Newby needing help with roasting

[jkaylor]

Hello everyone,

I recently started roasting coffee using a Fresh Roast 8 air roaster that I got at a gargae sale. My question is this, for a good C+/FC roast, how long should I start the cool down after the 2nd crack starts. With my roaster, the 2nd crack (sounds like popcorn poping) starts about 4 minutes into the roast. Usually the beans, depending on the type they are, normally I l use a kenyan or sumatra, come out a medium brown color and have shiny spots on them. I usually get a good cup with them. I use a Chemex pour over pot and chemex filters. Just looking to get some information. thanks for the help.

Jeff
Groton, CT

 

[ElPugDiablo]

My question is this, for a good C+/FC roast, how long should I start the cool down after the 2nd crack starts. With my roaster, the 2nd crack (sounds like popcorn poping) starts about 4 minutes into the roast.

With City plus to Full City, you should be on either side of the second crack, meaning you either don't get into second or just a few cracks.

If your second crack starts about 4 minutes into the roast, you need to lower your temp. Even with an air roaster that seems too fast.

 

[jkaylor]

Thanks for the help ElPug. I don't know if my coffee roaster can have the temp adjusted. I did test the voltage in my house, and Im reading 127 volts. Do you think this could be causing the problem? Anyway, thanks for the help.

Jeff

 

[ElPugDiablo]

Jeff, I don't know anything about Fresh Roast 8, but below are two links to sweetmaria that offer tips on the machine. Good luck and have fun.

http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.freshroast.shtml

http://www.sweetmarias.com/freshroast.tipsheet.html

 

[FPDoc78]

Could he just pull back on the amount? If he has no temp adjustments the amount he puts in would control the roast time. Lesser volume=slower roast. I wonder if you just roast a little less if that would increase your roast time to closer to 6 minutes.

 

[topher]

FPDoc78 where do you get your facts? I read you thought roasters make $8 an hour...now you are saying that if you put less coffee in a roaster that can not have its temp adjusted it should take less time? umm....lets see less mass...same temp...quicker roasts..that thar is why we be makin 8 bux an hour

 

[johng99]

yeah,
I would be in the camp of "smaller batch = less mass in the roaster which for a fixed heat input would mean more heat to the beans" You may want to look at buying a variac to reduce the voltage source for the roaster as a means of controlling the roast - I have heard that this can be done with some hot-air style roasters, but I have no experience with doing this.

 

[FPDoc78]

Well topher you might want to actually read up on air roasters. They work just a hair differently than drum roasters. I do know a little bit about this particular roaster and it irritates me that you actually made me do research to prove you wrong.

From sweetmarias.com/fact sheet

NOTE ON ALL AIR ROASTERS: All air roasters use the beans to trap the hot air, so while it may seem counterintuitive, more beans will actually roast darker and less beans lighter. A too small batch may mean that the hot air blows past the beans and does not roast them at all.

And I merely googled the salary of roasters. If you make mass amounts of money roasting coffee for a living more power to you.

Thanks

 

[coffeefanaddict]

After you get through FC, I have just turned the dial over to cool down for a few seconds then back to the minutes area to get the heat back on. You can play with that for a few roasts until you get a good time gap between FC and SC. You can also buy the 29 dollar digital temp probe from Linens and Things its the one that actually has a long metal probe and a max temp of just over 500 degrees, drill a small hole in the top of the Chaff collector and slip that probe in. Now you can monitor the temps for FC and SC and everything else. It works well.