espresso making mags?

[MontuckyFried]

Just bought some different beans to try out. Realized instantly I gotta dial everything in all over again for said beans. The espresso struggle is real.

...still super tasty tho so I'm still happy.

[mattig]

Behmor basket finally snapped a weld. I could pay 30 bucks for a new one. It's also an excuse to buy a welder, right?

But really, since I've been roasting on it for 5+ years and have accordingly saved thousands of dollars in beans alone, it's also an excuse to reinvest the savings in a roaster that actually roasts, right?

Considered the bullet, but it's too techie for me. I have no desire to plug a laptop into my roaster. I want manual control (which the Behmor achieved surprisingly well). Anyone messed around with one of these? https://www.cormorantroasters.co.uk/

[tgapp]

Behmor basket finally snapped a weld. I could pay 30 bucks for a new one. It's also an excuse to buy a welder, right?

But really, since I've been roasting on it for 5+ years and have accordingly saved thousands of dollars in beans alone, it's also an excuse to reinvest the savings in a roaster that actually roasts, right?

Considered the bullet, but it's too techie for me. I have no desire to plug a laptop into my roaster. I want manual control (which the Behmor achieved surprisingly well). Anyone messed around with one of these? https://www.cormorantroasters.co.uk/

Yes, the cormorant is a fine machine. Also in that same class would be the Huky, well worth your consideration.

I know you don't want to plug in a laptop, but it's honestly the only way it you want to seriously improve your roasting game. I understand that the bullet is VERY techy and might not be a good fit for many roasters (myself included), but real time, thermocouple-driven data is the ONLY way to be able to accurately respond to what is actually happening in a given roast.

If you're gonna get a cormorant or Huky or whatever, it would honestly be dumb not to set it up with thermocouples. That's a serious wasted opportunity.

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[mattig]

Yes, the cormorant is a fine machine. Also in that same class would be the Huky, well worth your consideration.

I know you don't want to plug in a laptop, but it's honestly the only way it you want to seriously improve your roasting game. I understand that the bullet is VERY techy and might not be a good fit for many roasters (myself included), but real time, thermocouple-driven data is the ONLY way to be able to accurately respond to what is actually happening in a given roast.

If you're gonna get a cormorant or Huky or whatever, it would honestly be dumb not to set it up with thermocouples. That's a serious wasted opportunity.

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Understood. Knowledge is power and the more I know about what's going on in my roaster, the faster I can work through my mastery curve. I figure that capability is there if I want to take advantage of it (I think they even have a USB port now). Either way, I'd definitely assumed I'd be monitoring temps, so we're on the same page there.

But beyond strict reporting and control of temperatures and times (which I can get without software), I don't know what the benefit would be other than logging, recording, and showing off on coffee forums. I'm not the kind of guy that is going to look over roast logs and apply critical thinking based on that data. I'm going to loosely remember how hot things were at which point in the roast, how it looked, how it smelled, how it sounded, and if I'm lucky, how that translated to taste a few days later. There's no way I'll ever be tasting that coffee while actually looking at any data about the roast.

I'm just just thinking people have roasted great coffee without software integration for a long time, right? Could I see software and philosophical dialogue accelerating a learning curve? Sure. But the coffee's good enough that I'm in no hurry. Plus, I'd rather get a "feel" for these things as opposed to a ruthlessly efficient calculation.

On the other hand, sometimes the tribal norms of an internet forum can lead one astray from something they would have enjoyed more. I witnessed this a few times in reading the coffee forums while researching roasters.

[jm2e]

Just bought some different beans to try out. Realized instantly I gotta dial everything in all over again for said beans. The espresso struggle is real.

...still super tasty tho so I'm still happy.

Haha. Your first taste of why it’s surprisingly hard to pull a shot!

4. Pick a pretty good not-oily bean and stick with it until you really have a handle on your routine. Especially true when you move to the traditional non-pressurized filter baskets. Don’t want to be using that $25/bag bean when youre alternating between binding up the machine and getting a little cup of Mr Coffee brown water when you were expecting Italian Barista style.


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[tgapp]

Understood. Knowledge is power and the more I know about what's going on in my roaster, the faster I can work through my mastery curve. I figure that capability is there if I want to take advantage of it (I think they even have a USB port now). Either way, I'd definitely assumed I'd be monitoring temps, so we're on the same page there.

