This mega roast weekend will be a memorable family event. Nice job! The thought, effort and occasionally, frustration, that goes into arriving at a good profile can’t be fully appreciated by the end enjoyer of a roast like this unless they also roast. One question. I don’t see a trace for your MET curve. Do you have an analog MET temperature that you use to ascertain whether a fan increase will increase or decrease heat? And did I hear you say that you also bumped the gas up a bit to stop a crash at FCe even though the gauge still read .5? As always, I appreciate and enjoy your videos!
Thanks for watching and your comment @210Doc . No, i'm not tracing my maximum environmental temperature although i think Artisan can do that for me using my ET probe. I am not monitoring the airflow in Artisan other than manual buttons when used.. Getting an airflow sensor is something I have been wanting to do and finally upgraded my Phidget so I can accomplish this. I just haven't gotten around to getting the hardware to complete it. . I am using the exhaust temp readout (red line) to help me with consistency in my roast. With regards to airflow influencing my ET, I mention this in my video at 15:14 and you can see in my graph that by increasing the airflow, the ET climbs at a greater rate. Although not for a long time, it helps me achieve the increase needed. It is important to note that turning up airflow too much will eventually suck out the hot air. I use this method later in the roast to help slow the roast down about a minute before first crack. As farthe gague still reading .5 when i was talking about preventing a crash, I must have misspoke? Basically from about 1 minute before first crack, I lower my heat in multiple steps. I think 18:26 shows I am at .25kpa and from there I manipulated the gas to manage ROR. You will see me increasing the gas to prevent my ROR from crashing. I think that is what I was trying to describe. Sorry if I misspoke. I guess I should have mentioned my gas setting range is not something that can be translated to another type of roaster. So, in a general sense, backing off the heat to lower ror (not bean temp) to help slow the roast was the main point in that section. The specifics of the amount of gas should be interpreted as a general idea. My roaster retains heat. That allows me to "coast" my roast with little gas because of exothermic reactions and the heat sink of a roaster I have. I hope that helps explain a little more of what was going on during first crack and the end of the roast.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thanks for the prompt reply. You’re right, I missed seeing the video frame that showed gas at .25 during FC and only caught the bump back up to .5 to halt the RoR crash. Being a noob at gas drum roasting with only about 35 roasts, I guess along the way I picked up the idea that raising gas to stop a crash during FC was verboten. I’ve been trying to avoid the hump and crash prior and during FC by applying Rao’s 50% gas reductions at his suggested development percentages. Glad to see that his technique is not the only way, as his technique has helped, but it’s nice to know slight gas increases can be used as well to avoid a crash. I’ll be glad to see your approach to this bean on the Behmor as I’m planning to teach my son how to roast with it. Thanks for all your time and teaching efforts!
☕ so much emphasis on the rate of drop, gas & air flow, points & charting, yet mostly absent of the simplest reveals like, o h h ~ say the Final •[[ Temperature ]]• ?? Xtreem'ly high-maintenance presentation with too much Fru-Froo ~ 🙄 it's coffee 🫘 beans ( seeds ) for cryin' out loud 😁
Thanks for watching Greg. I get what your saying. I think one of the point I was trying to make was the importance of lowering the rate of temperature increase to allow development without over roasting (roasting darker than you intended). For me, our target temperature was about 398f / 203.3c. I appreciate your comment.
Hi Barry. Another term for degassing is resting. Depending on the coffee and roast level the time will vary. I'm sure you will get different opinions as you search the web. I generally wait at least 3 days BUT I've enjoyed many a cup with less time degassing. I have also found some of my roasts taste better with a longer rest time. There are many who will wait 7-10 days. I've talked with professional roasters who will start serving their production coffee a few days after the roast date. I would suggest you experiment and begin tasting your coffee soon after roasting, then the next day, and so on and see if you can taste the difference. Lastly, I think James Hoffman did a great video about this topic. I would suggest you watch this video: ua-cam.com/video/_Py8JOi3REg/v-deo.html I hope my response was helpful!
