I can't believe this lecture level of tutorial is free. I've been looking for good training vids using drum roaster forever and you are SO helpful. The way you present the content is so professional. I will need a lot more coffee than usual because I'm going to start devouring all of your videos from now. Thank you!
Hello Taehyun. Thank you for watching my videos and for your kind comments. I am glad these videos help you learn how to roast coffee with a drum roaster. I enjoy your Poodle videos. I have a Toy Poodle named Avery.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thank you for your kind reply. I'm so glad to meet another Poodle family here. :) As I said, I will learn roasting watching your vids and try to leave comments too! Oh if I sound a bit weird or out of place sometimes that's because I'm not from English speaking country, not because I am a weird person(though my wife seems to disagree sometimes). Thank you very much again for your helpful channel and kind comment! Wish both you and Avery a good luck!
This video was especially pertinent to my situation. As of today I ordered the Mill City 500 gram roaster so I can take my coffee roasting to the next level. I've been roasting on smaller drum roaster for quite some time and decided that I want to have a little more control of the roast so I will be watching a lot of your videos. Thanks for your good information.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab I ordered the MC 500 roaster like the one you have. Looks like they have change the cooling tray set up. They sold everything during the Christmas rush and have some in production. I might not get it until February or March.
Deciding Coffee Roasting Temperatures video from 4 months ago, First impressions of the Kaleido M2 from 3 months ago, and how to auto roast at home from last month all highlight the Kaleido M2 400 gram roaster. It is just under 2,000 dollars.
Yea, that is a dark roast. As I mentioned in the video, for my personal taste, I prefer a medium roast. That is the beauty of this hobby, we can roast to our preferences.
As always, I learned from your video. Agree with the comments around the color comparison at minute intervals. Very cool. Roasting with a Fresh Roast doesn't allow for side-by-side comparisons like this. Also found the Artisan graph fascinating, especially since the roast was relatively hands-off. The "flick" at FC and 2C, graphically showing the exothermic reaction of the beans was revealing. Thanks Mike.
Loved the video Mike. I had to do the same thing you did here to season my new Bullet roaster. In my case, I had to purposely roast the beans at least 2 minutes past 2nd crack (yes, honestly) and into an oily state, probably just short of ignition 😯. As Steve beuchert mentions below, I wonder if your resulting beans had any flavor left, or might be drinkable - although I know that was not the intention of this roast. Interesting you talked about "the flick" that occurs just prior to 1st crack. I examined the ROR curve on some of my recent roasts and I did see the flick occasionally, but only when my ROR in final Development was greater than 10 degrees F per minute. If ROR was less than 10, it didn't appear often. Maybe because there was less energy and momentum?
Thanks Lou. I tend to get two flicks unless I am intentional to avoid them. Usually the flick happens about 45 seconds before first crack. Then it happens as my ror gets lower during development. I do think the coffee is drinkable, just not my taste. I gave the coffee to my brother, who likes dark roasted coffee.
That was very interesting to see. It was great learning exercise. I probably would have said dry end was between beans 5 and 6 so it was nice to see how you call it. Thanks.
Yea, like I mentioned in my video, we all might call it a little different. Consistency is the key. When green is gone is when I call dry. It was at 5:05 so you would have called it really close to mine.
I started following your channel as a coffee drinker. I continued watching and felt confident enough to buy a Gene Cafe and get going. Six months later I bought a bullet and then went on to sell 1,000 bags of coffee in 2022 at farmers markets. I aim to triple that and push the bullet to the limit this year. Your videos have never stopped being helpful, clear, and a staple in the home roasting community. Thanks for what you continue to provide.
Hello David. Thanks for your encouraging words. I think I’ve tasted your coffee. I have spent a lot of time in Charlevoix over the years and even strolled the farmers market in town along the harbor front. The bullet appears to be a great roaster for the money. Are you roasting 1 kilo per batch or smaller roasts. I hope to be roasting on the bullet here on my channel in the coming months. Im glad my content has been helpful for you! Good luck with your roasting!
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Oh that's so cool! I would've been the only one selling coffee at the market there by the harbor recently, so that's a fair chance. I don't roast 1kg. I love the bullet, but when I got it I did a round of testing at 1kg and most roasts were fine, but a batch of Mexico beans that has a quality for majorly expanding actually expanded so much in the bullet that 1kg ended up locking up the drum causing a pretty catastrophic need to drop the beans. From that point on, I settled on roasting 800g. I sell 8oz bags so at roughly 14-15% weight loss that gives me right about bang on 24oz output, which I find a really ideal setup for back to back roasting to fulfill the local demand.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab When I know it's a bean with minimal expansion I've done 900-950g when I'm finishing the last beans from a bag, but yeah for workflow reasons 800g for me is ideal.
thanks very much! this is very helpful! i will view your other videos to help me get up to speed on my Aillio (wanted Mill City but $$$). your demo mimics an air popper, fixed heat and fan.
Yea, the profile was just an exercise to give us time to focus on what is happening to the beans. You will be doing similar roasts on the Bullet when you do your "seasoning roasts". Looks like i will be roasting with a Bullet here on my channel. I'm still working out some details but i could have the roaster in the next month or two.
It’s also worth noting that due to conductive heat, at least with my Aillio, that when I slow down my drum speed, I get an increased RoR. And opposite effects when I increase the drum speed. However, I’ve also noticed that this only works early on in the roast or right before first crack. It actually has the opposite effect or inverse effects after that point. So increase temperature when the drum speed is increased.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Is there a reason you are changing your drum speed on the Bullet? I mean, is your heat setting not enough to give you the increased or decrease ROR you desire? Just curious. Drum speed for something like the Behmor might be helpful to promote airflow but the Bullet has variable airflow to create convection. From what I learned in my own experience and also some roasting classes I took, setting your roaster drum speed so beans are moving and not being scorched. They are being moved enough to create convection as they are tossed in the air a little without being flung. There is a chart somewhere on the internet to offers a recommended drum speed based on the capacity of the roaster. They use RPM as the measurement. I think my drum is set for about 55 or 60, I don't remember.
