Nicaragua Esteli - Nueva Esperanza

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was getting very good results with roasting profiles that were on the longer side, more than about 15 or 16 minutes. Now the conventional wisdom, such as it is, says that faster is better. Of course, "fast" can vary drastically depending on what sort of roaster you are using.

In addition, I have been reading a few things here and there about drying times. There are some interesting posts over in home-barista.com about the importance of thoroughly drying the coffee before entering into roasting temperatures. The specific recommendation was to keep the coffee temperature below 300 degrees Fahrenheit until it turns the yellow color of the initial Maillard reaction (caramelization).

Well, never one to back away from an experiment, I roasted two coffees last week with modified profiles. The first was a Nicaraguan coffee, an origin I haven't had very much coffee from. I immediately tried starting the profile with a longer soak at 300 degrees. The result was green coffee; this temperature on the Gene Cafe may be enough for drying things out, but isn't hot enough to produce any sort of lightening of the seed color in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, I had to eventually get the environment temperature up around 400 degrees before things really yellowed:



I am guessing that the glass cylinder of this roaster loses a lot of heat. The internal bean temperature is a lot lower than the environmental temperature. Interestingly, first crack on this coffee was very loud and very drawn out compared to what I am used to. I could hear cracks for a full 2 minutes or more. I wonder if this is due to the increased drying the coffee had.

With this roast taking almost 19 minutes for a City+ level, I had low expectations. The coffee was certainly quite good, but never having had this origin before, I can't really separate the roast effects from the coffee itself. This is quite a light coffee, with a very nutty and malty taste to it. The aftertaste is lingering, and again has that malt syrup aspect to it. There is also strong milk chocolate and a good waxy mouthfeel to it. A solid coffee, but nothing to really wow you. I am going to plan on roasting the same coffee using two profiles so I can really see if I can tell the difference next time.