All of my coffee roasting temperature measurements are in Celsius (Roast World). I can reproduce your graphs in Excel and convert them to Celsius, but I would need the CSV file. Can you do this on your end so that I can compare my RoR graphs to yours?
Hello Cary, I'm not sure I understand what you are asking me to provide. Sorry about that. I understand you are using Roast World (Ailio Bullet) software. I'm using artisan and don't see a way for me to provide a csv file with my temps. Can you create custom profiles in Roast World? If yes, then you can easily adjust your settings in Roast World locally from C to F. That way, you can plug my numbers from the video into your custom profile, save it, and then change your settings from F to C.
Hi Erhard. Thanks for watching. Yes, this coffee was roasted for Pour-over/Drip, not espresso BUT it could be used for espresso if desired. I realize many people assume espresso means darker roasts but many specialty coffee cafe's will use a medium roast for espresso as well. Brewing parameters would need to be adjusted to accomplish this from what I have seen. I'm not an espresso brewing expert so I'm not able to offer more than that. Roast level is a personal choice and I know many people who roast darker, especially with a PNG coffee. Interestingly enough there is a coffee shop that is selling the exact same coffee we roasted on their website and they roasted to a very similar level. I know because we bought some of their coffee after we did our initial test roasts.
Hi David,, thanks for watching my video. They are stock probes from Mill City. Came with the roaster installed. The BT is a 50 mm K-Type 2mm diameter and the ET is the same diameter. Not sure the length. Could be 100mm long 2mm diameter.
@@kensafranek2306 Thought I remembered that. I do too. I have a way to roast indoors in any weather. If you feel comfortable giving me your E-mail, I could send you pics and a description. I roasted this way all last winter, and this current cold snap. A lot better than not roasting or slugging it out in the cold.
Hi Mike I roast two bathes today. I changed my charge temp from 428 to 385 so I could slow down my roast it work very well the coffee smell very good. Before with the charge temp the roast was completed in 7 min. With the 385 charge temp the roast was completed 10 to 11min. I am new to roasting these were my 12th roast. Colombia and Ethiopia 300ga in the Huky 500. Your videos are very helpful Thank You.
I'm glad that change was helpful. Depending on your coffee process and bean size the charge temp should be changed. A dry process coffee might use a slightly lower charge while a washed, dense bean might use a slightly higher charge temp. If you don't change your charge temp you will notice some roasts move slower while others move quicker through the roast process. The next step is to control your roaster event times. The charge temp has given you a nice starting point. A good practice would be to find the right charge temp to get your roast to dry end in 5 minutes. Then you can focus on lowering your temps, causing a descending ROR so you reach the next event (first crack) at the 8 minute mark. This will take some practice. Same thing goes for your drop time at 10 minutes. Happy Roasting!
Not with this Papua New Guinea coffee. The my drum roaster is quieter than my fresh roast SR540. Some coffees have very quiet first cack. Are you having a hard time hearing first crack with all types of coffee or just a specific coffee?
I have noticed that Kenyan peaberry's have been very quite. I would almost call them silent cracks. Some things to watch for would be smoke, noticible temperature increases and if possible watch the size of the beans. Those can also be helpful clues when crack is taking place.
I picked up some green papa New Guinea this morning before seeing this video! Roasted half of it already, but I’ll be saving the other half for a while in hopes of catching your Behmor roast in time!
@@VirtualCoffeeLab I have the first bag to a friend who was in town visiting. I’ll roast the other half in the next week or so and report back! Papa New Guinea Urara AX. Friend reported back chocolate and almond tasting notes off his flair 58 setup once he got dialed in.
Not sure if you are subscribed or not Steve (i don't see the red icon on the youtube studio that says you are but that isn't always right). Anyway, the video should have hit your feed. Man we roasted a lot of coffee that weekend!
