The Slump Buster Roast

It's funny how sometimes it is so easy to lose site of the details. In my quest to find the perfect cup, at some point, I became subject to a self fulfilling prophecy. My coffee started sliding in quality--I think because I was burning it. As a means to correct the problem I kept roasting the beans longer, making my coffee worse, causing me to roast the beans longer...

I took my problem to my new friends at the Green Coffee Coop. After discussion specific to the iRoast, I decided to really slow things down a little and I last night I roasted some more of the Kenya beans with this profile:

320 degrees for 3 minutes
350 degrees for 2 minutes
375 degrees for 2 minutes
400 degrees for 2 minutes
435 degrees for 3 minutes


Here is a graphic profile of the on board temperature as read with my thermometer between the Kenya (in pink) and my last batch of Guatemala (in blue).

Interestingly enough, first crack (as indicated by the vertical red line) happened pretty close to one another.

The time to cool down was 5:20 for the Guatemala and a remarkable (I think it may be a personal best) 7:03 for the Kenya. Final weight for the Guatemala was 119g and 123g for Kenya--both batches started at 150g.

The Guatemala beans were bland, bitter and unattractive, while the Kenya is light, fruity and complex. I hope I can get back on track producing WOW! coffee instead of the Folgers substitute that I was producing last week.