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I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

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Discussions > Coffee > Home Roast > I Completed My...

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JeffPersson
Senior Member

Joined: 11 May 2008
Posts: 121
Location: Goodyear, AZ
Expertise: I love coffee

Espresso: Bialetti Moka Pot
Grinder: LaSanMarco SM-90A
Vac Pot: Yama 8-cup
Drip: VP17-2
Roaster: Behmor 1600 & Poppery I

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 9:23am Subject: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

Well after getting my WB Poppery I a couple months ago I finally got around to ordering one of the "non-espresso" sampler packs from SweetMaria's and did my first roast today. For my first roast I did a 1/2c of Brazil Cerrado Dry Process Lot 242. I had the Poppery plugged into an extention cord and the switch wired to turn on the heat while the blower is always on when its plugged in. I started hearing First Crack at about 5:30 and eventually stopped the roast at 11:00 when it seemed the right color. I'm not sure I ever heard Second Crack. When I first dumped the beans all I could smell was heat. :) but after I cooled them they had a nice aromatic coffee smell. (Click for larger image)

JeffPersson
Senior Member

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 9:24am Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

The roasted beans vary in color, which I expected, but I noticed some of them had what looked to be chaff still on them as you can see in the picture below. What should I do with the beans that still have skin on them? Toss them? Scrape it off? ignore it? All in all I really enjoyed roasting, so if I can get this nailed down I'll eventually get myself a Behmor roaster, but for now I'm gonna work on the Poppery. :) (Click for larger image)

mhoy
Senior Member

Joined: 4 Feb 2008
Posts: 139
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Expertise: I love coffee

Espresso: Elektra T1
Grinder: KA Proline
Roaster: HotTop KN-8828D

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 9:36am Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

Agitate the beans (or rub them between your hands) and the skin will come off, this chaff is expected. A fan can be used to blow it away. mark

dana_leighton
Moderator

Joined: 11 Jan 2002
Posts: 514
Location: Arkansas
Expertise: I live coffee

Espresso: Isomac Relax
Grinder: Rocky
Vac Pot: Yama 5-cupper
Drip: Mellita, Krups Moka Brew
Roaster: WB Poppery I

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 11:57am Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

JeffPersson Said: I had the Poppery plugged into an extention cord and the switch wired to turn on the heat while the blower is always on when its plugged in. I started hearing First Crack at about 5:30 and eventually stopped the roast at 11:00 when it seemed the right color. I'm not sure I ever heard Second Crack. Posted July 30, 2008 link I have the exact same setup for my Poppery, sans the extension cord. I would advise ramping the heat up more slowly (which helps ameliorate the "brightness" typical of air roasting). Are you using a probe thermometer? If not get one. It will give you the control you need to change the ramping speed. My typical non-espresso roasts ramp the temperature at about 20° F per minute from 200-300°, then I get a little more aggressive, going for 30° per minute from 300-first crack (which usually comes at about 395-405°). So, first crack for me usually comes in at around 9-10 minutes. Then I slow down from first crack to second, usually in the range of 7-10° per minute. That finishes a full city roast at around 14 minutes, 16 minutes to vienna. Also, I recommend roasting by weight, not volume since different beans have different densities, which will affect roasting. My Poppery I batches are usually about 125 grams.

Dana Leighton - Espresso hack and CoffeeGeek moderator

Frost
Senior Member

Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 791
Location: Sierra
Expertise: I love coffee

Espresso: Isomac Venus, Gaggia...
Grinder: Lelit PL53
Roaster: Poppery I w/variac

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 11:57am Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

Welcome to the wild world of Poppery I roasting Jeff! There are a 1000 'first roast' posts for every post about the 1000th roast. Coupla things: By separating the fan and heater, when you put the heater only on the extension cord the fan will be able to run at full speed. This will help for batch size and controlling the excess heat the P1 puts out. By putting them both on the extension cord, slowing the fan also works against lowering the heat. There is a single power level that might get you from cold to finish (almost...) at a nice pace, but that will vary on ambient temps and bean load. For my poppery 1 with 1/3lb green and 80F ambient if I had to choose only one power level for the entire roast, it would be around 104 Volts. This would do about 10-11 minute roast to begin of second crack. (For ambient temps of 60F or so it might be 107 or so) ....mind that this won't be the 'ideal' profile but a workable solution. If you have a volt meter I would suggest you try and test a bit to see if you can get a good working power level to pace the roast. (with extension cord, etc) It's nice to have the heater only wired to the switch (I have mine that way) but don't use this to control heat during the roast! (unless you are switching on/off once per second or so... and wearing out the switch!) The temp swings this causes will not work to slow the roast, and will do more harm than good. If you have a few beans much lighter than the rest of the batch, they may be green(not ripe) and should be tossed. If they are roasted fine under the chaff, just rub off the chaff. EDIT: something else I just noticed on your times: it looks like the thermostat has cycled the heater. Have you disabled the thermostat in your P1?