Excellent work batching out that coffee. A few questions come to mind - main one is how often did you clear the chaff, as this would have created a LOT of chaff. Second, round numbers from your comments, you had ~80 batches to do 40kg, and at about 15 minute turnaround that your BBP gave you, means 20 hours roasting. How many roast hours and how many elapsed days did you get that done over? Did you do full weigh of the roasted product to see weight loss per roast, it's another factor you can use to confirm consistency. If so, did they vary much? Did you cup individual roasts (or groups of roasts) before deciding they were/were not up to par? I know how hard that is on a small roaster, with only say 420g output, using 10g-20g for a sample adds quickly to the number of batches you have to roast. How did you find Artisan to do all this - you probably could do a whole video about how to optimise Artisan after an experience like this. Personally, I have Artisan auto switch off after X seconds from drop (90sec at the moment, but that's too long and due to come down a bit), so I can focus on cooling the coffee and prepping for the next roast, and all I need do is hit start again to get it tracking my BBP and be ready to charge the next load. And final one for now, woohoo, looks like you're getting a bigger roaster!?!? :) The little hint you dropped at the end is exciting to say the least ! Can't wait to hear more. (My North 500g has not had a batch thru it since I bought my Blueking 2.5kg machine, equivalent to a Buckeye BC5)
Hi Brett, great questions. We vacuumed the chaff near the burners and out of the chaff collector about every 5 roasts. We roasted 80 batches with a BBP that was about 2 or three minutes before the next charge. We took turns roasting (my son and I). Friday morning at 7:15am I turned on the roaster and by 8am started roasting coffee. I roasted until noon and then Michael took over and roasted until about 5:30pm. We idled the roaster for about 35 minutes to have dinner and then I roasted until about 8pm. Saturday we started at 10am and roasted until dinner time. That got us to our 80 or so batches. Packaging took place in phases because we waited until our bucket was pretty full so we could mix the coffee. So I think it was about 20 hours of roasting over a 2-day period. We did have time reserved for more roasting on Sunday if necessary. Lots of roasting!!! Whewww. We roasted full batch 500 gram roasts measured down to the tenth of a gram and we did weigh our roasts to monitor moisture. We had a moisture loss of 13.5% which ranged +- .3%. so sometimes as low as 13.2 or as high as 13.8 with 14% a few times. Not perfect roasts but not too far out of spec. We did taste a couple of specific roasts and they all tasted similar. We didn't make any changes to artisan because we are very familiar with the routine. Every week we roast about 5 lbs of coffee on that roaster so we are doing multiple batches. It wasn't really difficult and no automation was necessary. The timing of how long the door was left open when to change the gas & air settings and then save the file before hitting the reset and then on button was really important. if we messed that up which did happen a couple of times, it delayed our next batch about 5 minutes. Thankfully it was not windy outside so there was variation with our air settings. When the beans would drop we had about 15 seconds of stirring before the door would close. After that, they would lay with air being sucked through them to cool. That gave us time to start the next roast, monitor the ET, and then set the gas for the climb toward dry end. During that time we could empty the tray into the bucket, tidy up a bit and make sure we have greens pre-measured for the next roast. When we did have to clean out the chaff we left the door open for about 30-45 seconds and used a different gas setting to allow time to vacuum the chaff. At the end of the video, i mentioned using other roasters. Earlier in the video, I referenced the hive, fresh roast, behmor, and possibly the popper. I would love a larger roaster but because I'm only roasting 5 lbs a week (except for this special project) the 500 gram is big enough for me at this time. By having the smaller roaster I am able to roast smaller batches of different coffee. So, our 5 lb a week roast consists of at least 4 different coffees. Thanks for your questions and for watching Brett. I wasn't sure what type of feedback I would get with this roast. I realize there are many different types of roaster machines used by people with a huge swing in experience level so sometimes I'm not sure how my views will respond to the content. I'm glad it was helpful for you.!
So interesting to see the thoughts that you go through when roasting an unknown. It is particularly interesting to me since I recently had to do some tweaking and fiddling to get my ROR in control when roasting a Dry Process Nicaraguan coffee. Those Dry Process (DP) coffees provide for an unusual roasting experience! Have you determined the best de-gas time for that PNG coffee? I was a little surprised to find my DP Nicaraguan come alive with a much better and quite different flavor after about 8 days. It was so pronounced that I actually had to go back and change my score for that coffee. Do you keep track of "resting days" for any of the coffees you roast, or do you just use a general rule of thumb (e.g. 2 or 3 days)? I am assuming you found your PNG coffee to be pretty well behaved, and not touchy like some "naturals"?
