Adjust Your Roasting Profiles for Summer

I'm reiterating a previous post I made on this topic - as the temperatures rise going in to summer, you need to adjust your roasting profiles to account for the higher ambient temperatures. It makes a big difference I have found.

All the profiles I saved during my earlier series of posts are way too long now and I have had to start the cool down manually on my i-Roaster to prevent the beans from burning.

I just opened a bag of Ethiopian Natural Harrar beans. These are one of my all-time favorite beans and I don't want to spoil them by over-roasting. I have them on a profile of 385F for 5 minutes, 430F for 2 minutes, and a final 465F for 2 minutes right now. The temperature in the shade of my patio where I do my roasting is currently 77F.

If you find your beans are getting too dark you can interrupt the profile on your i-Roaster at any time by pressing the Roast/Temp button. This will start the 4 minute cool cycle.

One other thing I read some time ago that helps with the cooling cycle is to loosen the top of the roaster (the piece that has the grille that the air is forced to on the top) so that the air can escape more easily and help with the cooling. Don't do this inside, though, as you will get the chaff all over the place. It ends up on my deck but that is easily taken care of with my leaf blower.

Ethiopia Natural Harrar Green Coffee Beans Roasting Test

May I start out with "Yum!" These are really delicious beans, great for roasting as a "city roast" and making delicious espresso-based coffee drinks.

The beans are organic green coffee beans supplied by Seven Bridges Cooperative. The label recommends the beans for Vienna to Espresso roasting. I roasted the beans in two separate batches using the following customized profiles saved on my iRoast-2 home roaster:

Custom Roasting Profile #3
385F for 7 minutes
430F for 2 minutes
465 F for 2 minutes

Custom Roasting Profile #4
385F at 6 minutes
430F for 3.5 minutes
465F for 2 minutes

Obviously the second profile will result in a darker roast. I preferred the light roast, however (#3), although both were very satisfactory.

The coffee was superb on all counts: excellent crema and fantastic well-balanced flavor. The espresso was slightly bitter and acidic and very pleasant to drink. The flavor combined well with milk in a flat-white making for one of my favorites supplied in the sampler pack.

I have only one bag left in the sampler pack so I am getting ready to order larger bags of my favorite beans that I have identified over the course of this roasting coffee beans at home series. In taking a sneak peak for these beans at Seven Bridges storefront at Amazon.com, however, I found that they weren't currently offering these beans. Boo hoo! I also noticed that the sampler pack I have been working with noted only 2 left in stock!

Anyhow, keep a look out for these magnificent beans. Let's hope they show up again.