My First Visit to Ethiopia

Today's adventure took me to Africa. I roasted about 2/3 pound of Ethiopia Organic Idido Misty Valley beans in 2 separate batches.

Green Bean Notes
These beans are far more yellow than any of the other beans, they are also smaller than most of the beans that I purchase.

Weight
Batch 1 150g start weight/128g finish weight
Batch 2 150g start weight/122g finish weight

Roasting Profile
Both batches followed this profile:
325 degrees for 2 minutes
400 degrees for 3 minutes
460 degrees to finish

Roasting Notes
While I am extremely happy with most of the roasts so far, I am still in search of the perfect roast. I have never been overly excited about real acidic coffee, but the last batches have changed my opinion, and I'm trying to balance the brightness of the acid with the full body of a darker roast.

The first roast I started the cool down cycle at 5:30 minutes for a total batch time of 9:30. The beans did not look nearly as dark as any of the other roasts taken to this amount of time. The weight is also high compared to other batches, indicating that for the time roasted, the beans were not as far along. I ate one of the beans and it was more solid and firm than other beans directly after the roast, it had that bright acidic flavor to it.

As I was cleaning the iRoast, I noticed a tremendous amount of chaff in the collector. I wasn't sure if I forgot to clean it after the last roast or if it was a result of this particular bean. After the second roast, I realized that high chaff was a characteristic of this bean. Perhaps this is because the beans are smaller?? I will have to look for this in the future when I Roast small beans.

I started the cool down cycle on the second roast at 6:10 minutes at the first sign of oil on the beans. I noticed that these beans had a much more audible crack than any of the other beans roasted before.

Aesthetically speaking this second batch is the nicest roast yet. The beans are just shiny but not too oily that they appear wet. They have a very nice dark chocolate color.

Tasting Notes
I decided to blend the two roasts (pictured)because I think the first roast would be too acidic. The roasted beans have a very sweet smell, almost like licorice. The coffee is extremely unique, but probably not my favorite. The cup is very acidic and has a bright floral flavor upfront. The finish has a muted sweet flavor that remind me of semi sweet chocolate and cherries.