Hi Lou, Yea, Dried Process coffee roast differently and in my experience need a little longer to rest than washed coffees. My most recent DP Ethiopian peaked at day 5. The PNG could be enjoyed a day after roasting and by day 3-5 was super sweet. Honestly I roast enough coffee for the week and enjoy it from day 1 - 7 and then roast again so I get to experience the "rest progression" ;-). If I had my choice and timed things a little different I might wait a couple days before drinking but I don't mind. It's kind of interesting to see how it changes. The PNG coffee wasn't too touchy to roast. I had to be careful just before first crack because it liked to get hot and flick. I had to pay attention on every roast. I've had some really difficult and sensitive coffees like that Ethiopian Sidama Kerama coffee. It was so dense and small that when it got hot it was like a rock and very difficult to slow down the roast.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I have a simple Kaldi drum roaster and am currently studying several roasting profiles and trying to emulate them. Your real time graph and explanation is very helpful. Please do more of these with darker roasts as they really help us newbies understand time and temp variables. . That “home” roaster you have looks like something out of willy wonkas chocolate factory! Did you forego a boat or sports car to buy that? Great job!
Hi Gary, I''m glad my videos have been helpful. I plan to do some darker roast videos this coming year. The drum roaster I use in my videos is a Mill City 500 gram roaster. I purchased it for about 2,700 dollars back in 2017. They are now close to 7,000 dollars now I think. It is a traditional drum roaster. The chrome on top is a heat shield and the roaster is painted red. Yea, looks kind of willy wonka-ish but it gets the job done. Thanks.
Always enjoy your videos, especially when you showcase the MC500g roaster as that is what I roast on. I realize all the numbers vary even with the same roaster but I would love to have a peak at your burners as you roast. Just a comparison of flame height and size would help me visualize mine compared to another.
It's funny you mention this. Every video I do has twice as much content as what I actually publish. Through the edit process I try and get my "roasting" videos under 25 minutes. Optimal video length for attention is much shorter than this but when dealing with profiles and then an entire roast along with a recap it is hard to have it be short. Anyway, in my original uncut version I did show the burners. If you look at my intro bumper on this video found at 0:24 you will see a brief snipit of the burners on around 28 seconds on the video timeline. I have purchaed a couple of webcams to show other views during a roast but have not had time to set things up. Are you using propane or natural gas? If natural gas, did you drill out your jets or did you buy MC natural gas jets?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab My roaster is set at Mill city using propane and regulator from them as well. Max flow tops at 3.1. I only wish I could roast more but as a home roaster there’s only so much I can use and gift. I’ve tried to reach out to other 500 owners but I’m not sure it’s as popular as the larger ones.
Yea, that is a biggie. Not sure if you saw my playlist on coffee roasting tips. There might be other videos in there that might be helpful. ua-cam.com/video/-W-FpBPBAAg/v-deo.html
This mega roast weekend will be a memorable family event. Nice job! The thought, effort and occasionally, frustration, that goes into arriving at a good profile can’t be fully appreciated by the end enjoyer of a roast like this unless they also roast. One question. I don’t see a trace for your MET curve. Do you have an analog MET temperature that you use to ascertain whether a fan increase will increase or decrease heat? And did I hear you say that you also bumped the gas up a bit to stop a crash at FCe even though the gauge still read .5? As always, I appreciate and enjoy your videos!
