How to describe roasts on Crema

FreshCoffee2

Hehehe I remember standing next to my early Probat some years ago in February roasting coffee. The thermometer I used to keep next to the roaster (and where I was standing), read 52 degrees C. That was the ambient air temp next to the roaster, at the absolute height of the summer heat wave. But it wasnt that bad to work in.....It was dry instead of humid heat ;D Since the drought broke last year and we keep getting regular rain the whole scenario has changed as there is a lot more humidity in the air...so not so pleasant now when the temperature rises. I keep snapshots of bean and air temp curves from my roasting plant pooder screen in my phone and on me at all times so I can refer to them even when I am not roasting. So its not just me then :laugh: Yeah ambient temperature doesnt affect my current roasting plant in any significant way either. If you can drag yourself away from Melbourne J you should visit 😉

mycuppa

Fresh Coffee wrote:

Hehehe I remember standing next to my early Probat some years ago in February roasting coffee. The thermometer I used to keep next to the roaster (and where I was standing), read 52 degrees C. That was the ambient air temp next to the roaster, at the absolute height of the summer heat wave. But it wasnt that bad to work in.....It was dry instead of humid heat ;D Yeah ambient temperature doesnt affect my current roasting plant in any significant way either. If you can drag yourself away from Melbourne J you should visit 😉

Yes A. I've endured about a dozen 50+ ambient days in the last 6 weeks - this year seems particularly bad with heaps of mid-30's days in a row. Even with the big cooler on it's just plain awful. Body somehow gets used to it once you are up and running for an hour or so, but it's hard to start mentally.....akin to visiting the dentist for a root canal......these days I put it off till midnight if I can. Might pop in for a visit in a few months to steal some secrets.......er, sorry, to discuss coffee stuff.

shape_shifter

Very interesting discussion now that the 'big boys' have stepped in 🙂 I picked the first option, in saying that I also now have something else to add into my photos of roasts, what the grind looks like, thanks A & J for that :thumb:

mycuppa

No probs SS. wrt the grounds......an example was the nice Kenyan you sent me in the bean swap a couple of months ago. Outside appearance was "monk brown" ground appearance was a few shades lighter and thus it was quite bright and acidic - but still delightful !

UNM

I see the light/medium/dark thing catching on over at CS too... :angel: :coffee2:

shape_shifter

:rofl: UNM we may as well try and sneak it in everywhere we can 🙂 Now in terms of what I've learnt today: http://nic.steve-tek.com/?p=446

UNM

Fresh Coffee wrote:

I should really leave this discussion now because your roasting methods are different to mine and I also am not a roasting scientist only a coffee roaster with knowledge borne of experience in my own business. I would however like to see any scale that you decide to adopt is relatively simple. It seems to me that colour of beans VS time of roast (or to each crack and the unload temp) should do well enough for enthusiastic home roasting.

Hope you do contribute some more to the thread. Many (most?) of us look forward to your posts. I agree with simple, yet including enough info for those that like detail (i.e. pedants like me) to be satisfied.

mycuppa wrote:

Final temp and shape of Bean Temp and Air Temp curves are what I use, but I understand that home roasters don't have access to these types of real-time tools (in fact, some commercial roasters don't either - relying on current time, temp and sight only).

Many of us here do have capability to log bean and environment temp data. I sometimes post them if it seems like it might be worth discussion, or I am looking for input from those that read such things for enjoyment. Of course such curves are only directly relevant to one specific roasting setup, but with suitable data markers for first/second crack and environment temp it is possible to make SOME inferences between different equipment (or so I believe at this point in time). Wonder how many of us do actually have data logging capability, maybe another thread is needed.

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