Initial heat rationale

I’d love to tap into the wisdom of this group here, what have you learned about initial heat versus heat later on? I’m going through a lot of different iterations on recipes and trying to figure out when I should start with a higher heat and when I should work on increasing it along the way. Any guidance from the group that can point me in a good direction?

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Not sure where to begin… there is no one right answer to put it in a nutshell (that’s my view at least). For me what PH temp to use depends on batch size and bean. My initial fan at charge is almost always an F2 or F3 (former more than latter) and drum speed for 350g to 500g is almost always D9, I rarely mess around with the drum speed much. As for the initial power/heat at charge, again depends on batch size. My smaller batches are usually around P6 or P7, as that gives me some room to move up. For my 1kg batch I’m still figuring things out, but profiles from cash0612 is what I’m basing my 1kg on. I’ve only just started on working at 1kg so there’s still some things for me to learn and experiement. For my 350g batches I learned a lot from bradm’s profiles and I extrapolated from those to the profile I use for my 500g batches.

There is a technique that has been discussed in these forums called “heat soak” - it’s interesting one that I’m hoping to really try out after I figure out how I want to approach my 1kg, but learning from cash0612 has been giving me very nice results so far so I might not mess with it too much.

For me the key is not to start so high on the PH and P that you’re going to scorch the beans during the yellowing phase otherwise you may end up with under developed beans while it is burnt on the outside. Think of it like cooking - a hot cast iron pan to sear a steak to get that nice crust so you get a rare or medium rare steak is desirable result for steak but not so desirable for coffee beans.

The bean you’re roasting could also be a factor. I recently roasted India Monsoon Malabar. My first 500g batch I did my usual PH temp, but I didn’t like the result much. For the second 500g batch I dropped my PH temp by 1 or 2 notch and it came out really well.

I’m just putting this is rather simple terms. There is a lot more to this subject, but I’m sure others can chime in and opine.

One last point, your ambient temps will play a role too.

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