Hi all-
I am trying to dial in good roast profiles to accentuate sweetness in light roasts. I am able to achieve the tasting notes consistently, but cannot seem to escape tartness even in “fruit heavy” descriptions. Perhaps I need more development time, I realize 14.91% (below) is not optimal? But, if I go past 1/1.25 minutes after 1st crack, I tend to lose too much weight percentage. I am shooting for 12ish% loss range. Am I putting too much stock in weight loss? Should I let the roasts sit for over a week to try etc? … See attached Rwanda light roast curve. Thanks for any help!
For what it’s worth, I think 1:30 development time might be too short if you think it’s too acidic. For light roasts, I used to fuss over a low weight loss but it’s less important to me now.
Thanks for your advice! A few more related questions:
- If weight loss is less important, then is the color of the beans also not so important for attaining the subtle flavors of a light roast?
- If I hit 1st crack earlier (for this roast 7:30), would this allow me to have 2 minutes development time and still retain 12%ish weight loss? If so, how do I shorten the browning phase – with a higher or lower charge temp? Something else?
- What is an acceptable temperature range increase from 1st crack to drop? I get nervous when the temp starts rising too fast in the development phase. Is this not that important either?
- A roaster friend of mine told me that around 400 degrees F is optimal for 1st crack. Is this a good gauge or is my 393 F okay?
Hi,
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For me, I use weight loss % to check consistency between batches. If I’m happy with how a roast tastes, I’ll try to match the weight loss on the next batch. I use color the same way. I have a Tonino color meter. It was helpful to have an objective measure but I found that keeping an eye on weight loss % and development time gives me a pretty good guess as to how the next batch will taste. I’ve made batches that are too acidic in a range of weight losses and colors. Just in general, I found that more time at the higher temperatures helps reduce that acidity.
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I wish I had an answer to that too! I struggle with making the browning phase shorter on my roaster and keeping an overall short time. If I can get a 40% dry, 40% brown, 20% development time I consider myself lucky. I find it much easier to do if I have a longer roast time, but i think the light roasts can lack flavour if it goes on too long.
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I think you’re right, if the temperature rises too much in development phase the light roasts don’t taste great either. I end the roasts within 5 -8 degrees celsius generally. I don’t know if that still qualifies as light roast or if it is nearing medium roast levels… Sometimes I alm lucky to end it lighter and those turn out really nice, but I find it hard to repeat those roasts.
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On my gauges, 393 would be low and 400 is a bit closer to my normal… up until about a year ago, my first cracks were more in the 393 range. I don’t know what caused it to switch,
Anyhow, I hope this helps, I hope your roasting goes well.
Thanks for all your thoughts, I appreciate it, very helpful!
You’re welcome. Also fwiw, I think that it’s hard to bring out the subtler flavours in light roasts. My current thinking is that it really depends on the beans more than roasting technique. I don’t normally buy really high grades coffees, but I recently sample roasted a 91 point coffee and it was shockingly fragrant compared to a 87.5 point coffee that I make more often. I haven’t sampled a vast amount of coffee, so I could be wrong, but what I read about light roasts bringing out subtler flavours, and losing some of that if it’s roasted a bit darker, made a lot more sense to me after trying the 91 point coffee.
Yes, I wonder about this too. I usually get higher rated coffees though, and still am not wowed by the flavors.