Feb 27, 2019
its poppin’
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its poppin’
Roast Profile Development episode 3 now has captions. This one takes pre-purchase samples of a few coffees from Papua New Guinea through cupping, takes two of those coffees for what I call an espresso sample roast with shots pulled for evaluation, then does product development roasting with one coffee which is then used as one of three ingredients in an espresso blend.
With this, all three episodes in the Roast Profile Development series now have captions.
While I was in Mexico I cupped a lot of coffees. That means that a lot of samples needed to be roasted and it wasn’t always possible to get those done in ideal roasting conditions. Sample roasting outdoors is hard enough. Sample roasting outdoors at night with only the light of your cell phone to let you monitor the roast? That’s tough to do well. Also, this should totally be a roasting competition event. How close can you hit a sample roast spec under these conditions?
What’s going on in that roaster? The down side to abusing a 1 kilo lab roaster as a sample roaster is that the sample trowel stops working when the batch size is only 100 grams. When I’m roasting batches for product development I’ll use more coffee to have a usable trowel that lets me smell the coffee and see how it’s developing better than I can through the sight glass.
This is from the new video that I uploaded yesterday. In that I’m going over how you can better select which green coffees to buy if you’re interested in using those to make espresso. From there it goes into profile development and blend construction, though the coffee I’m mainly focusing on here can make a very good espresso on its own.
A lot of newer specialty coffee markets, particularly internationally, are heavily focused on espresso so I think a lot of roasters might find this interesting. Please feel free to share it around.
NEW TOY!
Sample Roasting
At the SCAA expo in Boston I'll be teaching a sample roasting class. The Sunday PM session that I'm lead instructor for is sold out but I could still use one more station instructor. Currently the class is an optional one for the Roasters Guild level 2 certification but it will probably be required for those going for the level 1 certification next year. If you want the certification and don't want to take the classes because you already know this stuff, teaching the material counts so you can get the credit that way. Requirements for filling the slot are that you need to have completed the Instructor Development Program (if you go to your profile at scaa.org and check My Pro Dev you should see SCAA Lead Instructor right at the top) and you should also know how to operate a typical sample roaster. Here I mean roasting without instrumentation and consistently hitting a standard sample roast. If you can guide a group of six people through some sample roasting exercises it would be a great help not only for me but also for the people who have signed up for the class.
The class is being offered in three other time slots that as far as I know still have space in them. I'll be a station instructor for the Saturday PM session so if you wanted a chance to learn about sample roasting from me, this would be the session to pick. In this class you'll learn about why you should have a sample roasting program, how to put one together, standard protocols for roasting and cupping in such a program, what sorts of documentation you want to keep, and how to operate typical sample roasting equipment. Even if you don't currently have a proper sample roaster a lot of this is applicable for anybody who wants to make good decisions about what green coffees they want to buy.
I know I've said that I'm teaching other classes previously, but I think it's unlikely that I'll get rescheduled again this close to the event. Aside from these sample roasting classes I'll also be a station instructor for the CP151/152 brewing and extraction class on Friday (April 12). That's another one that I expect will be highly informative.
In any case, if you were planning on going to this event, you should make the arrangements sooner rather than later. The Boston marathon is happening immediately following expo so the longer you wait, the harder it will be to find a room.