it all back together..

Even in manual mode, the display and controls are better IMHO than the previous. Dials to adjust each parameter vs a select button and up/down adjust buttons.

TD

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I had been working on a Nicaragua from Theta Ridge. The Roast #1 I screwed up completely, Roast #2 came out pretty well. So on my third/fourth attempts I went with a ~FC roast, and a City roast to see how they compare.

I was going to rest the City roast (Roast #4) for about a week or more before trying it, and drink the FC (Roast #3) until it was time to move on. So, I'm excited to see how this one comes out and I go to use the Chemex and of course, I ran out of filters. 100 filters used since Christmas, so that's a pretty decent pace.

Anyways, I tried #3 (FC) in the Press and wow it was much different than the other attempts. Very sweet and creamy, with a little caramel. I checked Theta Ridge's description and bingo that is actually exactly what they described. It was definitely missing the citrus and acidic flavors I had gotten out of it when I tried the previous roasts in the Chemex.

I forgot how much a difference there is between the Press and the Chemex. I've defaulted to the Chemex as my every-day coffee maker since it's easy to clean and I like the flavors it gives for Ethiopians/Kenyans (which I've been drinking a lot of the last 2 months), but I need to make a point to try each roast in both brewing methods.

Heck, it'd be interesting to blend a pot of press and chemex coffees into a single cup to see how the result.

 

[TrickyDick]

Was thinking that it might be cool if we could get a post that summarizes specific varietal suggested roast profiles so it's easy to find (for noobs like me) when we get a new bean to work with. I have forgotten quite a bit of the suggestions posted on working the various beans.

Dunno if a moderator could help us with that or make a new thread for it or a sticky....

TD

 

[jammin]

my SM order showed up today; just in time i might add.

i roasted 2 batches of the guat. 1st one went really well and i got totally side tracked on the 2nd. nearly got away from me so we'll see how it cups. I blended them both post roast and saved enough for 1 cup of each to compare. similar curves, but roast 2 hit all marks slightly quicker and finished 2 degrees higher.

 

[TrickyDick]

Looking better than my roasts!


Might need some help in figuring out how to use Artisan to help me roast better coffee. I'm not sure I totally understand all that's going on.

Ran three batches of the peaberries through tonight.
New hardware is impressive. The heating coil is DEFINITELY more powerful. Significantly more smoke going on, and the roast aroma is also more intense. Need to dial back. Roasted my first two batches too dark. Botched the curve/graph save on the first two. Saved it on the last one. Might need help on how to save the curves for comparison.

One thing is for sure.... this bumps it to a whole new level. I think it is hard to interpret the data while you are actually roasting until you get the smoothed curve when you click the END button, its hard for me to figure out whats happening...

edit-

what's the display you have there Jammin' ? I dont' have the red line like that on my graph. Need some education on the Artisan app!!





TD

 

[jammin]

^TD - Artisan is a BLUR for your first few roasts. My brain was scrambled when I first tried it out.

Give it time. You will get used to it

 

[TrickyDick]

Good to know!
What I am really after is predictive ROR data, so I can try to control the ROR curve in real time. I don't think it projects this, but I wasn't expecting that. It seems that will come with experience. I think that's probably the most difficult thing to do and will require lots of time and many many roasts to gain insight into. I can't imagine trying it without the Artisan software though. Using the new hardware with supercharged heating element it seems, combined with the Artisan software was indeed like a mind wipe.

One thing I REALLY like is overriding control and eliminating the annoying beeps. To charge the roaster to higher charge temps required three annoying series of beeps, and two button presses with countdowns to avoid an automatic safety dump and then a long cool down period. Now I can remove that entirely. Plus I can do an immediate back-to-back roast eliminating a cool down if I desire. You can also run the cool down period longer if you wish, which I find helpful in the Florida temps since I roast in my outdoor kitchen.

I think the finer control of the new hardware is a huge plus. Can control the heater to 1% increments, and fan to 10% natively and also through Artisan. I think this will be a huge help in getting the ROR curves under control for a steady decline. It is still strange to see the effect of running the fan on the Bean Temp curve. Learning to use the fan seems to be the oddest part about roasting to me.

TD

 

[TallDan]

So, based on reading at SM and other places, i had thought the P1 program on the Behmor was 100% power to the heating elements the whole time. I had noticed in the past that they seem to cycle off some several minutes into the roast, much like the on/off cycle that it does when on a lower power setting. So, on this roast, when i noticed that happen, i hit the P5 button to switch to manual mode and set to 100% power. This roast went from yellow to brown more quickly, and got to 1c before any other 1/2lb batch that I've done in manual mode (switching to P4 around the browning stage on each roast).

So, fellow behmor users, is this a fluke, or is the P1 setting not really going at 100% the entire time? It took about 9:25 to get to 1c on this batch, all others took at 10:30 or more (except one decaf batch that took 10:00).