Thanks for watching. Actually, the roaster has 3 probes. As with most drum roasters we want to measure bean temperature and the exhaust temperature. The bean probe is placed in the bean mass to give us a fairly accurate idea of how the heat we apply influences the bean. The exhaust temperature is usually placed where the air begins to exit the roasting chamber. This temperature is used in several ways. I use exhaust temperature as the potential energy currently in the drum. I did a video called "roasting with exhaust temperature" that gives a pretty good idea of what I am trying to describe here. I would encourage you to watch that. Exhaust Temperature was a game changer for me. I use those readings to help me see into the future of my roasting temperatures and I actually manage my heat partly based on exhaust temperature. It is also really helpful when I first begin my roast (charge). The third probe is in thePID probe located in the middle of the drum. It is the average temp and many roasting professionals will charge their roaster using the "PID" temp. I use the PID on my Mill City 500 gram roaster when I warm up my roaster BUT I don't use it at charge. Instead, I use the BT probe. This is a personal choice, not necessarily the rule.
How do i know when my roast is done? I start cussing because my beans got 2 dark. 😂😂 Hey mike, Great video, as always. My 2nd batch of those beans from Miramar came out much better. The charge temp was way to high for the 1st batch. Thank you again. See ya next time. 😊😊
@@VirtualCoffeeLab man... better but not great. Batch 3 still was tipped. Low charge temp, longer drying phase, med heat. Pulled at 940. I'm beginning to think that since they are washed n sun dried they are not fully dry inside. What do u think? Could that be the case?
Thanks for the great video! I have been recently relearning to roast after moving to an upgraded heat gun and artisan integration (using a flour sifter) and this was really helpful to think about understand the 'blank profile' of a roast without adjustments. Really helpful!
Nice. Glad it was helpful. So, when you roast with the heat gun are you using multiple heat settings or did you find one setting that takes your roast all the way through till drop?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab The heatgun that I upgraded to has a lot of control over the temperature setting, so there is a lot of potential for control. However, it has also been able to have a surprisingly nice declining curve with a fixed temperature. It was actually really interesting to see how relatively flat your BT graph was with a fixed heat setting. I think my decline ROR is partly due to having no insulation and a vented top. So as my roaster and beans heat up, they are able to radiate more and more heat outside the roaster. However, I have been decreasing the heatgun temperature a little near first crack so things don't go crazy. I have been starting with this since I'm still learning the ins and outs of having so much data with artisan. I would be happy to share photos of my setup or the roast curves if you're ever interested.
Great video, Mike! I recently started roasting on a Proaster 10 kilo machine coming from an Aillio Bullet. You said you had your heat set to 75% for the duration of the roast. What was your Airflow set at?
Thanks for watching. That’s a big jump, congrats. Medium draw I think. If you are trying to determine a charge temperature and also how much energy to apply through the roast you might want to check out this video. I just posted last week. ruclips.net/video/eLAjepXtAg4/видео.html It could answer some questions
LJ, I hope to be doing a few roasts on the Gene Cafe in the next month or so. What type of coffee and roast level are you doing with th Gene Cafe? What do you like or not like about the roaster.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Hey Mike, that great news. I roast Colombian, Malabar, Ethiopian, Jamaican Blue, Kona, Bali and Panama, will be brewing Brazilian. I like medium-dark roast. I love my Gene Cafe. It roast great coffee and my friends and relatives love it. The biggest thing that I dislike is I cannot interface any software programs however I do roast by sight, sound and color. I have been roasting on the Gene for about four years so can work around the negatives. However enjoy roasting!
thanx Mike always very informative but... could you tell me why my air flow coffee roaster air flow blows out my propane and causes a yellow flame instead of blue flame flame
Hi Gary. Can you tell me the specific roaster please. You have either too much positive or negative airflow. Please share the settings you are using and give me a basic idea of how you are roasting your coffee. Thanks
Great exercise! Thank you for sharing. Did they go over things like this at SCA? The change in beam color is helpful. I have to go off of smell more because I’m color blind and it’s too hard to tell in my Behmor.
Thanks, I am glad you like the video AND thank you for being a subscriber to my channel! No, this exercise was not something I heard at the SCA. It is really meant for the person who is standing in front of a drum roaster for the first time OR someone who wants to better understand how their roaster performs. Bean color is hard to see on the Behmor. Now, if you were on a drum roaster like the one in my video you could do the following: If you find yourself roasting the same coffee with the same profile using basically the same charge temperature and gas settings, you can also rely on your temperature readings to indicate when yellow occurs. You just need to have someone help you know when yellow is, remember that temp and then you can either mark it when it hits that temp on future roasts OR program artisan to mark yellow for you when you hit a specific temp.
Hey Mike, I need your opinion regarding my roast. I have been roasting using the gene cafe for a couple of months now and every roast comes out without much aromatics or delicious coffee smell, moreover, after grinding I tend to smell a gassy kind of Co2 smell. I tried longer and shorter roasts higher and lower temps with a variety of beans with the same results. What would you recommend? Another thing is that my coffee seem to be great for espressos but do not have much flavour when using a pour over or french press. I used to roast in a pan and get very delicious coffee but was very inconsistent. I try to roast a light to ligh medium most of the time. Can you give me some recommendations? Thanks
Thanks for your comment. Watch the video I just posted. My first roast on the genie cafe. After watching, please reply back and share what pre-warming temp you use, your total roast time, the type of coffee and also how much coffee you are roasting at a time. Then I might be able to offer some helpful info. If all your coffee it tasting the same maybe we can talk about brewing variables too if you like.