But beyond strict reporting and control of temperatures and times (which I can get without software), I don't know what the benefit would be other than logging, recording, and showing off on coffee forums. I'm not the kind of guy that is going to look over roast logs and apply critical thinking based on that data. I'm going to loosely remember how hot things were at which point in the roast, how it looked, how it smelled, how it sounded, and if I'm lucky, how that translated to taste a few days later. There's no way I'll ever be tasting that coffee while actually looking at any data about the roast.

I'm just just thinking people have roasted great coffee without software integration for a long time, right? Could I see software and philosophical dialogue accelerating a learning curve? Sure. But the coffee's good enough that I'm in no hurry. Plus, I'd rather get a "feel" for these things as opposed to a ruthlessly efficient calculation.

On the other hand, sometimes the tribal norms of an internet forum can lead one astray from something they would have enjoyed more. I witnessed this a few times in reading the coffee forums while researching roasters.

They actually haven't. Honestly. I'm not making this up - fourth wave coffee is a direct result of thermocouple technology, and the ability to track RoR changes and flicks/crashes is what will take your coffee from the 75-85% range to the 85-95%. Plus, the artistry isn't informed by a curve at all - the map is not the territory. Knowing that you need to be gentle in your heat application for a naturally processed coffee, or knowing that you like a Sumatran 10 degrees past where you like your Kenyans - none of that is curve-driven, it's experience-driven.

There is an amount of sophistry and circle-jerking that happens in coffee forums, that is certainly true - I also stay away from that, since I think it feels like intellectual masturbation. But I've cupped coffees that flicked and crashed vs coffees that didn't, and I was 100% right in my blind cupping assessment (and I am a shit cupper - these differences were readily apparent). It's like learning to taste sulphur in dried mangoes - once you taste it you can't untaste it. Ever.

If you want I can intentionally crash a coffee and avoid a crash in the same coffee just to send you samples so you can taste them. It's night and day difference. And really - the only way to overcome them is to learn how to manage a roast on your machine (and in your climate) with real time feedback.

[MontuckyFried]

Haha. Your first taste of why it’s surprisingly hard to pull a shot!

4. Pick a pretty good not-oily bean and stick with it until you really have a handle on your routine.

Lol yup! Definitely a learning curve, and I have what is essentially a "beginner's" setup that's actually pretty hard to screw up, which really is helping me out in all honesty. Haven't had a "bad" shot once, although they have definitely varied from decent to outstanding. All perfectly drinkable, though.

What's this about not-oily beans? In French Press that's generally a good thing, but not so much for espresso?

[mattig]

They actually haven't. Honestly. I'm not making this up - fourth wave coffee is a direct result of thermocouple technology, and the ability to track RoR changes and flicks/crashes is what will take your coffee from the 75-85% range to the 85-95%. Plus, the artistry isn't informed by a curve at all - the map is not the territory. Knowing that you need to be gentle in your heat application for a naturally processed coffee, or knowing that you like a Sumatran 10 degrees past where you like your Kenyans - none of that is curve-driven, it's experience-driven.

There is an amount of sophistry and circle-jerking that happens in coffee forums, that is certainly true - I also stay away from that, since I think it feels like intellectual masturbation. But I've cupped coffees that flicked and crashed vs coffees that didn't, and I was 100% right in my blind cupping assessment (and I am a shit cupper - these differences were readily apparent). It's like learning to taste sulphur in dried mangoes - once you taste it you can't untaste it. Ever.

If you want I can intentionally crash a coffee and avoid a crash in the same coffee just to send you samples so you can taste them. It's night and day difference. And really - the only way to overcome them is to learn how to manage a roast on your machine (and in your climate) with real time feedback.

You had me at intellectual masturbation. Good description of coffee forums, and nothing at all like obsessing over skis on TGR.

No need to sabotage a roast for me. What I'd be really interested in is someone's home roasted beans who thinks they roast better than bougie $17/lb roasters. Does crash refer to letting it get too low in temp?

[tgapp]

You had me at intellectual masturbation. Good description of coffee forums, and nothing at all like obsessing over skis on TGR.

No need to sabotage a roast for me. What I'd be really interested in is someone's home roasted beans who thinks they roast better than bougie $17/lb roasters. Does crash refer to letting it get too low in temp?

Nahh that's what's called stalling a roast. You don't necessarily need a thermocouple setup to prevent that, but it does help.

