Drop Temperature and Ethiopia Birbissa again

If you have paid any attention to the roast profiles I have been posting with the Hottop, you'll see that the coffee is typically getting to about 300 degrees in 5-6 minutes. This drying phase is important, as I have talked about before, and really sets the stage for what the coffee is going to taste like.

There are some hints out there that drying the coffee a bit faster can have positive qualities in the cup (more sweetness/acidity, less woodiness), so I started thinking about how to do this.

Unfortunately, all electrically powered roasters are very underpowered. You really need a gas-fired tool to have a significant effect on the ramp speed. Since a gas powered roaster isn't in the cards for me any time soon, I decided to play around with the temperature at which the coffee is added to the roaster. Letting the roaster pre-heat more, I surmised, would speed things up. It did indeed, but with less than stellar results, I am afraid.

Here is a graph of Ethiopia Birbissa with the two roasts:

You'll see that the roast that had the coffee added at 400 degrees did recover faster, and the earlier part of the roast was overall somewhat shorter. The total roast time and final temperature were the same. Comparing my notes from the original roast to this new one was like reading about two different coffees. While the first one was a fruit bomb, the higher drop temperature roast was woody, flatter, and much less interesting. I am not sure if there was a bit of scorching going on or something else, but it wasn't a positive improvement. I did a second test with some Red Sea Blend at the higher drop temperature and had a similar result. Rather than increasing sweetness and/or acidity, these coffees were flat, uninteresting, and overly woody.

It looks like it is back to the drawing board a bit. I have had some really excellent coffees lately with a more traditional roast profile which I hope to post about soon. Also, I may play around with smaller roast loads to see if the ramp speeds can be modified in that way instead of with the drop temperature.