Thanks for watching and your comment @210Doc . No, i'm not tracing my maximum environmental temperature although i think Artisan can do that for me using my ET probe. I am not monitoring the airflow in Artisan other than manual buttons when used.. Getting an airflow sensor is something I have been wanting to do and finally upgraded my Phidget so I can accomplish this. I just haven't gotten around to getting the hardware to complete it. . I am using the exhaust temp readout (red line) to help me with consistency in my roast. With regards to airflow influencing my ET, I mention this in my video at 15:14 and you can see in my graph that by increasing the airflow, the ET climbs at a greater rate. Although not for a long time, it helps me achieve the increase needed. It is important to note that turning up airflow too much will eventually suck out the hot air. I use this method later in the roast to help slow the roast down about a minute before first crack. As farthe gague still reading .5 when i was talking about preventing a crash, I must have misspoke? Basically from about 1 minute before first crack, I lower my heat in multiple steps. I think 18:26 shows I am at .25kpa and from there I manipulated the gas to manage ROR. You will see me increasing the gas to prevent my ROR from crashing. I think that is what I was trying to describe. Sorry if I misspoke. I guess I should have mentioned my gas setting range is not something that can be translated to another type of roaster. So, in a general sense, backing off the heat to lower ror (not bean temp) to help slow the roast was the main point in that section. The specifics of the amount of gas should be interpreted as a general idea. My roaster retains heat. That allows me to "coast" my roast with little gas because of exothermic reactions and the heat sink of a roaster I have. I hope that helps explain a little more of what was going on during first crack and the end of the roast.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thanks for the prompt reply. You’re right, I missed seeing the video frame that showed gas at .25 during FC and only caught the bump back up to .5 to halt the RoR crash. Being a noob at gas drum roasting with only about 35 roasts, I guess along the way I picked up the idea that raising gas to stop a crash during FC was verboten. I’ve been trying to avoid the hump and crash prior and during FC by applying Rao’s 50% gas reductions at his suggested development percentages. Glad to see that his technique is not the only way, as his technique has helped, but it’s nice to know slight gas increases can be used as well to avoid a crash.
I’ll be glad to see your approach to this bean on the Behmor as I’m planning to teach my son how to roast with it.
Thanks for all your time and teaching efforts!
☕ so much emphasis on the
rate of drop, gas & air flow,
points & charting, yet mostly
absent of the simplest reveals
like, o h h ~ say the Final
•[[ Temperature ]]• ??
Xtreem'ly high-maintenance
presentation with too much
Fru-Froo ~ 🙄
it's coffee 🫘 beans ( seeds )
for cryin' out loud 😁
Thanks for watching Greg. I get what your saying. I think one of the point I was trying to make was the importance of lowering the rate of temperature increase to allow development without over roasting (roasting darker than you intended). For me, our target temperature was about 398f / 203.3c.
I appreciate your comment.
What a great video,,,,so easy to follow,,,thank you
Hi Ken, thanks for watching! Glad you were able to follow along. I realize it is a lot of information in one video.
Great Video
How much time do you recommend after roasting for degassing?
Hi Barry. Another term for degassing is resting. Depending on the coffee and roast level the time will vary. I'm sure you will get different opinions as you search the web. I generally wait at least 3 days BUT I've enjoyed many a cup with less time degassing. I have also found some of my roasts taste better with a longer rest time. There are many who will wait 7-10 days. I've talked with professional roasters who will start serving their production coffee a few days after the roast date.
I would suggest you experiment and begin tasting your coffee soon after roasting, then the next day, and so on and see if you can taste the difference.
Lastly, I think James Hoffman did a great video about this topic. I would suggest you watch this video:
ua-cam.com/video/_Py8JOi3REg/v-deo.html
I hope my response was helpful!
Thank you. Very informative...Watching from PNG🇵🇬
Glad you enjoyed the video and it was helpful for you. Love the PNG Coffee!
All of my coffee roasting temperature measurements are in Celsius (Roast World). I can reproduce your graphs in Excel and convert them to Celsius, but I would need the CSV file. Can you do this on your end so that I can compare my RoR graphs to yours?
Hello Cary, I'm not sure I understand what you are asking me to provide. Sorry about that. I understand you are using Roast World (Ailio Bullet) software. I'm using artisan and don't see a way for me to provide a csv file with my temps.
Can you create custom profiles in Roast World? If yes, then you can easily adjust your settings in Roast World locally from C to F. That way, you can plug my numbers from the video into your custom profile, save it, and then change your settings from F to C.
