Starbucks Pike Place-Does any one know the blend?

[lovethatcoffee]

Blend was a lot better with the guat and columbian as smaller percentages of the bled. As a pro, what do drink on a regular basis at home?

 

[eldub]

LOL I don't drink much coffee at home. I sample so many different blends and various roast levels every day in the shop, Monday through Saturday, that I normally take Sundays off. hehe

I was in the wine business for a couple of decades and never really had one favorite wine and I guess I'm kind of that way with coffee, too. That said, there are definitely characteristics in both wine and coffee that I really appreciate. I tend to prefer elegant over bold and like a lingering finish.

lw

 

[eldub]

That said……… I really dig one blend we are currently working with: Two parts Sidamo natural roasted to the light side of medium and one part Peruvian roasted to the light side of french.

 

[peterjschmidt]

I get asked that question by customers all the time, "What's your favorite coffee". I know they're thinking that my favorite will translate into their favorite. My stock answer is, "Whatever's in my cup, that's my favorite." And it's not far off; I never roast anything for myself, just to drink it; I set my batch size so there's always a cup or two left over for quality-control, so I'm always drinking whatever the customers are ordering.

When I need something darker than my typical offerings because somebody wants a dark roast, I generally go w/ my Alley Cat Blend. It's a pre-roast of Colombian and Sumatra, taken to a rolling second. And lately, I've had good success w/ Costa Rica/Sumatra/Monsooned Malabar, roughly 5:4:1, creatively called the Roasty-Toasty Blend :wink:.

 

[lovethatcoffee]

Thats funny, I have some Monsooned malabar among my beans. i will try that blend. How much adjustments do you make while roasting before 1st crack? My roasts are all ok but I am struggling with how and when to make adjustments to the temp during the roast. I know that I really can't do a lot regarding this with my Behmor, but, if am roast on the highest setting I can open the door for very short periods of time which prolong the roast and give me some form of control. I am not sure I have seen any substantial results. I have read that the time between 1st and 2nd is the phase where most of the temp adjustments are made to vary the flavor of the roast. Do you agree with this?

 

[peterjschmidt]

With your Behmor, there's not much you can do before 1C unless you diminish your batch size. I think they're somewhat power starved, so that if you try to slow it down where you might want, it'll only add too much time to the overall roast. The general thinking is to stretch the time between 1C and 2C to augment some flavors and/or the body. The best way I know to do that is to not pour so much heat/energy into the beans leading up to 1C that they want to rush right into 2C. I'd forget about trying to profile leading up to 1C, since you should have a nice steady ramp anyway, and then maybe doing the door-dance at the beginning of 1C and afterward. It'll be hard w/o being able to monitor the temps of the bean mass, but you need to make sure that 1C has a gradual/continual climb in temps. Hope that helps.

 

[eldub]

I have read that the time between 1st and 2nd is the phase where most of the temp adjustments are made to vary the flavor of the roast. Do you agree with this?

For the most part, you develop and improve the flavor by prolonging the time between cracks. But with our machine, I have to get the temp rise under control before first crack begins or it ain't happening.

 

[lovethatcoffee]

Wiil do. I appreciate all the advice. One last question for you guys: does a fulid bed roaster roast more quickly than drum? If so, does the total roast time make a big difference in the flavor? I have watched the Khaladi coffee videos and they are using a Sivetz roaster and there does not seem to be a lot of variation in temp control and there does not appear to be a computer controlled profile in effect. What are your comments on this?

 

[HRC]

We use a fluid bed. There is variation in air control which must be monitored by a person to ensure the bed is fluid enough while not being too fluid. So you can't automate that with a computer program. The temp control, however, is pretty much set before the roast starts and not changed during the roast. The parameters can be changed beforehand based on different roast profiles. As for roasting more quickly, I'm not sure. We run about 10 minutes per 8# batch but not totally sure because my partner actually does all the roasting. One advantage of air roasting is that we don't have to wait for a drum to heat up or cool down; we can run another batch almost immediately after roasting the previous.

 

[lovethatcoffee]

so a fluid bed roaster does not vary the temp like a drum roaster? What does the roaster do to change the flavor of the beans? can you program the rate of temperature rise?

 

[HRC]

Fluid bed does vary the temp just not manually. Temp rise is programmed before the roasting starts.