So, as title says. Been roasting a while and weather it’s 7mins or 9min roasts. Low and slow, hard and fast it all just taste flat bland dull week Underdev.
Generally using 250-400gram batches. Yellowing at 5mij give or take. Fc at 7,8,9mins.
Short dev time long dev time
Here a roast I did, looks the part, hits the right markers. Absolutely nothing but a dull breddy cup.
I’ve contacted aillio about my concern of the bullet been a dud.
Did a roast last night back to back and P8 gave me a longer and slower roast the P7. Magical
Here that roast that meets all point but doesn’t taste like anything.
We can’t see your link. You have to click on Actions → Share to get a shareable link. What coffee are you roasting? Does it taste good from another roaster?
I am not the most experienced roaster here but from what I can see on the roast you shared, you may have insufficient energy at the start of your roast especially for Ethiopian beans.
Your roast time is on the long side for your indicated batch size of under 300g.
I was having similar tasting results to you until I followed these starting point suggestions from Scott Rao.
Increase your preheat temp to 220 DegC
Try losing the soak phase at this stage
Charge at P8, F2 and D9
Drop to P7 @ 130DegC on the bean temp sensor
Increase to F3 at 140 DegC
Drop to P6 at 150 DecC
Increase to F4 at 160 DegC
Drop to P5 at 170 DegC
Increase to F5 at around 178 DegC
You should be getting First Crack around here
Drop Power gradually from there to the end of your roast
Try dropping the roast between 90 secs to 120 secs after FC depending on your taste preference.
Hey -
Far from any level of expert, but it does look like your roast stalled at FC, probably giving you the baked / bready flavors. As Gaby mentioned, try give it some more energy early on to carry the momentum through FC. I had this same issue roasting Yirgacheffe heirlooms early on, but found a 225 charge and P7 / F2 at the start helped hugely in managing ongoing.
I recently played with preheat temp. Have always used 428 and wanted to try lower so I went down to 410. Well, everything I roasted there was flat, so I went back to 428, and it was MUCH more flavorful. I was really shocked that the preheat made that much difference tbh… Change to 428 and try.
Now, I do roast to 421ish finish temp. Just the start of 2nd crack. AND I only do lattes.
That roast in particular has a much higher weight loss than I’d expect for something that hit FC and coasted for 90 seconds. And a much larger gap between IBTS and BT than I’d expect for that batch size. Looking at your other roasts – the numbers are more reasonable.
How are you brewing? Filter? Everyone’s tastes are different, but for a bright filter cup I’d cut these roasts a little sooner and carry more energy into FC (esp for Ethiopian). How does the color of the beans compare to the sample?
(And I take it you’re stirring the beans in the cooling tray to cool them quickly?)
The only thing I would add to Gaby’s comment are that at two minutes of Development I normally see a temp. around 205c. I tweak my fan/power so that I land there in my light roasts and have had pretty good luck.
Thanks everyone for great and detail info. I often had the feeling i was under cutting the power to soon but just always trying to nail that city style roast profile. And before everyone hounds on me, yes Ive been getting decently expensive beans (hence the frustration and reaching out here). As I know you can’t polish a turd when it comes to coffee. Again thank you all for the awesome info!
That is odd, as I click the link it states the same for me to. Which is actually now very concerning considering I own the profile and I like the graph etc haha…it’s definitely public as I made it public for the post. Well thanks to Paul pointing out I didn’t however maybe it’s just a server issue. If still interested please check back later. Thanks
Hello everybody. I’m very appreciated you want to help, and for those who have thank you again. For those who can’t access I want to thank you but apologies as I don’t know why it won’t work I’ve checked and checked again and the profile is public.
I’ve reached out to other roasters to acquire information in regards to my roasts. Thanks Anne Cooper. A roaster with a fantastic and informative inside to aillio.
I’ll still appreciate everyone’s input along the way no matter what, as just one person’s opinion, is exactly that, an opinion. But should you not be able to view or access the roast it’ll all be grand sure. Thanks Jacob and the team at Aillio to for helping when can
I had the same happen to me… i know exactly what you’re going through. Put your roasted coffee in a ziplock for 2 weeks. Then brew a cup. Your cooffee will always be bland right after you roast it. It needs time to degas
Ouch, there goes much hope to making a business out of it haha. But that’s a good point I’ve often just gave them a week maybe max. Will have to make a log and see how they progress. Thanks for that point
Hi Graham,
One factor Scott Rao is strong on is keeping the ROR positive, so not letting it dip below zero even briefly after FC, to avoid flat flavour. He also says avoid the flick by reducing power from about a minute into development time.
Cheers
Graham