Not trying to toot my own horn but my coffee is easily competitive with $25-30 bags, and at my best I am well beyond that. Consistency is much harder as a home roaster but the $25-30 mark is close to where I operate.

DM me ur address and I'll mail you a bag

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[mattig]

Nahh that's what's called stalling a roast. You don't necessarily need a thermocouple setup to prevent that, but it does help.

Not trying to toot my own horn but my coffee is easily competitive with $25-30 bags, and at my best I am well beyond that. Consistency is much harder as a home roaster but the $25-30 mark is close to where I operate.

DM me ur address and I'll mail you a bag

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Intrigued. Wheels of maggotry in motion.

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[californiagrown]

It's like learning to taste sulphur in dried mangoes - once you taste it you can't untaste it. Ever.

You can go fuck yourself if this post ruins dried mangos for me.

[mattig]

You can go fuck yourself if this post ruins dried mangos for me.

https://farmerstoyou.com/shop/produc...phured-organic

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[doebedoe]

I'm no expert. I just grind my shit in a handgrinder and make aeropress.

I have bags of $20+ single-origins at home from the best roasters in my area -- Sweet Bloom, Huckleberry, Corvus. each of the 5+ bags I have from tgapp are as good or better then any of them.

He needs to setup a FKNA subscription service.

[doebedoe]

You can go fuck yourself if this post ruins dried mangos for me.

Wait until you taste it when it's overdone in wine too.

[jono]

I'm no expert. I just grind my shit in a handgrinder and make aeropress.

I have bags of $20+ single-origins at home from the best roasters in my area -- Sweet Bloom, Huckleberry, Corvus. each of the 5+ bags I have from tgapp are as good or better then any of them.

He needs to setup a FKNA subscription service.

+1. Changing the names to my own local roasters is all I could change. Same result.

[tgapp]

thanks guys, this is a kind of shitty thing to admit, but i actually started mailing coffee to mags so that i could practice managing flicks and crashes in a roast cycle better. took me about 150lbs of coffee, but i used to have crashers probably 3 batches out of 5 and now i get them...i don't know, maybe 1-2 out of 10? it definitely still happens - consistency is the hardest thing to achieve as a home roaster - but i am much better at seeing a flick coming and keeping it from turning into a crash.

for the curious out there, a flick is when the bean temperature of the coffee increases, thus sending the rate of rise up dramatically. a flick is usually produced when the coffee releases moisture into the drum right before flashing exothermic ("first crack" - when the coffee pops like popcorn). the rate of rise is the most impactful proxy measurement of how a roast is doing - the widely-accepted rule is that you want a steadily declining rate of rise. more on that in the other coffee thread.


this sudden influx of moisture creates a microenvironment in the drum that stops convective heat from continuing to cook the coffee. this in turn causes the rate of rise to fall dramatically, resulting in an uneven cooking of the coffee. the resulting coffee loses a lot of sweetness and delicacy in the cup - and i promise, if i gave you two cups of coffee (one crashed and one not) and asked you which one you liked more, you would consistently pick the un-crashed coffee. i've done this with my wife a half a dozen times, and she is not at all a coffee nerd - but she can taste it right away.

different coffees have different levels of propensity to flick and crash - i went about two years not really roasting or drinking kenyan coffees, because they would always flick and crash hard. this is due to how high of elevation they are grown at and how dense the varieties grown in kenya are (SL-28 and SL34) - lots of fiber in the bean means that they can take a lot of heat, but then they also tend to give off a ton of moisture immediately before first crack start (called 1cs by the coffee nerds)

honestly i would say that probably 90% of the bougie kenyan coffees that i drink from commercial roasters (happens rarely so this isn't a particularly huge data set) are crashed. even real, professional roasters deal with this shit. it's rare to find someone who can manage a crashing coffee, but the theory is really not that hard.

but ya thermocouples let you manage a roast. don't need to get all nerdy about it either. i don't spend any time on coffee forums, other than to figure out what crops i need to buy.