svyerkgeniiy
Senior Member

Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 250
Location: New York City, NY
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Espresso: (-ish) Bialetti moka pot
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Drip: Technivorm KBT; Sock-filter
Roaster: Gene Café

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 12:08pm Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

JeffPersson Said: The roasted beans vary in color, which I expected, but I noticed some of them had what looked to be chaff still on them as you can see in the picture below. What should I do with the beans that still have skin on them? Toss them? Scrape it off? ignore it? All in all I really enjoyed roasting, so if I can get this nailed down I'll eventually get myself a Behmor roaster, but for now I'm gonna work on the Poppery. :) Posted July 30, 2008 link Despite the suggestion from someone else to rub the chaff off, you don't really need to. What doesn't blow off via air circulation (I use a blow dryer on cool) won't harm anything. Sweet Maria's website says the chaff doesn't contribute anything to the coffee flavor, so it won't harm anything. And, by rubbing it off, you could be getting your own oils onto the bean, or wind up breaking them up in advance. You could probably do it with clean hands and not so much pressure to keep them from cracking up, but I wouldn't bother.

Donald Varona

dana_leighton
Moderator

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 3:56pm Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

Frost Said: It's nice to have the heater only wired to the switch (I have mine that way) but don't use this to control heat during the roast! (unless you are switching on/off once per second or so... and wearing out the switch!) The temp swings this causes will not work to slow the roast, and will do more harm than good. Posted July 30, 2008 link The switch controlling the heating element mod will slow the roast and give good results. I have been using the switch to control the heating coil for a couple years. Yes, it takes a lot of effort and attention, and I may be wearing out the switch (although I see no sign of failure after 2 years). If it does fail, I will definitely look for a rocker switch replacement anyway, since that would be more convenient. As for the temperature swings, they settle down by the time I hit 290-320° which is, as I understand it, before the temperature where the beans are starting to go through physical and chemical transformations, and you need to be careful to keep applying increasing heat. From about 340 on, I can keep the temperature rising steadily without more than about a 3-4° spike. It takes practice to begin to anticipate when you're going to get a rise in the indicated temperature, then switch off for about 1-2 seconds, then switch back on. From 370° it's pretty much full power on with a second off every 20-30 seconds anyway. I am getting good roasts this way. If I came across a Variac for free, I might be tempted to switch over and put the variac on the heating coil. I fear, however, that would take the sport out of the rough-and-ready world of power-switching! :)

Dana Leighton - Espresso hack and CoffeeGeek moderator

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 4:54pm Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

When I ran a Poppery II unregulated I used a couple tricks to slow the roast (in addition to the extension cord and ambient temps of 65F & lower) If first crack was too fast and strong I would just unplug the roaster at completion of FC and leave the beans in the chamber to 'finish' while stirring, fan off. Sometimes this would end up getting too hot as well . Also I used a stainless steel 'steaming basket' to cool the beans. ( the kind with 'pedals' that open like a flower...still use it today) If the finish was running too hot and fast, during the FC I would put the basket on top of the roaster to heat it up. ...then dump the beans and close it up to finish the roast. This would be maybe for the last minute or so. (I've been a fan of medium roast for some time) (EDIT: I'm not recommending to use this method, but at the time it was better than burned) Dana, I've never tried cycling the heater and leaving the fan on because I'm too afraid of the temp drop that would occur. There is quite a bit of mass down there around the heater in the P1 so (biting nails) The 1-2 seconds off time you are using sounds like it is working out ok.

PeteHunter
Senior Member

Joined: 20 Mar 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Republic, MO
Expertise: I live coffee

Grinder: Grindmaster 835
Vac Pot: Silex - Cory
Drip: Bodum Santos
Roaster: Caffee Rosto - HG/BM - Hot...

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 7:09pm Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

After reading several comments on this thread it's obvious some of you need a little help on cutting back on your temperature to extend your roast time. Harbor Freight has Router speed controls as low as $10 to $12 sometimes, regular price about $20. Get one of them and plug your heating coil into it and you can cut the wattage of your heating coil back as far as you want. Keep the fan full speed as usual. You will love it, Start off at full power and slowly decrease the voltage as the roast gets hotter. The speed control switch has 3 settings, OFF, FULL and VAR for variable. On VAR it will only put out about 90% when the dial full output. On FULL it will pass the full line voltage through. The speed control should handle 1800 watts which is more than a Hot Air Popper will draw. Here's a link to the Speed Control on Harbor Freight. http://tinyurl.com/qs574 Good luck, keep on roastin. Pete

Posted Wed Jul 30, 2008, 7:23pm Subject: Re: I Completed My First Roast and Have a Couple Questions

Excellent Pete! Now we have a $30 Profile control kit. Click Here (www.harborfreight.com) http://www.indoorhealthproducts.com/912.htm

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