 

[jammin]

@talldan - get a kill a watt. You can read consumption in watts or amps as you roast and know EXACTLY what your roaster is doing

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Talldan, in manual, p1 is 0%, p2 25%, p3 50%, p4 75 %, p5 100%.

In auto the p buttons are all the different modes as I'm sure you know.

I start nearly each roast on p5 manual then play between the others.

It's not uncommon for me to switch between 4 or 5 p buttons during a roast.

Hope that helps. Behmor has done a horrible job explaining these things, in my opinion.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

To be more specific though regarding your p1 question, if I recall, p1 auto mode starts at 100% then drops to 75, then back to 100%.

 

[TallDan]

@talldan - get a kill a watt. You can read consumption in watts or amps as you roast and know EXACTLY what your roaster is doing

I actually have one, haven't used it since once of the early roasts. Actually, I think it was the one i swapped with @HarborTownBrewing

To be more specific though regarding your p1 question, if I recall, p1 auto mode starts at 100% then drops to 75, then back to 100%.

That is kinda what it seems like to me. That does not line up with what is listed here:

https://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.behmor3_roast_quality.php
http://www.behmor.com/docs/roast-profiles.pdf

Maybe it's a poorly documented difference between the 1600 and 1600+?

 

[TallDan]

Talldan, in manual, p1 is 0%, p2 25%, p3 50%, p4 75 %, p5 100%.

In auto the p buttons are all the different modes as I'm sure you know.

I start nearly each roast on p5 manual then play between the others.

It's not uncommon for me to switch between 4 or 5 p buttons during a roast.

Hope that helps. Behmor has done a horrible job explaining these things, in my opinion.

That's similar to what I've been doing. I've been starting roasts on 1lb P1 A (assuming that i would get 100% power), switching to P4 (75%) at the browning stage, then P3 (50%) at the start of 1c. This seems to work pretty well. I've found that dropping to P3 before 1c starts leads to very long times to get to 1c. P2 does not seem to be enough heat to actually do much of anything.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

There are some charts out there for the auto profiles, but everything changes when you start pressing the plus or minus buttons for the time. I'm a big hater of the presets because the roasts are hard to replicate. But some people swear by it. If you download RoasterThing, you can chart your roast based on the presets and all the buttons you push during the roast. Basically like a manual version of Artisan.

I know what you mean about doing to p3 before 1c, and it pretty much always stalls out my roast. Some beans I have to come into 1c on 75% power or I'll miss 1c. Otherwise, I usually drop to 0% power about 15 secs into 1c, then slowly bring it up through 1c.

Quick tip I learned: if in manual on p5 (for example) and you want to go to p3, press p1 then p3 right away. When you press p1 it quickly kills power then youpress p3 and it goes straight to p3. Otherwise, going to any of the p2-p5 levels have a slight delay until the heat cycle realizes it needs to act on a new level. I believe that occurs every 5 secs. Hope that makes sense. It's saved me a few times from not blowing through 1c.

 

[Chuginator]

Whoa, hold the phone! My Behmor has no P5=manual mode! I purchased it in March 2013 however, so I'm going to have to see if there is a firmware update for mine, or an upgrade of some kind. Seems like I did see mention of a newer control panel somewhere. Manual control would be a nice feature to have.

Concerning what the +/- buttons do, there was a long (25 page) thread on CoffeeGeek about it, including input from a very respectful Joe Behmor himself. A quote from there (see http://coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/homeroast/458524?LastView=1433689448&Page=20), "I have just returned from Asia along with Central America and while in Asia I witnessed testing, conferred with engineers, and have indeed confirmed the only way to adjust the full profiles, prior to start, is to press either A, B. C or D. In both the prestart or post start mode, +/- will NOT alter anything except the final leg."

However, that was from back in 2010; perhaps it is no longer true, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm glad someone mentioned a manual mode being available. I'll check into it.

 

[Chuginator]

Aha!

https://www.sweetmarias.com/store/roast-coffee/drum-roasters/behmor/behmor-plus-upgrade-panel.html

 

[Chuginator]

I see Roastmasters also offers it. Control of drum speed would be interesting, but the manual mode for heating elements is more interesting to me, I think.

http://www.roastmasters.com/plusupgrade.html

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Chug, yeah a lot of the Behmor owners upgraded with the new panel. To be honest, I can't imagine roasting without it, but then again I know a guy who uses a two year old unit to sell beans under cottage food law and he wasn't going to upgrade because he already had his routine (opening the door during the roast, sticking a2x4 under the front legs, etc).

It's a fairly minimal cost to upgrade and I understand it's a 10 min process.

But I'd recommend you guys check out RoasterThing and see what kind of change occur during the roast based on the buttons you push - in auto, that is