Wondering what ideas are out there. I’m having a hard time with decaf.
I appreciate your dilemma as I struggle with decaf roasts as well. My successes have been in the “ok” category so take this with a grain of salt and watch for another user to come along that actually has confidence in what they’re doing-
- I ignore color… decaf is going to be darker (though SWP isn’t quite as dark as MWP from Royal) for the same level of roast. I just stick to IBTS for deciding when to eject the roast. 1C was at a similar temp as non-decaf beans… about 400-401°F,
- I see a lot of broken beans as I go to the same IBTS temps I would use for non-SWP for a dark roast. I’m told that this has to do with how fast you approach 1C after the drying phase. I take that to mean I should use less power after the initial preheat.
- Here’s a Sumatra I did that wasn’t too bad but it’s not going to win any roasting competitions:
No bragging about anything here… I just don’t have a handle on decaf. There were a couple folks here that were helpful to me when I asked (a year ago?) and hopefully they will pop in here with some credible advice.
Bruce
Edit- I use a heat soak roasting profile which produces the odd looking double-peak in P-RoR. Not related to the beans being decaffeinated.
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Jeff,
You didn’t specify how dark you like to roast, so I’ll toss my hat in the ring with a FC+. I try to get to FC with an RoR of about 10 to avoid flick and crash. Then, I add heat to get to 454° at an ROR of about 18. At FC, I decrease drum speed from 8 to 7. Then, 30 sec after FC, I increase heat. If needed, I increase heat again after another 30 sec.
Here’s a decaf Colombian I roasted recently.
Notice, I start with a relatively low preheat temp, and I roast 300g at a time. If you roast more then 300g, you’ll need to adjust.
Good luck!
Art
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I’ve had pretty good luck with decaf SO’s and Espresso Blend. The Espresso blend is SWP Brazil (40%), SWP Sumatra (25%) and either SWP Ethiopia, Guatemala or Colombia (35%). I use 325 gm charge weight.
Here is a link
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Thanks. going to try this today. FC is what I am aiming for at this point. Decaf is actually for friends and family-- they tend to like it darker than me.