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

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He used to champion quality coffee over everything else, purposely made sure there was no wifi in his cafes so people had to talk to each other, and "travels the world" to buy beans he knows are of the best quality.

Now, this: https://www.lacolombe.com/collections/cold-brew/products/pumpkin-spice-draft-latte

I read where the company roasts 8-10 million pounds of coffee a year; you can't tell me you're buying the best coffee when you roast that much a year.

Todd was the reason I got into roasting, and I was a huge fan back when he had just 3 cafes. But now, it's all smoke and mirrors. The coffee is all over-roasted, expensive, and gimmicky. He's turned the company into a Starbucks Reserve.
 
^a lot of this has been going on lately.

I was bummed when Stumptown sold out. Intelligentsia did same around the same same time. There's been a lot of scuzzle around the industry since Blue Bottle just sold out to Nestle. Lot of similarities to the craft beer scene I guess.
 
Yep, everyone's trying to cash out. Todd says his coffee in a can is producing more sales in the past year than it took him 23 years to do with La Colombe, so he's planning to push that out big time. He partnered with the Chobani guy for funding as well. I don't see him selling La Colombe off...at least not any time soon. He may give up a big share of it but he seems like the kind of guy who's going to be involved for a while.

Still, it's just funny to see all these guys, brewers and roasters who are "fighting the man" but they end up selling out. I don't blame them - go where the money is. But be honest about your intentions.
 
So...who here can direct me to where I can learn more on RoR, and what I may be looking for or want to avoid? I have not encountered anything I would consider to be bad yet, but would like to avoid it if possible. I have not taken my beans past a total temp of 445, that I have seen, or to my knowledge. Which raise the other question of how accurate are probes or laser temps? What do you all use to record your roasting temps?
 
Ordered 5 pounds more of the konga! Its so good, the thought of cheap coffee just doesnt interest me like it used to.
 
Honduras juancito. Tastes and smells like a bowl of cereal with fresh strawberries. Don’t see it listed as a green offering on bodhi leaf’s site but will keep an eye out for it.
 
Looks clean in there, I like these people. What was your take?

I liked it a lot. They have a few coffee shops around the area, the one nearest where we were staying happened to be their main distribution/coffee shop/roastery/cupping lab location, which was pretty cool. They had production roasts going on a big Diedrich roaster the whole time I was in there. I had an espresso, a pourover, and a "full immersion" cup. All excellent. The honduras juancito was the "full immersion" and was the best cup of coffee I've had in a while. (And I've been to a few good coffee shops on this trip)
 
I’m joining the fun with the whole coffee experience. My 1600+ came in yesterday and am waiting for my beans to arrive. To learn the process, I purchased some Colombia Santa Barbara. Once I get it down, I also have Daterra Bourbon Collection and Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.

Also got an aeropress yesterday to add to the arsenal of brewing toys. I’ll really like this thing.

I’m officially addicted.
 
^welcome!

Yirgacheffe coffee is one of my favorites and so is the Awropress brewer. Do you have a suitable burr grinder for all the fresh cofffee you’re going have now?
 
^welcome!

Yirgacheffe coffee is one of my favorites and so is the Awropress brewer. Do you have a suitable burr grinder for all the fresh cofffee you’re going have now?



I use a Handground manual grinder. I just got it about a month ago and find it much better than my old electric mr coffee grinder. [emoji23]
 
My second roast.

Colombia Santa Barbara. Behmor 1600+.

226g green to 193g final with 14.6% loss.

Preheat 1:00 to 129F. P5 manual with slow drum speed until fc which went to P4 and fast drum speed.

Fc @ 8:54 and 306F. Roast end at 10:15. 13.7% development.

I’m guessing somewhere between a City + and a Full City. Next time I will drop the temp at fc to see how much that extends development time.

What do you think?View attachment IMG_0321.jpg
 
My second roast.

Colombia Santa Barbara. Behmor 1600+.

226g green to 193g final with 14.6% loss.

Preheat 1:00 to 129F. P5 manual with slow drum speed until fc which went to P4 and fast drum speed.

Fc @ 8:54 and 306F. Roast end at 10:15. 13.7% development.

