Unreal Ethiopian Fruit Bomb

After about a dozen roasts I’m finally getting comfortable with the Bullet, and last night worked my way through the SM sampler pack to the Ethiopian Organic Dry Process Sidamo Keramo “fruit bomb”. I’ve always roasted dark, sticking primarily with Guatemalans and Sumatras, and dropping at the first snap of 2C. But after reading other’s posts about how Ethiopians need to be lightly roasted I clearly needed to try something new. I shot for a quick yellowing, slow down during browning, and drop at 20% development. Here’s what happened:

Ethiopian Fruit Bomb

It was obvious this coffee was special as soon as it hit the cooling bowl. The strawberry cream aroma didn’t even smell like coffee. This morning’s pour-over was unbelievable, all of the flavors in the SM cupping notes were right there.

Ok maybe I’m gushing a bit here, but this is the kind of transformation that I was looking for / hoping for with the Bullet. It is so much fun to discover what I suppose many of you already know. The question in this post, if there is one, to those of you who are familiar with this and similar Ethiopians: what could I have done better? Hotter preheat, shorter overall?

  • Brad
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Congrats! Sounds like a perfect roast for you. I don’t think I’d change anything if the coffee was that good, and I’m glad it was. I wish I’d bought some, but had recently placed an order when it came available.

If there’s anything I’d suggest, it would be to standardize on a charge weight, like 454 grams in this case, to keep your profiles more controllable. I’m guessing you used the whole 1 lb bag, as most often SM adds a little extra :). I save all my “leftovers” from 1, 2, and 5 lb bags until I get a whole lb and roast it all together as a mega blend…sometimes it is extraordinary.

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Congratulations Brad! Nice to hit one out of the park once in awhile isn’t it? The real trick will be getting more ordered before it disappears! :slight_smile: Over a decade ago I bought some Brazilian beans from SM which just happened to match perfectly the one (and only!) profile I had when roasting on my BBQ+drum. It was an amazing cup. Went back for more and got the dreaded “Out of stock” message! Completely changed my buying habits… I now have way too much coffee stockpiled.

Bruce

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looks to be a great roast, congrats!!
I don’t buy coffee from SM, but your profile is very close to my production roast. here is my profile for comparison.

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Thanks guys for this advice. I sure do wish we could get more of those beans. When a chance does come to stock up on some special beans, how long do you plan they’ll retain top quality? 6 months or more?

I didn’t realize that batch size difference of 454g vs. 470g was significant, but the Bullet certainly is precise and I like the mega blend idea.

Unfortunately, the intense aroma and sweetness in my roast faded noticeably after only 3 days. It’s still a very good cup, but no longer a bomb. Is that typical for light and/or Ethiopian roasts? Could I expect more longevity if I roasted differently, say shorten the drying phase or drop 30 seconds earlier?

  • Brad

Hi, I have noticed the 3 day limit when roasts smell of fruits and such. I want to say I remember one or two roast coming back in 7-12 days with such clarity, but I have had so many that fell off after 3 days (not just Ethiopians) I assume this is the norm. Though I just did some roasts of an Ethiopian DP and a Nicaraguan (Pacamara) DP using another DP profile and there was vague but consistent fruit notes that have now lasted for…8ish days, that is when I finished off the beans…

I do notice that between the different roast profiles/beans, that the clearer the smell of fruit that pops out during crack; whether concord grape, mango, strawberry, etc. they’re clear but they fall of in 3 days but when the fruits start sometime in Millard, although vague, the beans smell fruitier for longer during rest.

I also noticed that the closer a bean is processing > variety > varietal (origin) the better a good profile works from one bean to another and requires less adjustments/variations.

Have you all noticed this, or is this just my own experience?

Amazing bean. I squirreled away a few pounds for a rainy day.

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Try the Shantawene from Happy Mug. It’s another real winner - strawberry watermelon!

There is a shipment of Natural Organic Shanta Wene coming into Royal on 7/29. Being a “fruit bomb” lover, I might look into this one - provided it isn’t too pricey…

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Same experience as @bradm - got the Org DP Eth “Fruit Bomb” in my sampler from ordering my Bullet, and it blew me away… so, so good. I dropped mine right as FC was ending.

