Kenneth Davids's Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival has become a new touchstone for my coffee roasting development. I have a long way to go but so far things have been alright. I have forgone a lot of the note-taking as I saw it derivative, but that's starting too soon. Let's go back.
Almost 18months ago I began roasting coffee for a shop in Portland Maine. From the outset I was given compliments for improving the roasting and maintaining a level of quality. I had no training to speak of save a tutorial on turning the machine on and getting the beans in and out of the hopper. I was told that once you get the thing going, you can do other things. He suggested exercising and I wish I remember what I said because it was so odd to me that someone would be given the opportunity to make something and squander it away to a modest fitness regimen. Fast forward 6 months and you would have found me doing things like exercising, rearranging the furniture, reading - lots of reading, and dancing - more dancing than reading. That said, I was always attentive to the stop-watch, meaning that I was always aware of the activity of the beans.
Sorry, I jumped ahead there for a second.
Here's how I roast coffee beans as of now:
1: Make sure your roaster in clean - a dirty one can lead to fires.
2: Turn on the roaster - I use a Diedrich. Its fucking huge and loud and I call it Died Rich for some reason. Its also black which makes for a highly reflective surface to watch oneself dance.
3: Weigh out the beans. I usually do at least 3 batches and never more than 9,at 10-20lbs each. I think the roaster gets too hot after 6 so I try to cap it that. Any more means I have to be very thoughtful in my schedule so that the beans that can take the most consistent heat go in the oven at the right interval. Anyone whose planned a dinner with more than one dish understands this kind of planning.
4: Once the Roaster hits 250F it will sound an alarm. This can be silenced easily.
5: At 370F degrees put the first batch in - I'm not sure why I opt for this range other than that is what I was told. I have made adjustments to certain varietals so that they are subjected to a different measure of heat for a different length of time.
6: Start the stop watch when the batch enters the hopper.
7: The internal temperature - which is displayed on the side of my roaster - will drop to around 160F and then begin to rise.
8: After 4 minutes turn the flame on medium-high.
9: At first crack turn flame down to medium-low.
10: Depending on roast, you will cut the flame at a certain point. The beans internal temperature will continue to cook the beans, so the flame can be cut before you remove the beans.
11: Depending on roast, you will empty the beans from the hopper. This will be signaled by the proximity to the second crack. Dark roasts can stay in after this second crack, lighter roasts should not, being pulled just as the beans begin to make the popping sound.
12: Cool beans by continually swirling them, dissipating the heat.
There is a bunch of stuff that I left out because its based on personal nuance and I can't give everything like that away. I also don't want anybody to follow my lead because I made it up and its not perfect. I am trying to get better through reading up on it. Also I am going to begin cupping my coffees - something I keep saying and never do. Right now I taste test my stuff in the shop's Victoria Arduino three-grouphead lever espresso machine, the shop's BUNN double drip brew machine, my home FrenchPress, and my home stove-top espresso maker.
The V&A:
This machine is a hulk but it can make a nice shot when its cleaned. The shots are usually of average size for a non-ristretto shots, 2oz for a double. The color is right, the crema is right. I try different blends weekly. The grinder's are burr (regular and decaf). The shots, maybe because the water - the filters are changed biannually - have a brackish quality to them. They do present the sweetness of the beans well and pull out nice earthy textures too. I like a rougher espresso and I am working with this machine to get a good, changing one.
The BUNN:
With multiple setting for 'brew-type,' the machine is pretty nice for what it is. The filters are always pre-damped and the coffee is always freshly ground on BUNN burr grinders. The sweetness of the coffees come across with this machine. It sucks for body, but it's nice for flavor.
The FrenchPress:
The water is boiled on the stove, the coffee is ground in a blade grinder (home burr grinders are so fucking pricey, but I shake the thing to eliminate any contact heat). It brews for 4 minutes. Good for body, nothing surprising for flavor. A nice cup.
The Stovetop:
Same grinder. Half the coffee as the FrenchPress with half the volume of water. Really grainy, some sweetness, nice body.
At the end of it I think these devices give me a nice well rounded take on what my customers are tasting. This is how I have justified not cupping. But I was talking about note-taking so let's go back to that. Cupping comes with note-taking.
When I was first told what to do, I was shown a graph; x-axis = time, y-axis = temperature. I was told to use this to chart the coffee, checking in at regular intervals. The sheet also asked me to log the date, green weight, roasted weight, type of coffee, and target temperature. When I began I did a fresh chart for each batch, meticulously monitoring the arc of the coffee. Then I ran out of sheets so I began to reuse the same graph multiple times which made enough sense since the same coffee should follow the same arc each time. Then I began to see this as a silly waste of energy and I began only noting the type of coffee and the green weight on a sheet of paper, in a list form, beginning each list with the date. I have become slightly ashamed of this dissolve of the written word, so I am trying to change things. I want to implement a better, more sustainable form of note-taking.
The idea that I am developing a retail coffee program is the reality of my life right now. So much so that I am reading books.