Love all your videos! Now I'm anxiously awaiting the followup to this one, because what I really want to understand is how to use the information gathered from this experiment. My roasts (on a Kaleido M2) tend to go either way too fast or way too slow, and I often have crashes. I understand *what* to do (slowly lower the heat), but I haven't figured out how to pace it. How can I use the experiment's info to figure that out for my roaster?
suebrown8129, thanks for watching and for being a subscriber. Share your event times with me. How long to get to dry end, first crack and drop? What is the charge temp and what is your drop temp? Also, how dark are you going and for what type of coffee.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab So I did your experiment today with Guatemala Antigua Juaja beans, and here are the numbers I got: Charged 275g (400g max for this roaster) at 185°C, with both heating elements on, then turned heat down to 75% at charge. DE at 3:30 (160.7°C). FC at 5:09 (193.8°C). SC at 6:33 (220.2°C). Drop at 7:00 (230°C, SC was still rolling, but it smelled so burnt). Obviously, the roast went way too fast. :) Normally I would want a medium roast on this bean.
I meant for your typical roasts, not the experiment but that is helpful info. A couple of comments that will still be helpful for you. 1. Capacity - I used a full capacity roast as my experiment. You roasted about 2/3 capacity for you roaster experiment. That would cause your roast to move much quicker. So, good lesson to remember which is..... batch size will influence times and temperatures. This is important to remember because you can use this to your advantage when roasting different types of coffee where maybe you want a longer or shorter total roast time. You can use batch size to influence this. 2. Charge Temperature - The purpose of picking a charge temperature is to help you have enough momentum to get through the roast. Mill City did a great video on charge temperatures using a "slot car" as an object lesson. The charge temperature was represented by the height of the track where the car begins. You need enough height/heat to allow the car to drop down, building up speed/momentum so when it curves upward, the slot car can make it up to the top of the hill/dry end without falling backwards. Once it makes it way over the hill, it is heading towards first crack/ where you will be reducing heat to cause your temperature increase to slow (lowering your ROR). I did a video about charge temperature as well as "why the dry phase is so important". You might want to check those out. 3. Total Roast Time - This exercise showed you how short your roast can be. The total roast time will influence the flavor of your coffee. You said you like medium roasts. Roasting a central american washed coffee with your roaster, a good total roast time would be somewhere between 9-11 minutes. It could be shorter or longer but this seems to be a sweet spot for me. I like 10 - 11 minute roasts. So finding the right charge temp to help you accomplish a dry phase that is about 5 minutes, then a 3 minute middle phase and a 2 minute development roasting to a medium roast is a great starting point. From there you can modify your total roast time, see how that influences the flavor. Then you can tweek the middle and development times a little and see how that influences your cup. Now for the crashing...... When is your crash happening? In my video, did you notice on my test roast how the ROR climbed in the beginning, THEN it started to descend after dry end. It did that by itself. Then if began to climb around first crack. This is a picture of how the ROR will behave naturally when no changes are made. Now, lets apply that to a central american roast on the Laleido M2. Around or just before dry end we begin to lower our heat. You saw that 75% on the test roast was way too much power. You should begin lowering your gas a little at a time around dry end. Start with a 20% decrease in energy at dry end. Wait and see how your ror responds. The goal is to have a downward trend towards first crack. Idealy it would be great to have an ror less than 15 when you hit first crack. So, with that in mind, watch your firs crack estimated time on Artisan, that gives you a sneek peek how you should modify your gas. If you back off your gas to much you will experience the crash. Don't give away your momentum too early. Aim for first crack with an ror of 15 or a little less. don't freak right now about the flick and crash. If you are aiming or First Crack time and the 14 ror target the crash won't be much of an issue unless you are cutting the gas to avoid the flick. Not sure if this is the kind of help you were looking for. If I missed something in your comments you want me to talk about let me know. Was this helpful? Did it make sense?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thanks for that amazingly detailed response! It's all very helpful. I'm going to make some notes, and try to do a better roast. My "typical" roasts are all over the place - sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, often a crash during FC, followed by a flick. I keep trying different charge temps, trying to find the one that is "just right." I always keep the charge weight the same - 275g because I think it's not too small for the roaster, but less wasteful than messing up a bigger batch. Plus, the hopper and the cooler really can't effectively hold much more than that. I'm always trying to achieve a nicely declining RoR (per Rao), but rarely do.
How you manage your heat during dry will set you up for success for the rest of the roast. Figure out a charge temp that will help you get to dry in about 4 1/2 - 5 minutes. Adjust your heat lower to begin a nice descending ROR. As the roasts progresses you may need to reduce heat is small increments. If you have an exhaust temp probe, try to get your ET temp to about 10 degrees above your intended/planned Bean Temp drop temperature. Try and keep that ET from climbing any higher but adjusting the heat. Now, about 50 seconds before first crack, lower your heat a little. Then about 20 seconds brefore first crack lower your heat a little again. This adjustment should have helped prevent a big flick. Now, watch really close and feather back in a little heat as your ROR pushed through the flick and avoid a crash. After that, monitor heat and make any small adjustments to keep your descent moving. As mentioned before, I like a ROR of 14 at FC for a medium roast. By the time I drop the coffee my ROR is about 7 (when everything goes according to plan haha).
How did the coffee actually taste? I bet that it was still very drinkable. While you can make the coffee taste way better with a good roast, I feel like it is difficult to make the coffee undrinkable.
The coffee smelled kind of skunky. I didn't taste the coffee because I know it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy so I gave it to my brother who like to drink dark roasted coffee. Sorry about that.
Is this Steve? It's funny you ask. These are stock/original from new and I am planning on changing them out. When I was in Scott Rao's masterclass the topic of a "wobbly" ROR came up and one thing he mentioned was replacing thermocouples ever 3 or 4 years. So, I think I have 3 or 4 mm currently. I was going to change out the BT to a 2mm and the ET a 3mm. Scott mentioned having a more sensitive one for BT compared to the ET.
The magnahelic you see in this video is for gas. The smaller gauge is the original but the increments go up to 5kpa when my max is only a little over 1kpa for my flow. So the range I am working with on that small dial is difficult to see minor changes. The larger gauge is 2kpa and I have more precise control. I would like to get one for air.
