Roaster School - Season 2 - Episode 4: Deciding When the Roast is Done

[@dannyquiroz5777]

I've been roasting for 3 1/2 years and I just binge-watched all 21 Roaster School episodes, thank you for putting out these videos I can't wait to do some experimental roasting based on what I learned. I had no idea how many of my wish-list features the mill city units have. Strong top contender for our next roaster upgrade. Keep up the great work!

[@JasonMorford]

I literally watched every single one of your videos in the past 24 hours. No i have not slept. Yes, I play it at 2x speed and I took tons of notes. As a personal roaster I have one problem. I want to roast more than I can drink. I might have to try to sell some just to roast as much as I want to.

[@MillCityRoastersMN]

Welcome to the industry. 🙂

[@lordikhonn]

We missed you guys! Great video as always!

[@goldfield78]

Great information and metaphores.

[@chrisbalocca]

Great information guys, love it!

[@BWtheHD]

Some people here in Taiwan use clay pot and stove as their roaster, and it seems they tend to roast coffee beans twice to achieve their desired doneness. The first time is to remove some moisture from beans, and drop somewhere before first crack, remove chaff ,and let it cool till room temperature. After it's all done, they roast the same batch again, till the doneness the roaster wants. Compares to cup from roasting machines, I would say its more rounded body and after taste could lingers up to hours. However, those terroir characteristic were no longer in the cup In my own experiences. I've read a book said that some Japanese use similar method as quality control of their blends.

[@roasterjoe]

Very interesting! I would love to try the coffee!

[@jeffmacpherson4283]

We joke about "lightly toasted" coffees in our house. Balance is king! Love your videos!

[@oldgrumpus]

I am new to roasting and have a 1-1/2 kilo gas drum roaster with all the usual controls. My first real full load was botched by dropping the beans too early. The coffee was definitely under done but almost drinkable. Since I have nothing to lose, I decided to try to re-roast. My strategy was to bring the beans up to temperature as quickly as possible because they had all ready gone up, almost, to first crack. I only used visual cues and browned to about a full-city roast. Although the final product was not great, it was quite drinkable.

[@MillCityRoastersMN]

Coffee is hard. Re-roasting is not a recommended finish technique, but the heart wants what the heart wants.

[@jackyuan4363]

Just found this great year-old video. Watching your video helped me to better structure my roasts. Thanks a lot guys. Towards the end of this video, Derek said he would keep the development time of the washed Yirgacheffe under 2 minutes. What about target drop temp? Is there a typical ROR you would like to keep when entering 1st crack and through out the development time? What's the best way to handle it when you enter 1C with a higher ROR than planned? Couple of times I went into 1st crack too fast with an ROR around 25 f/min. I panicked and drop the beans 50+ seconds after 1c at around 420f. The beans were still cracking but had already puffed up quite a bit. It ended up tasting OK but not as clean and rounded as a batch with 10-12 ROR for development. Thanks!

[@MillCityRoastersMN]

"What's the best way to handle it when you enter 1C with a higher ROR than planned?" Turn the burners off and coast until you're in control.

[@thomashinman6401]

Would love to hear your thoughts on the Development Time Ratio, do you use it as a guide when roasting or just as another data input to that specific coffee?

[@troyg708]

Love these videos

[@andresguevara4024]

As always, a pleasure to watch your videos guys. Thanks for posting. I heard that many french roast the coffee twice, however Im not sure if it is an urban legend.

[@roasterjoe]

I had not heard this before. I have an open mind though, and I would not be too surprised!

[@johnwiencek]

I have re-roasted a couple of batches in the past because of significant undevelopment - tasting vegetal and grassy. After roasting the second time, it was drinkable but not nearly as good as a properly roasted batch. Taste was bit more flat (baked) and the key flavor notes did not pop out as distinctly. You need to let the beans rest for a couple days (again) after the re-roasting.

[@gaovincent5562]

great video!!!!!! just wondering are u guys gonna talk about gesha and pacamarra roasting? thanks

[@chefalbino]

the second time roasting: imho it's not a further breakdown of molecules (they are temp-reladed) but it's loosing aromas. take acidity: acids steam away with time. like fresh fruit has a fresh-acidity but cooked for 2 min already mellowd the acid and you get "cooked" fruit-taste. is you cook it way down for an hour you loose even more acids. take aromas: many aromas are "sugars/alcohols" like ester: like vinegar, methanol, ethanol, beewax, vinyl, sulfur or oils like terpene: like resin, mandarin, citrus, rose, geranium, lavender, citronella are volitile at different temperatures. so your'e loosing more of those because of prolonged heating. summasummarum you loose complexity even if you would not heat it all the way up to the same temp. as the first roast.

