Fumbling Along | Roasting

Today I brewed roast #29. My efforts didn’t turn out the way I wanted. It was a City roast. A really good one, but not the Full City I was hoping for. So I headed straight to the roaster today to do another roast.

I thought I had it all figured out. I hit P2 at first crack for a little heat, then gradually went P3, P4, and ended on P5 for 1:15. That was clearly too long. I was in 2nd crack. I hit Cool and about a minute later I got the over heat error. I turned the roaster off and waited for minute. I was able to hit cool and it went just fine from there. I had dark-ish smoke too. Not enough to set off any alarms but annoying all the same.

I only roasted a half pound today. If it’s too dark I can mix the two roasts together and try it. If it’s all wrong I’ll just tell my co-worker it will be another day or two. That isn’t ideal in my mind. I told her Monday and she dropped off money already.

I learned a lot over December. I tried to apply it all at once to these roasts and might have done too many things at once. So I’ll be taking a step backward and trying to keep it simple. Also no highest heat (P5) on this bean I guess.

Update | Roasting

For the holidays I sold four bags of coffee at work. Two of my co-workers loved it so much they asked if I would sell them more. Today one of them them put in an order. She even kept the valve bag and made sure to drop it off for refill. That saves me $.80 or so.

The biggest thing is this gets me close to my goal. I want to bring in $100 selling coffee. That is what the 20 lbs of Mexican Chiapas cost me. I also sold two scarves at the same craft fair so my total is $92. The scarves brought in $30 and cost about $10 (plus time) to make. One more bag of coffee and I’ll reach my goal!

I’m already picking out which beans to buy next. I’ll build a 20lb box from Sonofresco. I need at least one African in the mix. One of my good friends mentioned he likes African and Asian coffees. I’ll surprise him with a roast once I get some. I’ll also get a Colombian. Anything Colombian was my go-to before I discovered Mexican beans and started roasting my own.

I made 12 order forms for the craft fair. They were so handy that I’m still using them. Mostly it’s a reminder of what I need to make. And they were super fun to make. Anytime I can find everyday uses for my typewriters is a win!

I also have a spreadsheet listing customers and what I sold them. So notes about how many ounces, which bean, the roast number, and how much they paid.

Milo is our cat. I name everything after him. So the scarf tags said Milo Knits and the coffee is Milo Roasts. The original lead time was one week so I could make multiple roasts and taste them before distributing. For regular roasting I just need 48 hours before grinding. Monday I will grind and deliver.

For today’s roast I tried to get close to what I originally sold her. I’ve learned a lot through holiday roasting. Mostly that I was roasting darker than I needed. This should be more of a true Full City and hopefully taste even better than the original. I went longer with no heat (P1) during first crack and went up to high heat (P5) for the last 45 seconds. I’ll taste it tomorrow.

New Years Roasts | Coffee

Since we’re approaching New Years I’ve given that name to the next round of gift roasts. I have four people on my list. Two roasts I need to get in the mail. One of those is ground. The other two are local. One ground and one whole bean.

Both of the ground are for drip grind. As long as I don’t overload my Kitchenaid grinder it does a good job. I need to clean my grinder but I’ve been lazy. So I guess I’ll make that a resolution for the new year.

Yesterday I started playing with bracketing. Partly because I want to reproduce the coffee I gave my co-workers without just roasting too dark. Also I want to find the sweet spot for this bean. I’ve gotten plenty of good roasts but I think the magic might be beyond what I’ve been roasting to.

I’ve been roasting in manual mode on P4. I hit C when first crack happens, then P1 for 35 seconds, P3 for 35 seconds and back to P4 for the remaining time. It is important to note that I wait till I hear “solid” first crack to hit C. Sometimes one random bean will crack and 30+ seconds later I hear multiple beans. I ignore the random first one. FYI I’ve found that everyone on the internet seems to have a different opinion on that.

For roast #27 I added 15 seconds. Roast #28 I added 30 seconds. We’ll taste brew them tomorrow and see if there was much difference.

It occurs to me now I should have done 12 days of Christmas roasting. Doing 12 roasts before Epiphany might be hard though. My Behmor says to wait one hour between doing roasts. I should plan ahead for next year and buy 12 different beans I guess.

Achievement Unlocked | Roasting

Roast #25 is complete!

Where’s my merit badge?

Roasting Update | Coffee

Consistency is somewhat hard! I jumped in with two feet when I found a really good roast. The problem was then repeating it 4 times.
We have an annual craft fair at work. The past few years I’ve knitted things. This year I had 4 scarves ready. I also told myself if I got a good roast I’d try to sell coffee. The morning a day before the fair I tasted the latest roast #16 and deemed it great. That night I used my Remington 24 typewriter to make order forms.
I gave myself a week to deliver beans. So this Thursday was the deadline. I was only really worried about delivering a good roast. But on top of that I sold it as a City+ roast. I’ve been getting more like a Full City or Full City+.
The up side is this is leading me to document more. I downloaded an app to track how long my total roast is. I wish I had done this for roast #16 that I’m trying to match. I have an approximate time but not exact enough to repeat.
I did two half pound roasts on Sunday & Monday. I tried the first two Monday morning. I feel like I tried them too soon. Waiting for at least 12 hours would have been better. Anyway, they were okay. Not as good as #16 though.