Wow.. watching from Papua New Guinea ❤🇵🇬
love the coffee. Thanks for watching!
PNG was my favourite for years, but I roasted it darker. You used it as a pour-over?
Hi Erhard. Thanks for watching.
Yes, this coffee was roasted for Pour-over/Drip, not espresso BUT it could be used for espresso if desired. I realize many people assume espresso means darker roasts but many specialty coffee cafe's will use a medium roast for espresso as well. Brewing parameters would need to be adjusted to accomplish this from what I have seen. I'm not an espresso brewing expert so I'm not able to offer more than that.
Roast level is a personal choice and I know many people who roast darker, especially with a PNG coffee. Interestingly enough there is a coffee shop that is selling the exact same coffee we roasted on their website and they roasted to a very similar level. I know because we bought some of their coffee after we did our initial test roasts.
What kind of temperature probes are you using?
Hi David,, thanks for watching my video. They are stock probes from Mill City. Came with the roaster installed. The BT is a 50 mm K-Type 2mm diameter and the ET is the same diameter. Not sure the length. Could be 100mm long 2mm diameter.
I roast outside on our deck and it’s only 28 outdoors, going to have to wait until Thursday when temp is suppose to increase to 48
Yea, cold snap big time. Enjoy your roasting!
Hi Ken. Just curious as to what you are roasting on. I might have a solution to your problem.
@@jlantz3691 I’m using a SR800 with a Razzo 12 inch extension tube,,,
@@kensafranek2306 Thought I remembered that. I do too. I have a way to roast indoors in any weather. If you feel comfortable giving me your E-mail, I could send you pics and a description. I roasted this way all last winter, and this current cold snap. A lot better than not roasting or slugging it out in the cold.
Hi Mike, another great video, very informative thanks, my settings are a little different than yours, thanks heaps.
PNG isn’t to far away from you Shane. Thanks for watching and the encouragement!
@@VirtualCoffeeLab yeah Mike, it's just across the channel 😁 the top end as they say.
Thanks for choosing png coffee.
Yea, the PNG was delicious and it was a fun project!
Hi Mike I roast two bathes today. I changed my charge temp from 428 to 385 so I could slow down my roast it work very well the coffee smell very good. Before with the charge temp the roast was completed in 7 min. With the 385 charge temp the roast was completed 10 to 11min. I am new to roasting these were my 12th roast. Colombia and Ethiopia 300ga in the Huky 500. Your videos are very helpful Thank You.
I'm glad that change was helpful. Depending on your coffee process and bean size the charge temp should be changed. A dry process coffee might use a slightly lower charge while a washed, dense bean might use a slightly higher charge temp. If you don't change your charge temp you will notice some roasts move slower while others move quicker through the roast process. The next step is to control your roaster event times. The charge temp has given you a nice starting point. A good practice would be to find the right charge temp to get your roast to dry end in 5 minutes. Then you can focus on lowering your temps, causing a descending ROR so you reach the next event (first crack) at the 8 minute mark. This will take some practice. Same thing goes for your drop time at 10 minutes. Happy Roasting!
Did you ever have trouble actually hearing first crack over the sound of your machine running in all those batches of coffee?
Not with this Papua New Guinea coffee. The my drum roaster is quieter than my fresh roast SR540. Some coffees have very quiet first cack. Are you having a hard time hearing first crack with all types of coffee or just a specific coffee?
no, just some , in particular the smaller beans,,,peaberrys
I have noticed that Kenyan peaberry's have been very quite. I would almost call them silent cracks. Some things to watch for would be smoke, noticible temperature increases and if possible watch the size of the beans. Those can also be helpful clues when crack is taking place.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab thank you
I picked up some green papa New Guinea this morning before seeing this video! Roasted half of it already, but I’ll be saving the other half for a while in hopes of catching your Behmor roast in time!
How did your roast turn out Andrew? What was your total roast time which Pappa New Guinea did you buy?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab I have the first bag to a friend who was in town visiting. I’ll roast the other half in the next week or so and report back!
