I ordered the Fruit Basket sampler awhile back and this is one of the beans that was in it. I roasted 8 ozs four days ago with a preheat of 347 degF and an end of 416 degF. With 24 hours rest it was strongly chocolate with some earthy notes, very thick mouthfeel. With 48 hours rest the chocolate was greatly reduced and the earthy part was dominant, medium mouthfeel. With 72 hours rest the earthy notes were almost gone, making the muted chocolate the dominant taste again, still medium mouthfeel. With 96 hours rest the chocolate and earthy are about equal, both fairly muted, still medium mouthfeel. On day one this was a bean that shouted “chocolate”, but has since whimpered “tasteless”. I don’t care so much for the earthy notes, so I’m thinking a higher finish temperature might help. I will try to post the link to my roast if I can. I haven’t done this before.
When you look at my roast the graph times will be off by about 30-45 seconds or so. I left a note on the roast explaining it, but for anyone not looking at the chart I was talking to my wife and I charged the beans before the voice in the bullet said it was ready. The preheat was stabilized, but I jumped the gun. Once I realized that the chart wasn’t updating as it normally does I forced it into roast mode. So, there is an additional 30-45 seconds +/- that doesn’t show at the beginning of the roast. This would impact the time to yellow as well as the percentages for all three phases. But I think those are graph issues more than roast issues.
OK; after a great deal of searching I have discovered that roasting fermented beans is a different animal. The roast should start with plenty of power early on, then the power should begin dropping before FC and the roast should gently glide through FC with a DTR of 16-17% and end at around 392F. My roast was not at all like that. Since FC starts at between 385 and 388 on the Bullet I’m not sure how I can stretch DTR out to 16-17% while not going above 392. I may have to forget about anaerobic beans.
Well, 16-17% doesn’t really have meaning. If you’re going in fast, you’ll want to cut down on development time, and if going slow stretch it. Delta temperature is a good indicator for what you’re doing, but the best advice I can give you is not to fixate on numbers. Watch the beans and use the trier. Senses do a much better job than numbers. Anaerobic honeys are notoriously difficult, but you can have good results with the bullet. Not necessarily with the approach mentioned, but there are many different approaches that may yield the desired results. If you haven’t, and if it is still free, which I hope it is, you might want to consider the Morten Münchow course.
Thank you for your response, and the link to the online course. It’s so easy getting a decent cup from Ethiopian and Guatemalan beans that I wasn’t expecting any trouble at all when I put these beans in the roaster. But now having read several articles about anaerobic beans I am gaining some perspective on how the fermenting affects the beans. I’m still at a loss to explain how the coffee was so super chocolatey and thick on day one and then so bland and thin on day two.
I will check the link you sent and do the course. Thank you again!
I was a bit busy these days, but that’s really interesting. I’ve had this happen to me on a couple of roasts, only it was the fruit that went away, not chocolate, but it’s all flavour. I don’t know how or why this happens, but I’m trying to get to the bottom of it. I wouldn’t blame the beans, but rather the way they were roasted. By the way, fermentation can have some impact on the cell structure of the bean, so some high grown, supposedly dense, coffee, may run through the roast like it was from Brazilian lowlands. That’s not always the case, but it does happen pretty often.
Just got back from a long weekend trip to visit new great-grandson. I have to agree with the issue being the roast. I contacted a commercial roaster online who happens to roast and sell this exact bean. He said it is one of their best and he never has trouble with it. He did suggest that I lengthen the drying phase and shoot for a higher ending temp of maybe 420 F. I only have one shot to get it right before I’m out of beans, so I will do the best I can with it. If I drop my charge temp a little and start off with a lower power level I might be able to get some extra seconds in the drying phase. I had intended to aim for 425 on my next roast, so somewhere between 420-425 should be OK. This is really interesting and if it works out I may order more of these when they again become available. If not, there are other anaerobics to play with.
I hope he knows the batch size and the Bullet. However, if I were to tell you something it would be to ease up on the heat or use the fan to slow down the roast a bit, or go to 10% development, aiming for DT of 8°C or less. Anyway, small batches are tricky and can run away from you quickly. Personally, I think that 420f is excessive, because that would be even more than your current DT of 17.2°C. I’d say that would be too dark of a roast to truly experience what that coffee has to offer.
I’m going to hold off on the last 8 ozs. of the Java beans until I have done a bit more research. After fourteen days of rest these have taken on a pretty good quality; a bit of a fermented peach taste in the foreground with chocolate in the back and just enough acidity to make it fairly bright without bitterness. Mouthfeel is on the low side of medium, but the overall taste is approaching that of the coffee they serve at The Original Pancake House, minus some bit of something. Their coffee is a blend so I see no point in trying to match it, but I do like it and this is fairly close to it. I think I will see how this develops over the next two weeks to see where it ends up.