Just finished my first roast. Questions...

[rowster]

Hi everyone! I Just finished my first roast ever. Once I learn the basics I'd like to get a real roaster, but for now I started on the old frying pan, which went quite well for my first attempt. I'm keeping all my notes to compare roasts and learn what makes what, but I thought I'd share my results and see what some more experience people think.

Roasted an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. I kind of think I didn't have enough heat. Total roast time was just over 20 minutes which may be quite long. I didn't get many cracks, and almost no smoke. Ended up with a medium/dark roast.

Brewed the next day. Coffee smelled quite dark and strong, but tasted very light. Lots of floral taste, but not much coffee taste. It actually was pretty good, but I would like more flavour. Looking forward to my next roast already. I am hoping a faster roast will give me a bit more flavour... but I really have no idea yet if that's how it works. :smile:

 

[Redswing]

Rowster - sounds cool! I love the idea of starting on the stove top with a frying pan. Nothing lets you see more clearly the changes as they happen.

How much green coffee did you roast at once? Did you pre-heat the skillet first? Where did you get the green from?

If the floral taste was dominate, that suggests you finished on the lighter side. Though perhaps if you are accustomed to drinking something super dark, even a bit of that floral fruity flavor (common in Ethiopian coffee) might be surprising. So if you want the "coffee flavor" you are used to (which, by the way, I would suggest you could more accurately describe as "roast flavor" - you may have actually tasted genuine "coffee flavor" for the first time in that cup), keep the beans in the pan until you see oils develping on the surface of the beans. Then quickly dump the beans into a collander of sorts and go out-of-doors and toss em around in the collander to cool them as quickly as you can.

Keep us posted. I love this kind of thing!

 

[froggystyle]

I would suggest taking the roast as dark as you can, let the smoke really build up, i would do this so you can judge how far is to far, you may lose a batch but then you know for next time.

Its very easy to get nervous and dump before they have gone through first crack.

Can you get a thermometer in your pan, this will help you understand what stage the beans are at.

Also, have a clear escape route from where you are roasting to where you can safely get them outside and put down on the floor, just in case they set on fire!

 

[rowster]

Thanks so much for the replies!
The beans came from greenbeanery.ca in Toronto. I only roasted about 1/4 cup, so if I failed miserably it wouldn't be a huge loss. Just enough for a pot for a couple people. I did pre-heat the skillet.

I think Redswing you may be right, I may have jumped the gun on calling it a medium/dark roast. The floral taste really threw me off, but it is indeed a lighter roast. I did a second batch yesterday, and increased my heat. First crack was very obvious this time around, and I finished the roast in 9 minutes with a nice smoke at the end, compared to 22 minutes on my first. Lots more "roast" flavour on this round, but the floral taste remained... pretty happy with this roast, though I may go just a touch less heat, or time, one of the two... still lots of experimenting to do.

Froggystyle your so right, whenever I think I went too far with the roast, I end up less roasted than I think!

Once I get familiar with this, I think I will try a different coffee, and see how what I have learned affects a different bean.

 

[froggystyle]

Suggest a nice easy bean, two beans that i like are the Colombian and monsooned malibar, very forgiving

 

[rowster]

Thought I would update this. Gotten a bunch of roasts done lately, and as I get more confident I've increased the amount I'm roasting at a time. I'm finding a bit quicker roast works well with this Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, and slightly more dark is best. But I have just ordered some Yemen Mokha Small Gr.A, and some Nepal Mount Everest Supreme.

Excited to find out how what I have learned affects a different bean.