Papa New Guinea Urara AX. Friend reported back chocolate and almond tasting notes off his flair 58 setup once he got dialed in.
How did miss this one
Not sure if you are subscribed or not Steve (i don't see the red icon on the youtube studio that says you are but that isn't always right). Anyway, the video should have hit your feed. Man we roasted a lot of coffee that weekend!
Excellent work batching out that coffee.
A few questions come to mind - main one is how often did you clear the chaff, as this would have created a LOT of chaff.
Second, round numbers from your comments, you had ~80 batches to do 40kg, and at about 15 minute turnaround that your BBP gave you, means 20 hours roasting. How many roast hours and how many elapsed days did you get that done over?
Did you do full weigh of the roasted product to see weight loss per roast, it's another factor you can use to confirm consistency. If so, did they vary much?
Did you cup individual roasts (or groups of roasts) before deciding they were/were not up to par? I know how hard that is on a small roaster, with only say 420g output, using 10g-20g for a sample adds quickly to the number of batches you have to roast.
How did you find Artisan to do all this - you probably could do a whole video about how to optimise Artisan after an experience like this. Personally, I have Artisan auto switch off after X seconds from drop (90sec at the moment, but that's too long and due to come down a bit), so I can focus on cooling the coffee and prepping for the next roast, and all I need do is hit start again to get it tracking my BBP and be ready to charge the next load.
And final one for now, woohoo, looks like you're getting a bigger roaster!?!? :) The little hint you dropped at the end is exciting to say the least ! Can't wait to hear more. (My North 500g has not had a batch thru it since I bought my Blueking 2.5kg machine, equivalent to a Buckeye BC5)
Hi Brett, great questions.
We vacuumed the chaff near the burners and out of the chaff collector about every 5 roasts.
We roasted 80 batches with a BBP that was about 2 or three minutes before the next charge. We took turns roasting (my son and I). Friday morning at 7:15am I turned on the roaster and by 8am started roasting coffee. I roasted until noon and then Michael took over and roasted until about 5:30pm. We idled the roaster for about 35 minutes to have dinner and then I roasted until about 8pm. Saturday we started at 10am and roasted until dinner time. That got us to our 80 or so batches. Packaging took place in phases because we waited until our bucket was pretty full so we could mix the coffee. So I think it was about 20 hours of roasting over a 2-day period. We did have time reserved for more roasting on Sunday if necessary. Lots of roasting!!! Whewww.
We roasted full batch 500 gram roasts measured down to the tenth of a gram and we did weigh our roasts to monitor moisture. We had a moisture loss of 13.5% which ranged +- .3%. so sometimes as low as 13.2 or as high as 13.8 with 14% a few times. Not perfect roasts but not too far out of spec.
We did taste a couple of specific roasts and they all tasted similar.
We didn't make any changes to artisan because we are very familiar with the routine. Every week we roast about 5 lbs of coffee on that roaster so we are doing multiple batches. It wasn't really difficult and no automation was necessary. The timing of how long the door was left open when to change the gas & air settings and then save the file before hitting the reset and then on button was really important. if we messed that up which did happen a couple of times, it delayed our next batch about 5 minutes. Thankfully it was not windy outside so there was variation with our air settings. When the beans would drop we had about 15 seconds of stirring before the door would close. After that, they would lay with air being sucked through them to cool. That gave us time to start the next roast, monitor the ET, and then set the gas for the climb toward dry end. During that time we could empty the tray into the bucket, tidy up a bit and make sure we have greens pre-measured for the next roast. When we did have to clean out the chaff we left the door open for about 30-45 seconds and used a different gas setting to allow time to vacuum the chaff.
At the end of the video, i mentioned using other roasters. Earlier in the video, I referenced the hive, fresh roast, behmor, and possibly the popper. I would love a larger roaster but because I'm only roasting 5 lbs a week (except for this special project) the 500 gram is big enough for me at this time. By having the smaller roaster I am able to roast smaller batches of different coffee. So, our 5 lb a week roast consists of at least 4 different coffees.