If you roast long/dark enough, you only taste the roast and not the coffee beans. This is how Starbucks roasts their coffee. It allows for a very consistent taste, and allows purchase of cheaper beans. Home roasters often roast lighter because they want to taste the coffee beans themselves (and coffee from different farms/origins will taste dramatically different).
@@clarkkent7973 Well I would say the reason TO roast through 2nd crack (2C) is: people (think they) like the flavor and will buy it; the reason NOT TO roast through 2C is practically all the normal beautiful coffee flavors, acidity, and sweetness are gone, leaving only an unpleasant and bitter charred taste. But as I look at the bean color Mike had when the coffee was dropped, I'm wondering what the taste might be like. Along the lines of Steve's question, I would like to taste a coffee that went through 2C to see if it had any flavor at all. If it did, that would be amazing.
I agree that many people really enjoy dark roasted coffee. I am usually not roasting to sell my coffee so I tend to stay within the roasting levels I enjoy to drink which are medium to medium light on most of my coffees. These are usually pretty dense coffee types so I am roasting for fruit. This is why I don't usually roast to second crack. I am not saying we shouldn't roast to 2nd crack because it is all about personal preference as a home coffee roaster.
The coffee smelled kind of skunky. I didn't taste the coffee because I know it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy so I gave it to my brother who like to drink dark roasted coffee. Sorry about that.
I am familiar with their roaster. Which one do you have? The air roaster or the electric cooking pan with the wand that turns the beans? Both have heat control but I know the pan is a very slow roaster.
Hi there, Great video thanks for sharing. I took the bull by the horns and went to some roasting classes at a nearby roastery. After making a few educated guesses regarding moisture content, altitude and region, I was shown to trial a new bean in 3 stages and by 3 variables. Firstly by desired Drop Temp - choose 3 to aim for and run 3 roasts (keeping all other variables the same inc trying to maintain a fixed ROR and development time throughout), then cup for best taste. If found, then move to the next stage and if not, repeat to find the best drop temp. The second stage is to adjust development time but still hit the fixed drop-temp. Cup for best taste. If found, then move to the next stage which would be to keep the desired drop and development time constant, and adjust only the roast pace to see how the bean tastes. Then cup, and hopefully, voila! I'm only starting out though @thelotroastery on IG - what do you think of this procedure? Also, I have 2 questions, I hope you don;t mind answering :) i) The ROR crash/flick at FC - is this a problem and how do you manage the ROR to avoid installing, but without increasing the heat too much which may dry/damage the roast? ii) Would you normally aim to keep ROR fixed throughout a roast, or do you allow it to naturally decline over the course of the roast? Thanks, Mike!
Hi Jim, Sorry for the late reply. Every instructor has a different way to teach people how to roast. The procedure you shared is a good exercise to build your skills to control the roaster. It will also help you taste the difference between roasts because you changed the variables. They will help you understand how temperature over time will affect your cup. That is a good thing. What type of roasting machine are you using to accomplish this? I think you were using an IKAWA Home unit right? Are you going to their roaster and using their roasters? Is the the @theroastery in Hong Kong? I’m not a fan of the “fixed ROR”. The goal is to have a descending ROR beginning around dry end and through the end of the roast. Once you can control your roaster to accomplish this you can experiment with different development times to see how that will impact the cup. We lower our ROR by lowering our power settings beginning around dry end. We want to get a downward trend. Not too fast (crash). Once you have a downward trend we will adjust our heat in small steps to control the descent. To much power the ROR goes up (flick) too little and it drops (crash). I can’t always taste flicks and crashes but sometimes I can taste the defect in the cup. I can’t prove that is why the coffee doesn’t taste as good. It seems less exciting. Regardless, it is a good practice to avoid flicks and crashes. Flick and crash - As you approach first crack (about a minute away), try lowering your heat a little, then about 20 seconds later, lower it again. This should help you avoid the big flick and crash. It is important to know that you may need to add more power back once first crack begins so you don’t crash. Use your power settings to control your descent. Consider watching this helpful video which discusses the flick and crash in more detail. ruclips.net/video/UrvEKCGedts/видео.html I hope my response has been helpful.
@Virtual Coffee Lab - Home Coffee Roaster @Virtual Coffee Lab - Home Coffee Roaster very helpful thank you. I have upgraded my roaster to Rubasse.....it uses Near Infrared as a heat source, so it is quite quick to respond to changes made. I've started up a small hobby side hustle to my main job and yes, based in HK. It's fun...always learning how to make better tasting coffee and make sense of the different methods. Have you experience in using NIR heat in roasting?
![How To Roast Amazing Coffee [Step By Step]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VjTTVjC79LA/mqdefault.jpg)
I can't believe this lecture level of tutorial is free. I've been looking for good training vids using drum roaster forever and you are SO helpful. The way you present the content is so professional. I will need a lot more coffee than usual because I'm going to start devouring all of your videos from now. Thank you!
Hello Taehyun. Thank you for watching my videos and for your kind comments. I am glad these videos help you learn how to roast coffee with a drum roaster. I enjoy your Poodle videos. I have a Toy Poodle named Avery.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thank you for your kind reply. I'm so glad to meet another Poodle family here. :) As I said, I will learn roasting watching your vids and try to leave comments too! Oh if I sound a bit weird or out of place sometimes that's because I'm not from English speaking country, not because I am a weird person(though my wife seems to disagree sometimes). Thank you very much again for your helpful channel and kind comment! Wish both you and Avery a good luck!
Your English is very Good. I enjoyed listening to the Korean dog training 🙂
What a great video! I especially appreciated showing the color of the beans as the coffee progressed.
Thanks for your comment and for watching
Great exercise. Thanks for making this video.
glad it was helpful. Thank you for watching!