[tgapp]

red check-shaped line = how hot the drum is
blue check-shaped line = how hot the beans are
blue squiggly down line = how quickly the coffee is heating up (how many degrees a minute the coffee is getting hotter) - this is called rate of rise. the goal of this exercise is to make the squiggly blue line go down at a consistent slope angle. major deviations in slope angle = problems with your roast, and the later in the roast they are, the bigger of a problem they represent.

this profile is of a notoriously hard crashing kenyan. i drew in some unscientific lines in there (the black lines) along the rate of rise curve to demonstrate what a crashed coffee looks like. notice how the slope of the line changes dramatically right around 6:50, roughly ~30 to 45 seconds before the coffee started popping like popcorn (first crack start). this coffee was fine, but not great.

this isn't an apples to apples comparison - different roasters meaning that the temperature numbers are not comparable, so ignore them, but just notice how the shape of the lines are totally different. here is the same coffee but one where i actually managed the rate of rise crash decently well. not perfectly, but decently well:



you can see that the coffee started to crash (just like the last one), but then i got control of it and kept it from bottoming out. the average slope angle of both "sections" of the roast are very similar. this isn't a perfect execution - but this coffee is EXTREMELY hard to control, and this roast was MUCH MUCH MUCH better - noticeably sweeter and more delicate.

anyway sorry for the nerdery thanks for coming to my tech talk use a fucking thermocouple JONG and your coffee will not suck

[John_B]

Pardon my lack of knowledge from a non roasting jong but how do you go about managing a crash? Crank the heat up to compensate for the moisture released by the beans?

Also I see why you give so much coffee away. I'd die of a caffeine OD in the process of figuring out the perfect cup. I'm even scared of an espresso maker for that reason too.

[tgapp]

Pardon my lack of knowledge from a non roasting jong but how do you go about managing a crash? Crank the heat up to compensate for the moisture released by the beans?

Also I see why you give so much coffee away. I'd die of a caffeine OD in the process of figuring out the perfect cup. I'm even scared of an espresso maker for that reason too.

yeah i would not have been able to figure this out if i didn't give away a ton of coffee. so, i'm definitely self-interested here, and it's helped me out a ton. i actually think i could have a decent shot at going pro if i wanted to now, but i'm not sure i want that.

managing a crash is really hard - part of it comes from knowing the beans (fucking goddamn kenyans always crash, all the time) - part of it comes from fucking it up a ton. but the basic theory of gas management (heat) during a roast cycle is that right around 50 seconds into the roast, you go full heat, and then from there, you only turn the heat down (the dial only goes one way, so to speak). i need to start including gas annotation notes in my roast curves, which is what real professionals do. i will shortly.

so in a typical roast, it'll look like this. for reference, i'm using the event "dry end" to measure relative times. none of this is absolute, it's all relative to when the coffee reaches 300 degrees +/- (again depends on the roaster, but this is when the coffee changes from green to yellow and begins the maillard process - like browning on top of your lasagna or your creme brulee - i see you, kitchen torch and fried rice in the watcha cookin thread).

100% heat @ turn (when the check mark starts to go up again - roughly 50 seconds in) - coffee is approx 180 degrees. no changes until the coffee is dry and it starts to brown.
90% heat at dry end (3:00-4:30 in depending on the coffee) - coffee is now 300 degrees +/-
80% heat at dry end + 30seconds - 315 degrees +/-
70% heat at dry end + 1min - 325 degrees
60% at dry end + 1min30s - 335 degrees
50% at dry end + 2min - 345 degrees
40% at dry end + 3min - 350-355 degrees
20-30% at t-minus 30 seconds to 1cs (a roast profiler can estimate when you cross that threshold so you are able to anticipate it)
15% at 1cs + 30 to 45 seconds (so we wait until 1cs gets going to make another adjustment)
0-5% at 1cs + 60 seconds until roast end (many roasts get ended right here, some go as long as 2 minutes after 1cs, especially those intended for espresso because you need the extra sweetness and body to balance a shot that comes from an extended first crack - what we call "development time" and is represented by the percentage of the time after first crack relative to the overall roast time. so, if a total roast time was 10 minutes and two minutes of that was spent after first crack, you would have 20% development time - a decent benchmark for espresso)

if you do not follow some structure roughly like the one i described, ALL coffees flick and crash. if you do follow the structure above (give or take as it is all relative and so much of this is art and practical knowledge), some coffees (fucking goddamn kenyans) will still crash because they are little ungrateful spiteful shits and all they want to do is ruin your day.