[@has997]

Thanks for nice video , i tried to reroast coffee bean directly after 2 mins from drop to go further and reach second crack .. and i tasted it honestly i discovered it was nice and normally 🙂 . My problem is as derek said when i tried to reach second crack in proper and maintain good curve & ROR i lost the momentum 😮

[@jorgefloresvillar2168]

Joe, if may I respectfully suggest to search on Neil Wilson roast profile development approach, I believe that you will be interested. Neil is the creator of "Typica" free software for coffee roasters, and you may search his videos on youtube under "N3Roaster".

[@jeronimopruijn9791]

A 'double roasted' coffee used to be one of our standard coffees may years ago. We took it out at cinnamon (orange) and roast it again to quite dark, This kind of coffee is very sweet, very little acidity, but not bad at all. The other day I did something similar to coffee I dropped at first crack and it was too acid to put into my sales, so I adventured into double roasting again, many years after the other experience. Something similar happened, but it was definitely NOT a bad tasting coffee, a lot better than before and I didn´t have to discard the coffee.

[@bobbys4327]

Great information as always, thanks! Now, before you roast, how do you decide what your target is going to be?

[@roasterjoe]

Your target is what you want to taste in the cup. The target is different for every coffee and for every person roasting!

[@has997]

You touch the most critical point which artisan speciality coffee roasters face when trying to hit Middle of second crack while maintaining enough momentum and declining ROR .

[@mattrose475]

I tried reroasting a yirgacheffe today which appeared under done with a lot of quakers from yesterday. It tasted awful and I threw it in the trash.

[@mattrose475]

"but I can still taste some blueberry through the smoky tarry char flavor..."

[@CoffeebeanerHtx]

There is a Roaster down here in Houston that is roasting, dropping and re-roasting coffee. There coffee is delicious. They are called Xela Coffee Roasters.

[@bretteur2legende]

It is delicious with 2 Galons of Milk and 5 lbs of sugar....

[@zheng1987]

bretteur2legende lol

[@debbiecote3993]

This was a great series. I roast on a Gene Cafe roaster. I'm trying to translate your advise to something my roaster is capable of doing. This is great food for thought. Thanks😁👍 Frank

[@paulmcmullen914]

I’ve always wanted a larger trier so I could pull a couple samples as it nears the end of the roast.

[@qwerty123106]

In fact there IS a roasting skill from Japan called the “double roasting.” The point of doing so is to getting rid of the moisture as much as possible for some difficult-to-roast beans such as new-season ones. The way of doing it is to roast till yellow, drop the beans, cool overnight, and re-roast on the next day. This will produce lamer coffee with “smoother” tastes as some people may prefer as it removes the acidity from the beans (which I think is what makes specialty coffee special, the good acidity). It also reduces the amount of aroma and fragrance. Some roasters using less convection heat (mainly conductive) may need this method to prevent astringency caused by insufficient moveout of the moisture. An example can be a roast with a pottery pot.

[@qwerty123106]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmGVpmWJd99-p5Y Reference is provided in the link

[@qwerty123106]

This method is also referred in the work of Mr. Taguchi Mamoru（田口護）, a very senior coffee roaster from Japan who writes a lot of books on everything about coffee. From the book “コーヒー おいしさの方程式”

[@qwerty123106]

And also thank you guys and the mill city roasters school group for providing such great content on roasting and other things on coffee. You really help me a lot as a home roaster that takes up everything by googling, reading, and experimentation.

[@RunnerBrain]

What does carbon taste like?

[@СтаниславЛихачев-ю5х]

Like black teeth after it :D not better

[@themisterier]

How roasters describe underdeveloped coffee? Green Apple (high acidity), Black Tea( massive dry mouthfeel), Tea Like (light body), Matcha/green tea (biterness).. 😅😂 comment on what other words roasters uses to proudfully display their underdeveloped coffee?

[@СтаниславЛихачев-ю5х]

The best truthful comment!

[@shineoncoffee4772]

23:15 is truth

[@eldarsaidov7037]

Why drum in roasters is not spherical? I think this type of drum create more stable and efficient migration and balance of energy

[@MillCityRoastersMN]

That's been done. It looks neat, but doesn't provide any real benefit.

[@madparis6410]

What's up wit Derek mics??

[@roasterjoe]

It cut out a couple of times. Yep... This is a homemade, in-house production. We are not perfect on the tech side. The information is just as valuable though... right?

[@eldarsaidov7037]

And - does anybody try to make a roasting with microwave?

[@MillCityRoastersMN]

Good idea, but no.