This video was especially pertinent to my situation. As of today I ordered the Mill City 500 gram roaster so I can take my coffee roasting to the next level. I've been roasting on smaller drum roaster for quite some time and decided that I want to have a little more control of the roast so I will be watching a lot of your videos. Thanks for your good information.
Congratulations on your new roaster! That’s exciting. How long will it take to get? Which one are you buying?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab I ordered the MC 500 roaster like the one you have. Looks like they have change the cooling tray set up. They sold everything during the Christmas rush and have some in production. I might not get it until February or March.
This is a very helpful video. I'm planning on picking up a roaster soon. Leaning towards a drum roster. Thank you for your videos!!!
nice. I'm glad my videos have been helpful. Which drum roaster are you considering?
@VirtualCoffeeLab I'm still not sure. Do you have a video that you recommend watching?
Deciding Coffee Roasting Temperatures video from 4 months ago, First impressions of the Kaleido M2 from 3 months ago, and how to auto roast at home from last month all highlight the Kaleido M2 400 gram roaster. It is just under 2,000 dollars.
I love that color of bean. I think there is where the real taste I like comes out.
Yea, that is a dark roast. As I mentioned in the video, for my personal taste, I prefer a medium roast. That is the beauty of this hobby, we can roast to our preferences.
As always, I learned from your video. Agree with the comments around the color comparison at minute intervals. Very cool. Roasting with a Fresh Roast doesn't allow for side-by-side comparisons like this. Also found the Artisan graph fascinating, especially since the roast was relatively hands-off. The "flick" at FC and 2C, graphically showing the exothermic reaction of the beans was revealing. Thanks Mike.
I'm glad it was helpful AND that you noticed both flicks. Thanks for watching.
Loved the video Mike. I had to do the same thing you did here to season my new Bullet roaster. In my case, I had to purposely roast the beans at least 2 minutes past 2nd crack (yes, honestly) and into an oily state, probably just short of ignition 😯. As Steve beuchert mentions below, I wonder if your resulting beans had any flavor left, or might be drinkable - although I know that was not the intention of this roast.
Interesting you talked about "the flick" that occurs just prior to 1st crack. I examined the ROR curve on some of my recent roasts and I did see the flick occasionally, but only when my ROR in final Development was greater than 10 degrees F per minute. If ROR was less than 10, it didn't appear often. Maybe because there was less energy and momentum?
Thanks Lou. I tend to get two flicks unless I am intentional to avoid them. Usually the flick happens about 45 seconds before first crack. Then it happens as my ror gets lower during development. I do think the coffee is drinkable, just not my taste. I gave the coffee to my brother, who likes dark roasted coffee.
That was very interesting to see. It was great learning exercise. I probably would have said dry end was between beans 5 and 6 so it was nice to see how you call it. Thanks.
Yea, like I mentioned in my video, we all might call it a little different. Consistency is the key. When green is gone is when I call dry. It was at 5:05 so you would have called it really close to mine.
Thank you so much Mike. It was great
Glad you liked my video. What kind of roaster do you have?
I am very happy to talk to you. I made a home roaster myself that works very well and I have decided to make a model similar to yours.
I started following your channel as a coffee drinker. I continued watching and felt confident enough to buy a Gene Cafe and get going. Six months later I bought a bullet and then went on to sell 1,000 bags of coffee in 2022 at farmers markets. I aim to triple that and push the bullet to the limit this year. Your videos have never stopped being helpful, clear, and a staple in the home roasting community. Thanks for what you continue to provide.
Hello David. Thanks for your encouraging words. I think I’ve tasted your coffee. I have spent a lot of time in Charlevoix over the years and even strolled the farmers market in town along the harbor front.
The bullet appears to be a great roaster for the money. Are you roasting 1 kilo per batch or smaller roasts. I hope to be roasting on the bullet here on my channel in the coming months.
Im glad my content has been helpful for you! Good luck with your roasting!
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Oh that's so cool! I would've been the only one selling coffee at the market there by the harbor recently, so that's a fair chance. I don't roast 1kg. I love the bullet, but when I got it I did a round of testing at 1kg and most roasts were fine, but a batch of Mexico beans that has a quality for majorly expanding actually expanded so much in the bullet that 1kg ended up locking up the drum causing a pretty catastrophic need to drop the beans. From that point on, I settled on roasting 800g. I sell 8oz bags so at roughly 14-15% weight loss that gives me right about bang on 24oz output, which I find a really ideal setup for back to back roasting to fulfill the local demand.
yea, I wondered about the capacity. It seems like a lot of coffee or the size of the machine.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab When I know it's a bean with minimal expansion I've done 900-950g when I'm finishing the last beans from a bag, but yeah for workflow reasons 800g for me is ideal.
Great video I learned a lot . I use a behmor and after watching your video I appreciate the amount of control you have
Thanks for watching. I’m glad this videos has helped you!
thanks very much! this is very helpful! i will view your other videos to help me get up to speed on my Aillio (wanted Mill City but $$$). your demo mimics an air popper, fixed heat and fan.
Yea, the profile was just an exercise to give us time to focus on what is happening to the beans. You will be doing similar roasts on the Bullet when you do your "seasoning roasts". Looks like i will be roasting with a Bullet here on my channel. I'm still working out some details but i could have the roaster in the next month or two.
Hi Mike, once again a very informative video, l always look forward to seeing your videos
Shane, thanks for the encouraging words. Hope all is well with you!
It’s also worth noting that due to conductive heat, at least with my Aillio, that when I slow down my drum speed, I get an increased RoR. And opposite effects when I increase the drum speed. However, I’ve also noticed that this only works early on in the roast or right before first crack. It actually has the opposite effect or inverse effects after that point. So increase temperature when the drum speed is increased.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Is there a reason you are changing your drum speed on the Bullet? I mean, is your heat setting not enough to give you the increased or decrease ROR you desire? Just curious. Drum speed for something like the Behmor might be helpful to promote airflow but the Bullet has variable airflow to create convection.