The second two roasts turned out good. They are very similar. I am glad I started with a simple, seemingly forgiving bean. I’ve been enjoying it by itself but I read it’s a good bean to blend with. So I’ll probably try that at some point.
I had a minor hiccup Tuesday night. Somehow a roast overheated. So I lost half a pound of beans. Most of them were a light brown color but, some dark, and a few were mostly green still. I did an empty roast after that to clear things out. Then a regular half pound roast. It went fine but I was extra cautious and turned the heat down when I thought it might get too hot. That added time before first crack. So I’ll see if it affected the taste too much. Hopefully the results are still good. So I have five bags of beans ready. The four I sold and one extra.
I technically charged a lot. Six ounces of coffee for $10 or $12 for ground. It’s a small amount for a one time holiday purchase but I’m sure they wouldn’t continually buy at that price.
My only goal with this was to sell enough to make back the cost of 20lbs of beans. That is $100. My husband jokes that I’ll start a business. That isn’t in my plan. Mostly because I don’t have to roaster for that. And now I’m realizing how hard it would be. I don’t mind variances in my roast but customers would expect something close to the same each time.
All my worries might have been for nothing. The roasts all tasted about the same. Hopefully it’s enjoyable to my coworkers. If this goes well maybe they will inspire other people to try it.

Watching & Eating | Life

Watching: Today’s Islander’s game.

Eating: Leftover pizza.

Busy roasting coffee tonight. I’ll hopefully get a long post in soon. There was a craft fair at work last week. I sold one scarf and 5 bags of coffee. Now I am desperately trying get 5 roasts like the sample I had for people to smell.

Mexico Chiapas | Coffee

I’ve missed a couple roasts. The final of the Sweet Maria’s went pretty well. I did two 1/2lb roasts. The first was really good and the second a little less so but still in drinkable range.

Roasts 13 and 14 were the Mexican beans I got. Roast 13 was mostly a fail. I open the window and use a fan to blow the smoke out. Our neighbors in the townhouse across from us are doing some construction. So I probably missed hearing the end of 1st crack. Suddenly I was in 2nd crack and there was a lot of smoke. So I quickly hit cool and hoped I didn’t ruin it.

Turns out at work it was just drinkable. There was a tiny hint of flavor left but mostly just dark roast taste. When I made it at home under more precise conditions it was worse. The little bit of flavor was gone. It’s just drinkable but flavorless.

Tonight I tried again. I am pleased so far. I definitely didn’t over roast. The color is much better and no oil on the beans. I’ll brew it on Sunday and report back.

Bean #5 Roast #14.

Roasts 5-8| Coffee

There is not much news to report. Bean 2 was a moderate success. I did four 1/4 lb roasts. This bean has a “fruited cocoa finish”. I managed to get that every time but missed some of the middle flavors. The good news is I can put cocoa finish on my dislike list. I didn’t care for it much. I’ll admit with only four chances I didn’t figure out the best roast for this bean but I’ll cross it off my list.

The other thing I discovered is that smaller beans mean WAY more chaff. I should have realized that small beans equals more surface area per pound. Anyway it made cleaning up take longer. And I set the smoke detectors off more than once. My poor cat had to go into hiding.

I thought maybe I just needed to clean the roaster. Perhaps there was some chaff buildup that needed to be removed. That was not the case. Once I took the correct parts off to clean I saw like 3 tiny pieces of chaff. Not a pile as I expected.

I tried using a fan to blow the smoke out the open window. The roaster sits right in front of a window and I open it every time. The fan was somewhat helpful but if you do a darker roast (longer time) the smoke still filters up to the detectors. And then my husband got out the laser and made patterns in the smoke.

Since I like my things and don’t want them covered in ash. I’m working on plan B. That means getting a good table for our patio. Roasting in the garage with servers sucking in air isn’t an option. The problem with roasting outside will be winter. Here in Washington we sometimes get cold winters. That will have a big affect on my roasts. Hopefully it will work well enough.

Roast #4 | Coffee

Measuring beans before the morning grind.

There’s not much to report. Roast #4 was the final of the first bean. I did just like roast #3 but added a preheat. It came out somewhere between #1 and #3. There was a tiny bit of acidity present but not as much as the first roast.

Overall I was pleased with the results of my first bean. Going in I was certain I’d have more failures than successes but I was wrong. Three out of four were good roasts. Maybe not perfect but they all had some of the flavors I was hoping for.

All four came out within a drinkable range. I still have no idea how #2 got to 2nd crack so soon. I wonder if it was due to a change in local temperature or humidity.

Up next is a bean from Costa Rico. Once again the aim is to get a good flavor and hopefully a repeatable roast.

Roast #3 | Coffee

Half of the beans I roasted.

Roast #3 was mostly a success. I did not preheat. Just 1/4 P2 and then max time minus 30 seconds. It was better than roast #1. None of the acidity this time. It still seems like the flavor isn’t fully developed.

I am beginning to think this just isn’t my bean. There is some flavor but it feels like there should be more. We’ll see when I do the final roast. Then we’ll move on to the next in my sampler.

4oz of beans become 3 3/8oz after roasting.

Up next I am going to buy 20 pounds of one bean. I realized that it would be best to try to perfect one bean before branching out. So I’ll probably order some Mexican beans soon. I’ll keep working my way through the Grand Centrals I have while mixing in some Mexican roasts.

I am hoping to have one roast good enough to gift at Christmas. The second I told my parents I had a roaster they requested beans as their Christmas gift.

I’ve been trying to document more. I remembered to get a photo of the beans just after roasting. I know it’s not exact since I did nothing to light it. I just want to have a general idea of the color of my roasts. For roast #1 I got zero pictures but I have some of #2 and #3.

This will be most important when I work on one bean for many roasts. I should figure out a way to light those and see if I can get a better learning tool from photos. Maybe I need a little light box to get consistent lighting.