Thanks for your questions and for watching Brett. I wasn't sure what type of feedback I would get with this roast. I realize there are many different types of roaster machines used by people with a huge swing in experience level so sometimes I'm not sure how my views will respond to the content. I'm glad it was helpful for you.!
So interesting to see the thoughts that you go through when roasting an unknown. It is particularly interesting to me since I recently had to do some tweaking and fiddling to get my ROR in control when roasting a Dry Process Nicaraguan coffee. Those Dry Process (DP) coffees provide for an unusual roasting experience!
Have you determined the best de-gas time for that PNG coffee? I was a little surprised to find my DP Nicaraguan come alive with a much better and quite different flavor after about 8 days. It was so pronounced that I actually had to go back and change my score for that coffee. Do you keep track of "resting days" for any of the coffees you roast, or do you just use a general rule of thumb (e.g. 2 or 3 days)? I am assuming you found your PNG coffee to be pretty well behaved, and not touchy like some "naturals"?
Hi Lou, Yea, Dried Process coffee roast differently and in my experience need a little longer to rest than washed coffees. My most recent DP Ethiopian peaked at day 5. The PNG could be enjoyed a day after roasting and by day 3-5 was super sweet. Honestly I roast enough coffee for the week and enjoy it from day 1 - 7 and then roast again so I get to experience the "rest progression" ;-). If I had my choice and timed things a little different I might wait a couple days before drinking but I don't mind. It's kind of interesting to see how it changes.
The PNG coffee wasn't too touchy to roast. I had to be careful just before first crack because it liked to get hot and flick. I had to pay attention on every roast. I've had some really difficult and sensitive coffees like that Ethiopian Sidama Kerama coffee. It was so dense and small that when it got hot it was like a rock and very difficult to slow down the roast.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. I have a simple Kaldi drum roaster and am currently studying several roasting profiles and trying to emulate them. Your real time graph and explanation is very helpful. Please do more of these with darker roasts as they really help us newbies understand time and temp variables. . That “home” roaster you have looks like something out of willy wonkas chocolate factory! Did you forego a boat or sports car to buy that? Great job!
Hi Gary, I''m glad my videos have been helpful. I plan to do some darker roast videos this coming year. The drum roaster I use in my videos is a Mill City 500 gram roaster. I purchased it for about 2,700 dollars back in 2017. They are now close to 7,000 dollars now I think. It is a traditional drum roaster. The chrome on top is a heat shield and the roaster is painted red. Yea, looks kind of willy wonka-ish but it gets the job done. Thanks.
Always enjoy your videos, especially when you showcase the MC500g roaster as that is what I roast on. I realize all the numbers vary even with the same roaster but I would love to have a peak at your burners as you roast. Just a comparison of flame height and size would help me visualize mine compared to another.
It's funny you mention this. Every video I do has twice as much content as what I actually publish. Through the edit process I try and get my "roasting" videos under 25 minutes. Optimal video length for attention is much shorter than this but when dealing with profiles and then an entire roast along with a recap it is hard to have it be short. Anyway, in my original uncut version I did show the burners.
If you look at my intro bumper on this video found at 0:24 you will see a brief snipit of the burners on around 28 seconds on the video timeline. I have purchaed a couple of webcams to show other views during a roast but have not had time to set things up.
Are you using propane or natural gas? If natural gas, did you drill out your jets or did you buy MC natural gas jets?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab My roaster is set at Mill city using propane and regulator from them as well. Max flow tops at 3.1. I only wish I could roast more but as a home roaster there’s only so much I can use and gift. I’ve tried to reach out to other 500 owners but I’m not sure it’s as popular as the larger ones.
"The end temperature has a huge impact on the flavour of the coffee." (5:40)
Another one for my Coffee Roasting Tips file.
Keep them coming. 🙂
Yea, that is a biggie. Not sure if you saw my playlist on coffee roasting tips. There might be other videos in there that might be helpful. ua-cam.com/video/-W-FpBPBAAg/v-deo.html
@@VirtualCoffeeLab
Thanks for that. I have seen some of those, but not all. Still catching up on the full library on your channel.
👍