I’m guessing somewhere between a City + and a Full City. Next time I will drop the temp at fc to see how much that extends development time.

Looks like a good roast, but of course, looks don't matter as much as taste. :)

Regarding your preheat, the Behmor does not display any temperature below 129F, so you can never trust a reading of 129F. In my experience, it takes 1:45 to get to 130F.

You'll probably want to experiment with less heat around the browning phase and beyond once you get some more roasts under your belt, but just getting some drinkable coffee is great for your first few roasts and i'd bet that is much better than just drinkable. :mug:
 
Looks like a good roast, but of course, looks don't matter as much as taste. :)

Regarding your preheat, the Behmor does not display any temperature below 129F, so you can never trust a reading of 129F. In my experience, it takes 1:45 to get to 130F.

You'll probably want to experiment with less heat around the browning phase and beyond once you get some more roasts under your belt, but just getting some drinkable coffee is great for your first few roasts and i'd bet that is much better than just drinkable. :mug:



I will be tasting tomorrow and if it tastes better than yesterday’s batch, I will be ecstatic. That one tasted great despite being a bit heavier of a roast than I anticipated.

I added beans after a minute preheat to prolong the roast time. Yesterday’s batch was done to SC in like 8.5 minutes!! First time’s a charm. I was going to drop to 50% at FC instead of 75% but maybe I need to drop to 75% after yellowing begins.

I have to say that I love roasting already!!

Here is my first batch ever. Same bean, just idled much better the latest round.

View attachment IMG_0316.jpg
 
My second roast.

Colombia Santa Barbara. Behmor 1600+.

226g green to 193g final with 14.6% loss.

Preheat 1:00 to 129F. P5 manual with slow drum speed until fc which went to P4 and fast drum speed.

Fc @ 8:54 and 306F. Roast end at 10:15. 13.7% development.

I’m guessing somewhere between a City + and a Full City. Next time I will drop the temp at fc to see how much that extends development time.

What do you think?View attachment 417119

money shot
 
I will be tasting tomorrow and if it tastes better than yesterday’s batch, I will be ecstatic. That one tasted great despite being a bit heavier of a roast than I anticipated.

I added beans after a minute preheat to prolong the roast time. Yesterday’s batch was done to SC in like 8.5 minutes!! First time’s a charm. I was going to drop to 50% at FC instead of 75% but maybe I need to drop to 75% after yellowing begins.

I have to say that I love roasting already!!

Here is my first batch ever. Same bean, just idled much better the latest round.

View attachment 417150

Those look too dark for me. But it's your palate, just make some coffee and see what appeals to you. I just got some beans from jammin and the awesome blueberry flavor would have been lost with a roast like that.
 
Those look too dark for me. But it's your palate, just make some coffee and see what appeals to you. I just got some beans from jammin and the awesome blueberry flavor would have been lost with a roast like that.



This is too dark for me as well. The Colombian hid it well. It was my first time roasting and it took off so fast that before I knew it, I hit SC.

I’m enjoying a nice cup of my second batch and it has a nice acidity to it that the first obviously didn’t.

This weekend I will be roasting an Ethiopia Yirgacheffe and a Brazil Daterra Bourbon Collection blend. Hopefully each to a City+.
 
I have been to the dark side...but only after being disappointed with a lighter roast with 2 different beans. One of them is the Bali Blue Moon and the other is Tanzania Mbeya luyla. Both were brought into a rolling second crack and I believe that the roast actually helped fill out the flavor profile. Took a sourness away from both beans. So, even though I am not a dark roast fan, I found that for my palate, some beans just do better darker.
 
Heads Up: Sweet Marias just posted these coffees at 20% off. No coupon code necessary, the discount is already applied on their site.

SMs Discount.PNG
 
I roasted mine tonight.

The RAW beans have a very strong blueberry aroma. The beans had such a strong blueberry flavor that I wondered if they were doctored in some way. It was a LOT of blueberry.

I'll be grinding and drinking next week. Thanks jammin!

Sadly, I am just about out of those beans jammin sent. I think I got ~5#. If I hadn't been on vacation this last month, it'd gone last week.

I'm seriously thinking about buying a 50# bag and roasting it.
 
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