But, same thing, the fruit bomb faded after just a couple days… now I just taste hints of bomb remnants :stuck_out_tongue:

I, too, thought whether the fruit bomb would last longer if I dropped it earlier, but it sounds like it wouldn’t have… pretty surprised that the rest killed it so quickly.

This Shantawene roast was an unusual profile for me, but it is still sweet and fruity one week later:

Could it be that the great flavors in quicker, hotter roasts fade while “low and slow” like this one tend to last longer?

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the link is invalid now unfortunately - is this the correct roast?

This is the unusual Shantawene roast:

FWIW, I don’t roast low-n-slow like that these days because I usually go for more brightness and acidity in those light roasts. Have you tried any of this year’s Shantawene crop from Happy Mug? Curious if it is as good as last year.

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Hi Brad - I have a bit of both Shantawene and Bombe from CBC. The Shantawene is what I would call an elegant coffee. It’s balanced with all the notes in their proper places but absolutely not a fruit “bomb”. Jane is loving it while away getting a home ready for evacuation and new owners. I’ve enjoyed it as espresso too. I just finished an espresso of the Bombe that I recommended to you as better and more balanced and less ferment than last years crop. It’s still huge bodied and full of sweet blueberry. I know you got some but perhaps It’s not in your wheelhouse for brewed coffee. However, before you buy Ethiopian greens now, take a look at Sweet Maria coffees on the water for future delivery :slight_smile:

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From one Brad to another it feels good to roast something delicious. Almost inspiring really. I roasted Ethiopia Sidamo Durato Bombe G1 from Coffee Bean Corral. They sent to me as a sample so it was around 235 grams-205g after the roast. It was so delicious some strong blueberry, strawberry notes and it tasted better and better as it got colder during the cupping. After drinking this sweet nectar I was hyped. So decided to stock up, looking forward to roasting several batches over the next 2 weeks. Here’s my roast if you want to check it out, would be nice to have a similar result with a larger batch size.

Hi @solidcup - I am trying to get better at reading these graphs. Could I ask you some questions about yours?

  • Your FC is within expected range but your last recorded IBTS is ~460F. That sounds unreal. I am assuming you dropped much earlier than that but somehow the data recording kept on going?
  • How does one figure out when a roast was dropped (ie “Cool Down” is kicked off in the Bullet). Should it be the last recorded temperature?

Thanks in advance for entertaining such basic questions.

Since we’ve shifted a bit to this years 2021 Ethiopian greens, here are a couple of my roasts of Shantawene and Bombe

Both were excellent in different ways as I described above.

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Well executed Geoffrey! No constant fussing with P/D/F controls at the end like I do.

Bruce

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Well yeah I agree, that is unreal, for me my bullet doesn’t immediately go in to cooling after I drop the beans. I am unsure :neutral_face: why. So 460c was probably a little after I dropped the beans, the end time probably looks somewhere around 7:50. I usually wait anywhere from 30 to 45 seconds after FC before I drop the beans if I want that medium roast. Which is what I’m shooting for with an Ethiopian.

That’s a good question. I need to start writing down the exact end time, maybe on a notepad or something, or I think there is a way you can edit the roast times before you export your roast graph. I will have to look more into that. Or I just need to switch to cool manually as soon as I’m done. I’m slacking :sweat_smile:.

It seems that the RT graph doesn’t have an explicit “Drop” and/or “Cool Down” marking as, in theory, this could differ from each other, even if it didn’t quite make sense.

So, my way of making sense of this situation is that RT assumes that you will hit PRS to go into Bean Cooling mode, which is then its impetus to end the chart/data recording. Hence, the last known temperature recording would be also the drop temperature. Presumably, nothing prevents you from just opening the door and letting the beans tumble without kicking the Bullet into Cool Down mode. I am not sure if you are doing that or if you are hitting PRS to go into Cool Down mode and then opening the door to let the beans out. If you are doing the latter, and your Bullet isn’t immediately going into Bean Cooling mode, then its worth opening a defect with the Aillio folks since the Bean Cooling mode is pretty darn important in quickly extracting and cooling your beats. The Bullet manual quotes:

The cooling tray fan will start and the blower will be set to program 7. The drum speed is set to the optimal speed to drop your beans into the cooling tray.