From what I learned in my own experience and also some roasting classes I took, setting your roaster drum speed so beans are moving and not being scorched. They are being moved enough to create convection as they are tossed in the air a little without being flung. There is a chart somewhere on the internet to offers a recommended drum speed based on the capacity of the roaster. They use RPM as the measurement. I think my drum is set for about 55 or 60, I don't remember.
Thank you for the video. why does your roaster have 2 probes?
Can you show us or explain the functions and parts in the drum roaster?
Thanks for watching. Actually, the roaster has 3 probes. As with most drum roasters we want to measure bean temperature and the exhaust temperature. The bean probe is placed in the bean mass to give us a fairly accurate idea of how the heat we apply influences the bean. The exhaust temperature is usually placed where the air begins to exit the roasting chamber. This temperature is used in several ways. I use exhaust temperature as the potential energy currently in the drum. I did a video called "roasting with exhaust temperature" that gives a pretty good idea of what I am trying to describe here. I would encourage you to watch that. Exhaust Temperature was a game changer for me. I use those readings to help me see into the future of my roasting temperatures and I actually manage my heat partly based on exhaust temperature. It is also really helpful when I first begin my roast (charge).
The third probe is in thePID probe located in the middle of the drum. It is the average temp and many roasting professionals will charge their roaster using the "PID" temp. I use the PID on my Mill City 500 gram roaster when I warm up my roaster BUT I don't use it at charge. Instead, I use the BT probe. This is a personal choice, not necessarily the rule.
How do i know when my roast is done?
I start cussing because my beans got 2 dark. 😂😂
Hey mike,
Great video, as always. My 2nd batch of those beans from Miramar came out much better. The charge temp was way to high for the 1st batch.
Thank you again. See ya next time. 😊😊
KG, glad batch 2 was better!
@@VirtualCoffeeLab man... better but not great. Batch 3 still was tipped. Low charge temp, longer drying phase, med heat. Pulled at 940.
I'm beginning to think that since they are washed n sun dried they are not fully dry inside. What do u think? Could that be the case?
Good content! Nice lesson for people.
Thanks for watching my video. I'm glad you enjoyed my video.
Thanks for the great video! I have been recently relearning to roast after moving to an upgraded heat gun and artisan integration (using a flour sifter) and this was really helpful to think about understand the 'blank profile' of a roast without adjustments. Really helpful!
Nice. Glad it was helpful. So, when you roast with the heat gun are you using multiple heat settings or did you find one setting that takes your roast all the way through till drop?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab The heatgun that I upgraded to has a lot of control over the temperature setting, so there is a lot of potential for control. However, it has also been able to have a surprisingly nice declining curve with a fixed temperature. It was actually really interesting to see how relatively flat your BT graph was with a fixed heat setting. I think my decline ROR is partly due to having no insulation and a vented top. So as my roaster and beans heat up, they are able to radiate more and more heat outside the roaster. However, I have been decreasing the heatgun temperature a little near first crack so things don't go crazy.
I have been starting with this since I'm still learning the ins and outs of having so much data with artisan. I would be happy to share photos of my setup or the roast curves if you're ever interested.
Great video, Mike! I recently started roasting on a Proaster 10 kilo machine coming from an Aillio Bullet. You said you had your heat set to 75% for the duration of the roast. What was your Airflow set at?
Thanks for watching. That’s a big jump, congrats.
Medium draw I think. If you are trying to determine a charge temperature and also how much energy to apply through the roast you might want to check out this video. I just posted last week. ruclips.net/video/eLAjepXtAg4/видео.html
It could answer some questions
Thanks Mike, this information is just what I was looking for.
Thanks for your comment LJ. What type of roaster do you have?
I have a Gene Cafe roaster.
LJ, I hope to be doing a few roasts on the Gene Cafe in the next month or so. What type of coffee and roast level are you doing with th Gene Cafe? What do you like or not like about the roaster.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Hey Mike, that great news. I roast Colombian, Malabar, Ethiopian, Jamaican Blue, Kona, Bali and Panama, will be brewing Brazilian. I like medium-dark roast. I love my Gene Cafe. It roast great coffee and my friends and relatives love it. The biggest thing that I dislike is I cannot interface any software programs however I do roast by sight, sound and color. I have been roasting on the Gene for about four years so can work around the negatives. However enjoy roasting!
thanx Mike always very informative but... could you tell me why my air flow coffee roaster air flow blows out my propane and causes a yellow flame instead of blue flame flame
Hi Gary. Can you tell me the specific roaster please. You have either too much positive or negative airflow. Please share the settings you are using and give me a basic idea of how you are roasting your coffee.
Thanks
Great exercise! Thank you for sharing. Did they go over things like this at SCA? The change in beam color is helpful. I have to go off of smell more because I’m color blind and it’s too hard to tell in my Behmor.
Thanks, I am glad you like the video AND thank you for being a subscriber to my channel!
No, this exercise was not something I heard at the SCA. It is really meant for the person who is standing in front of a drum roaster for the first time OR someone who wants to better understand how their roaster performs.
Bean color is hard to see on the Behmor. Now, if you were on a drum roaster like the one in my video you could do the following:
If you find yourself roasting the same coffee with the same profile using basically the same charge temperature and gas settings, you can also rely on your temperature readings to indicate when yellow occurs. You just need to have someone help you know when yellow is, remember that temp and then you can either mark it when it hits that temp on future roasts OR program artisan to mark yellow for you when you hit a specific temp.
Hey Mike, I need your opinion regarding my roast. I have been roasting using the gene cafe for a couple of months now and every roast comes out without much aromatics or delicious coffee smell, moreover, after grinding I tend to smell a gassy kind of Co2 smell. I tried longer and shorter roasts higher and lower temps with a variety of beans with the same results. What would you recommend?
