CafeEspresso Senior Member Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 54 Location: South Florida, USA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Expobar Office Pulser Grinder: Mazzer Mini Roaster: FR 8+, SC/Turbo CO
Posted Sun Jun 5, 2005, 8:06pm Subject: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Please help, I'm not getting the results that I think are possible. I've tried numerous approach, and my results should be a lot better.
I'm not getting the aroma and the coffee taste flat. This is after 20 or so roast. My wife is hating the idea of home roasting and demanding that we continue to use supermarket bought roasted beans. I'm very dissapointed, but not ready to quit yet.
I bought a FR+ with the Espresso Sampler from SM. I'm not sure if my problems are related to roasting method or storage of roasted beans. I have put a lot of hours in research, and I believe I understand roast levels (FC+, French, Vienna, etc) and the concept of 1st and 2nd crack.
I usually start getting the 2nd crack after 5 minutes in my FR+. I have tried the 100 feet extention cord (extending the roast to 15 minutes) and stoping the roast for 30 seconds during the 1st crack. No noticiable changes in quality.
I'm thinking that my issues may be related to storage. I have tried both storing on mason jars or leaving the beans on open containers. When I open the mason jars after 12 hours or so, there is a very bitter aroma (almost smelling a chemical of some sort) and doesn't resemble the sweet aroma found on fresh coffee (2 to 3 days taste is not good either). The beans that were left on open container, tasted very flat after the 2nd day. Maybe my spectations are too high?
I'm running out of ideas, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Posted Sun Jun 5, 2005, 8:41pm Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Sounds like a tough problem! And I'm sorry to hear you're not getting good results yet.
You said you tried an extension cord and/or pausing, but you didn't say how much that stretched out the roast. Try to find a way to ramp up slower so that first crack happens at or after 5-6 minutes. Then find a way to keep the beans between first and second crack for at least 3-4 minutes.
If you can stretch out your roasting profile to be 8-12 minutes and then let the beans rest a couple of days I would bet you will notice a huge improvement.
As an experiment, break open a few beans you already roasted and see if the color and texture is the same all the way to the center. If the roast progresses too fast then the middle of the beans can be left under-roasted and make your coffee taste, well, unpleasant.
I like to stretch my roasts out twice as long as I just described. I get first crack at 10-12 minutes and second crack between 16 and 20 minutes (for most beans - and for a whole pound batch size). My coffee may lose some of the natural brightness and acidity but it's also very mellow and full-bodied.
Posted Sun Jun 5, 2005, 8:47pm Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Try storing your beans in a paper bag immediatly after roasting. A brown sandwich bag will do fine. After 24hrs unfold the top and take a whiff. You should find the nice aroma you've been missing. E-mail me later and I have anouther idea for you to try, if this doesn't work. The fR+ only roasts a small amount of coffee at a time correct? Store bought beans have a lb. sitting there creating all that aroma. I have found the flatness you describe also from letting my beans sit in the open. I really think you'll find success in the brown bag. Joe
CafeEspresso Senior Member Joined: 16 May 2005 Posts: 54 Location: South Florida, USA Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Expobar Office Pulser Grinder: Mazzer Mini Roaster: FR 8+, SC/Turbo CO
Posted Mon Jun 6, 2005, 7:50am Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
JonR and JoeP
Thank you so much for your help.
JonR, I checked the beans inside, and I feel they are pretty even inside out. There is a chaft inside the bean (I'm assuming this to be normal?), I will try to slow down the roast with the extention cord and see what happens. I did once, but maybe I need to be more persistant with this method.
JoeP, I will definately try storing the beans in brown bags.
Posted Mon Jun 6, 2005, 8:56am Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Just for experimentation, try and roast beyond what you think second crack is. See if you can get some oils to show on your beans and see if the color is really dark almost black, hopefully you'll get some blue smoke. When you mentioned Chaff showing in the crack, that isn't necesarily a bad thing, but my fear is that there is a possibility that you've under roasted the beans. If you run out of beans let me know :-D . This by the way isn't my roasting level preference, but it will show you more definately where 1c and 2c is. It can be very decieving if you've never heard 2c before, sometimes a roast will stall in the middle of 1c and then take a few minutes to start again. That scenario messed me up a couple times when I first started. Joe
Posted Mon Jun 6, 2005, 10:48am Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Ariel,
Try this...
Use a very fat (heavy duty) extension cord of no more than six feet. You may have a bit of low voltage at your place and any cheap or long extension cord might be contributing to your problem.
If I use a long heavy duty cord, or a short cheaper cord, I never reach second crack.
pullindoubles Senior Member Joined: 25 Mar 2005 Posts: 52 Location: TofuLand (Boulder) Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Silvia, Bialetti Moka... Grinder: Maestro Plus Vac Pot: Still looking Drip: Bodum Chambord FP, Melitta Roaster: Army of Poppery II's, the...
Posted Mon Jun 6, 2005, 11:48am Subject: Re: Need Help - Not Getting Good Results with Home Roasting
Hi Ariel,
It is definitely no fun to be expecting the best-tasting, freshest coffee on the block and then be disappointed!
I think there are great suggestions permeating this thread, but I would just like to emphasize (from my own humble experiences) the importance of a good rest period as Joe and Jon suggested. I've ocassionally been very disappointed when tasting coffees without proper rest, but find that many of them get better in the 2, 3, even 5 day range. This is, of course, subjective to your personal tastes as well as the bean or blend, but these days, I will rarely touch anything I roast before at least 48 hours. For instance, for one of my favorite green espresso blends, SM's Moka Kadir, it needs a good 36 hours for my tastes.
Another important point, as Joe brought up, is to let the beans degas for a few hours before sealing them up. I'll typically just leave mine in the cooling colander for about 4-6 hours before placing them in 1/2 pound one-way valve bags or jars.
Silly question, but was there anything in the mason jars before you used them for coffee? If so, I wonder if something bitter or chemical-tasting found its way into the rubber seal (if the top has one)...
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