Hello peeps.
See this animated GIF showing my two latest DECAF roasts. Both are disappointing, the one I did yesterday was pulled sooner and it seemed to me that it was “trying to expose” flavours in the fruity/floral end of the spectrum, but nothing existed to be exposed…
I may be wrong, but I do fear that there may not be much more to get from a DECAF bean. It isn’t terrible, they’re better than a caffeinated coffee at Starbucks, but that isn’t saying a lot.
What can I do to improve this, what can I try? (hi @bradm !)
PS - the time I set for the start of Maillard is not accurate as these beans start off a weird brownish colour when they are “green”.
tx
Mark
I’ve worked out a general profile for decaf that has been pretty well received by family and those I’ve gifted roasts. This one is a nice refreshing Ethiopian Sidama that made a delightful iced coffee for summer. I roast 325 gm batches. Good luck.
Hi Geoffrey
Thanks. It does look quite similar to the roast I was doing for the Sidamo before these new roasts… Perhaps there are some crucial differences I haven’t the experience to see yet, here is my previous decaf roast
That does look a lot like my roast. I think yours looks better but perhaps for some loss of momentum at the very end that might have dulled your florals and fruits.
Another difference is the weight loss. I attributed the low loss in my roast to decafe processing resulting in greens with less moisture. Perhaps instead, your beans are fresher than the ones I purchased. I did like the results in the cup though.
Judging color is generally very subjective and in the best of cases is prone to inconsistency. And then there’s decaf which may start out not green (MWP). For the sake of consistency I started using a fixed temp from IBTS (330°F) for all roasts.
Yeah, with these not-green green beans I mark Yellow at 160, but do it by eye (and TRYING to develop an ability to do it by smell too, but that’s hard) for CAF beans.
My problem is I usually have Decaf an hour after a cup of CAF… so the comparison makes the Decaf seem much worse than it probably is. I should drink some CAF starbucks and then have my Decaf. I will probably LOVE it by comparison!