Another thing is that my coffee seem to be great for espressos but do not have much flavour when using a pour over or french press. I used to roast in a pan and get very delicious coffee but was very inconsistent. I try to roast a light to ligh medium most of the time. Can you give me some recommendations? Thanks
Thanks for your comment. Watch the video I just posted. My first roast on the genie cafe. After watching, please reply back and share what pre-warming temp you use, your total roast time, the type of coffee and also how much coffee you are roasting at a time. Then I might be able to offer some helpful info. If all your coffee it tasting the same maybe we can talk about brewing variables too if you like.
Love all your videos! Now I'm anxiously awaiting the followup to this one, because what I really want to understand is how to use the information gathered from this experiment. My roasts (on a Kaleido M2) tend to go either way too fast or way too slow, and I often have crashes. I understand *what* to do (slowly lower the heat), but I haven't figured out how to pace it. How can I use the experiment's info to figure that out for my roaster?
suebrown8129, thanks for watching and for being a subscriber. Share your event times with me. How long to get to dry end, first crack and drop? What is the charge temp and what is your drop temp? Also, how dark are you going and for what type of coffee.
@@VirtualCoffeeLab So I did your experiment today with Guatemala Antigua Juaja beans, and here are the numbers I got: Charged 275g (400g max for this roaster) at 185°C, with both heating elements on, then turned heat down to 75% at charge. DE at 3:30 (160.7°C). FC at 5:09 (193.8°C). SC at 6:33 (220.2°C). Drop at 7:00 (230°C, SC was still rolling, but it smelled so burnt). Obviously, the roast went way too fast. :) Normally I would want a medium roast on this bean.
I meant for your typical roasts, not the experiment but that is helpful info. A couple of comments that will still be helpful for you.
1. Capacity - I used a full capacity roast as my experiment. You roasted about 2/3 capacity for you roaster experiment. That would cause your roast to move much quicker. So, good lesson to remember which is..... batch size will influence times and temperatures. This is important to remember because you can use this to your advantage when roasting different types of coffee where maybe you want a longer or shorter total roast time. You can use batch size to influence this.
2. Charge Temperature - The purpose of picking a charge temperature is to help you have enough momentum to get through the roast. Mill City did a great video on charge temperatures using a "slot car" as an object lesson. The charge temperature was represented by the height of the track where the car begins. You need enough height/heat to allow the car to drop down, building up speed/momentum so when it curves upward, the slot car can make it up to the top of the hill/dry end without falling backwards. Once it makes it way over the hill, it is heading towards first crack/ where you will be reducing heat to cause your temperature increase to slow (lowering your ROR). I did a video about charge temperature as well as "why the dry phase is so important". You might want to check those out.
3. Total Roast Time - This exercise showed you how short your roast can be. The total roast time will influence the flavor of your coffee. You said you like medium roasts. Roasting a central american washed coffee with your roaster, a good total roast time would be somewhere between 9-11 minutes. It could be shorter or longer but this seems to be a sweet spot for me. I like 10 - 11 minute roasts. So finding the right charge temp to help you accomplish a dry phase that is about 5 minutes, then a 3 minute middle phase and a 2 minute development roasting to a medium roast is a great starting point. From there you can modify your total roast time, see how that influences the flavor. Then you can tweek the middle and development times a little and see how that influences your cup.
Now for the crashing...... When is your crash happening? In my video, did you notice on my test roast how the ROR climbed in the beginning, THEN it started to descend after dry end. It did that by itself. Then if began to climb around first crack. This is a picture of how the ROR will behave naturally when no changes are made. Now, lets apply that to a central american roast on the Laleido M2. Around or just before dry end we begin to lower our heat. You saw that 75% on the test roast was way too much power. You should begin lowering your gas a little at a time around dry end. Start with a 20% decrease in energy at dry end. Wait and see how your ror responds. The goal is to have a downward trend towards first crack. Idealy it would be great to have an ror less than 15 when you hit first crack. So, with that in mind, watch your firs crack estimated time on Artisan, that gives you a sneek peek how you should modify your gas. If you back off your gas to much you will experience the crash. Don't give away your momentum too early. Aim for first crack with an ror of 15 or a little less. don't freak right now about the flick and crash. If you are aiming or First Crack time and the 14 ror target the crash won't be much of an issue unless you are cutting the gas to avoid the flick.
Not sure if this is the kind of help you were looking for. If I missed something in your comments you want me to talk about let me know. Was this helpful? Did it make sense?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab Thanks for that amazingly detailed response! It's all very helpful. I'm going to make some notes, and try to do a better roast. My "typical" roasts are all over the place - sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, often a crash during FC, followed by a flick. I keep trying different charge temps, trying to find the one that is "just right." I always keep the charge weight the same - 275g because I think it's not too small for the roaster, but less wasteful than messing up a bigger batch. Plus, the hopper and the cooler really can't effectively hold much more than that. I'm always trying to achieve a nicely declining RoR (per Rao), but rarely do.
How you manage your heat during dry will set you up for success for the rest of the roast. Figure out a charge temp that will help you get to dry in about 4 1/2 - 5 minutes. Adjust your heat lower to begin a nice descending ROR. As the roasts progresses you may need to reduce heat is small increments. If you have an exhaust temp probe, try to get your ET temp to about 10 degrees above your intended/planned Bean Temp drop temperature. Try and keep that ET from climbing any higher but adjusting the heat.
Now, about 50 seconds before first crack, lower your heat a little. Then about 20 seconds brefore first crack lower your heat a little again. This adjustment should have helped prevent a big flick. Now, watch really close and feather back in a little heat as your ROR pushed through the flick and avoid a crash. After that, monitor heat and make any small adjustments to keep your descent moving. As mentioned before, I like a ROR of 14 at FC for a medium roast. By the time I drop the coffee my ROR is about 7 (when everything goes according to plan haha).
How did the coffee actually taste? I bet that it was still very drinkable. While you can make the coffee taste way better with a good roast, I feel like it is difficult to make the coffee undrinkable.
The coffee smelled kind of skunky. I didn't taste the coffee because I know it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy so I gave it to my brother who like to drink dark roasted coffee. Sorry about that.