so, to prevent a crash in a malicious little shit of a coffee (kenyans, lots of geisha, other high-grown coffees like some washed ethiopians), the basic theory is that right around 1:30 BEFORE first crack start, you would, say, go from 40% gas all the way down to 10% gas. this creates thermal "space" in the roast so that when the coffee heats up from releasing water (remember, during the first part of the crash the coffee gets momentarily hotter), it isn't being egged on by additional heat in the drum. turning the gas WAY down prematurely smooths out the first half of the crash, and then, at around 45 seconds before first crack starts, you turn the gas up again back to 30-40% (in principal violating the first rule of coffee roasting, which is that the heat dial only goes down during a roast), but that, in turn compensates for the second part of this pattern, where the additional moisture in the drum lowers the overall thermal momentum of the roast.

this technique is called a gas dip and is very hard to execute well - you can see i tried to execute it in my 2/1 profile i shared but my timing wasn't perfect - still, i'd say that coffee cupped at around 87, with a total potential to cup at close to 89 or even 90.

anyway sorry this is a ski forum but yeah probably like 95% of commercial roasters don't manage flicks and they also source shitty coffee and that's why i think objectively that my coffee compares to $25-30 bougie bags because it's really fucking hard to train someone making $15 an hour to manage a roast

[neufox47]

Cool info ^^^!!


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[tgapp]

Cool info ^^^!!


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if only I could keep my marriage from crashing as well as I keep coffee from crashing

just kidding I'm pretty shitty at keeping either from crashing

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[californiagrown]

Hey tgapp... Would you be interested in the following arrangement?

Mags tell you what kind of characteristics they like in a coffee/how they plan to brew/etc... You then send a link to where we can purchase the reccomended raw beans which we will send to your address (1-2lb minimum to make it worth your while?). You roast em up and keep 1/3rd the final product, send the remainder to the mag in vacuum sealed bags (buyer pays shipping $5?).

This would keep you supplied with coffee for your own consumption, you'd get to nerd out on roasting with house money, and mags would be getting a big discount (I think?) on $25-$30 bag quality coffee.


Thoughts on this a la carte service? Would be great bday/Xmas gifts if you did custom labels on the bags too haha.

[californiagrown]

Basically, let us finance your coffee roasting experiments.

Or you can announce what beans you want to try next, and who they would be good for... And then get mags to buy the beans for you.

[tgapp]

Hey tgapp... Would you be interested in the following arrangement?

Mags tell you what kind of characteristics they like in a coffee/how they plan to brew/etc... You then send a link to where we can purchase the reccomended raw beans which we will send to your address (1-2lb minimum to make it worth your while?). You roast em up and keep 1/3rd the final product, send the remainder to the mag in vacuum sealed bags (buyer pays shipping $5?).

This would keep you supplied with coffee for your own consumption, you'd get to nerd out on roasting with house money, and mags would be getting a big discount (I think?) on $25-$30 bag quality coffee.


Thoughts on this a la carte service? Would be great bday/Xmas gifts if you did custom labels on the bags too haha.

i would think about it - likely i would just buy a stamp and stamp bags.

the way i could see it working is me finding a coffee i think is interesting, proposing a roast date, and then having people "fill" slots.

i'd likely do one or two coffees at a time, one slightly more expensive (there are a ton of really good coffees in the $10-20/lb green range) and one slightly cheaper (like $6-10/lb)

shipping is usually around $10 for a flat rate legal envelope, which i can fit two roasted bags into (approx 12 oz each). it would make sense to do two bags at a time IMO.

if there's enough interest in this i can put together a poll and start a new thread, let me know

[puma]

i would think about it - likely i would just buy a stamp and stamp bags.

the way i could see it working is me finding a coffee i think is interesting, proposing a roast date, and then having people "fill" slots.

i'd likely do one or two coffees at a time, one slightly more expensive (there are a ton of really good coffees in the $10-20/lb green range) and one slightly cheaper (like $6-10/lb)

shipping is usually around $10 for a flat rate legal envelope, which i can fit two roasted bags into (approx 12 oz each). it would make sense to do two bags at a time IMO.

if there's enough interest in this i can put together a poll and start a new thread, let me know

VERY interested. You did not lead me astray on the machine recommendation. We absolutely love it. I can only imagine pairing this lovely machine with your fantastic beans would be a marriage made in heaven!

Tgapps fine roasts aside, Where do folks in the northwest buy coffee? I buy Coava, Stumptown, and Backporch and am happy, but am always down to dump even more cash into better when it comes to an addiction...