What size thermocouples do you have on that machine?
Is this Steve? It's funny you ask. These are stock/original from new and I am planning on changing them out. When I was in Scott Rao's masterclass the topic of a "wobbly" ROR came up and one thing he mentioned was replacing thermocouples ever 3 or 4 years. So, I think I have 3 or 4 mm currently. I was going to change out the BT to a 2mm and the ET a 3mm. Scott mentioned having a more sensitive one for BT compared to the ET.
How many grams of coffee beans?
This roast/exercise I uses 454 grams of Guatemalan coffee in my 500 gram roaster
I think I need to ad a magnahelic Guage to mine the lighter trick is getting old
The magnahelic you see in this video is for gas. The smaller gauge is the original but the increments go up to 5kpa when my max is only a little over 1kpa for my flow. So the range I am working with on that small dial is difficult to see minor changes. The larger gauge is 2kpa and I have more precise control. I would like to get one for air.
No 2nd crack why not?some coffees are amazing at this level
If you roast long/dark enough, you only taste the roast and not the coffee beans. This is how Starbucks roasts their coffee. It allows for a very consistent taste, and allows purchase of cheaper beans. Home roasters often roast lighter because they want to taste the coffee beans themselves (and coffee from different farms/origins will taste dramatically different).
@@clarkkent7973 Well I would say the reason TO roast through 2nd crack (2C) is: people (think they) like the flavor and will buy it; the reason NOT TO roast through 2C is practically all the normal beautiful coffee flavors, acidity, and sweetness are gone, leaving only an unpleasant and bitter charred taste.
But as I look at the bean color Mike had when the coffee was dropped, I'm wondering what the taste might be like. Along the lines of Steve's question, I would like to taste a coffee that went through 2C to see if it had any flavor at all. If it did, that would be amazing.
I agree that many people really enjoy dark roasted coffee. I am usually not roasting to sell my coffee so I tend to stay within the roasting levels I enjoy to drink which are medium to medium light on most of my coffees. These are usually pretty dense coffee types so I am roasting for fruit. This is why I don't usually roast to second crack. I am not saying we shouldn't roast to 2nd crack because it is all about personal preference as a home coffee roaster.
The coffee smelled kind of skunky. I didn't taste the coffee because I know it wasn't going to be something I would enjoy so I gave it to my brother who like to drink dark roasted coffee. Sorry about that.
Very helpfull. Unfortunantly I have a simply roaster and I cant control the temperature and is too nosy I can’t hear the cracks 🤷🏻♂️🥲
I started out on a popcorn popper like most of us. Do you think you will move to something else? Do you have a roaster in mind?
@@VirtualCoffeeLab I have a home roaster called Cafemasy
I am familiar with their roaster. Which one do you have? The air roaster or the electric cooking pan with the wand that turns the beans? Both have heat control but I know the pan is a very slow roaster.
Hi there, Great video thanks for sharing. I took the bull by the horns and went to some roasting classes at a nearby roastery. After making a few educated guesses regarding moisture content, altitude and region, I was shown to trial a new bean in 3 stages and by 3 variables. Firstly by desired Drop Temp - choose 3 to aim for and run 3 roasts (keeping all other variables the same inc trying to maintain a fixed ROR and development time throughout), then cup for best taste. If found, then move to the next stage and if not, repeat to find the best drop temp.
The second stage is to adjust development time but still hit the fixed drop-temp. Cup for best taste. If found, then move to the next stage which would be to keep the desired drop and development time constant, and adjust only the roast pace to see how the bean tastes. Then cup, and hopefully, voila! I'm only starting out though @thelotroastery on IG - what do you think of this procedure?
Also, I have 2 questions, I hope you don;t mind answering :)
i) The ROR crash/flick at FC - is this a problem and how do you manage the ROR to avoid installing, but without increasing the heat too much which may dry/damage the roast?
ii) Would you normally aim to keep ROR fixed throughout a roast, or do you allow it to naturally decline over the course of the roast?
Thanks, Mike!
Hi Jim,
Sorry for the late reply.
Every instructor has a different way to teach people how to roast. The procedure you shared is a good exercise to build your skills to control the roaster. It will also help you taste the difference between roasts because you changed the variables. They will help you understand how temperature over time will affect your cup. That is a good thing. What type of roasting machine are you using to accomplish this? I think you were using an IKAWA Home unit right? Are you going to their roaster and using their roasters? Is the the @theroastery in Hong Kong?
I’m not a fan of the “fixed ROR”. The goal is to have a descending ROR beginning around dry end and through the end of the roast. Once you can control your roaster to accomplish this you can experiment with different development times to see how that will impact the cup. We lower our ROR by lowering our power settings beginning around dry end. We want to get a downward trend. Not too fast (crash). Once you have a downward trend we will adjust our heat in small steps to control the descent. To much power the ROR goes up (flick) too little and it drops (crash). I can’t always taste flicks and crashes but sometimes I can taste the defect in the cup. I can’t prove that is why the coffee doesn’t taste as good. It seems less exciting. Regardless, it is a good practice to avoid flicks and crashes.
Flick and crash - As you approach first crack (about a minute away), try lowering your heat a little, then about 20 seconds later, lower it again. This should help you avoid the big flick and crash. It is important to know that you may need to add more power back once first crack begins so you don’t crash. Use your power settings to control your descent.
Consider watching this helpful video which discusses the flick and crash in more detail.
ruclips.net/video/UrvEKCGedts/видео.html
I hope my response has been helpful.
@Virtual Coffee Lab - Home Coffee Roaster @Virtual Coffee Lab - Home Coffee Roaster very helpful thank you. I have upgraded my roaster to Rubasse.....it uses Near Infrared as a heat source, so it is quite quick to respond to changes made.
I've started up a small hobby side hustle to my main job and yes, based in HK. It's fun...always learning how to make better tasting coffee and make sense of the different methods.
Have you experience in using NIR heat in roasting?