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Roasting and QC
Roasting and QC are everyday activities at Royal, The Crown, and for the vast majority of our customers. We’ve spent years researching, teaching, and opining about the craft and science of these distinct but interrelated skills.
Roasting doesn’t have to be intimidating! You’ll find practical suggestions and theoretical deep dives into critical aspects of roasting, including topics like rate of rise, roast yeild and loss, coffee blending, the phases of roasting, thermodynamics, and more.
Often the team at Royal uses metaphors to explain roasting phenomena and break down ideas. A vital theory used in this building is the idea of creation or destruction in roasting. Realizing the coffee, equates to the creation of acids and flavors inherent in the coffee that come out during Millard reaction. While later phases of the roasting process turn towards sugar caramelization and eventually pyrolysis (the break down of compounds). Perception of the lighter roasting styles ‘realize’ the flavors the producer has worked hard to create. While darker roasting styles take a more creative hand in creating pyrolysis and formulating those sugar reactions that exist later in the roast. This is a really great baseline understanding to create your own roasting philosophy for your own café/roastery.
For the quality control specialist, some of the most important first steps include learning how to taste coffee, understanding how coffee is scored, learning how to set up and run successful cuppings, understanding coffee acidity, and eventually learning to change your roasting style to create different flavor profiles you are searching for.
Le nez du café kit is a common training tool in the industry that is used for both beginner and advanced students. As important as it is to understand your machine and roasting techniques, you are nothing without the ability to cup coffee and taste well. Trial and error is the name of the game. This section covers both basic and nuanced concepts as well as some roaster-specific material such as guidance on Bullet, Ikawa, and Behmor roasting, what to do after you get your Q-grader license, and how to use The Crown’s production cupping form.
Roasting for Creation or Destruction
"Lately, I’ve been speaking with my roasting students in the big-picture mode about their superpowers. Roasting is often spoken of in esoteric chemical terms or couched in industry-specific language that can sometimes alienate newcomers."
How to Set Up and Run a Coffee Cupping: A Step-by-Step Guide
"Cupping is the coffee industry’s more-or-less standardized practice for sensory evaluation. Using aromas and flavors it is possible to determine the quality potential of a given coffee,the success of a roast, and/or the presence of sensory defects."
Scoring Specialty Coffee - What do the Numbers Mean?
This article outlines how coffees are graded and scored under commonly used systems, and works to define “specialty” coffee while examining the nuance and complexity of cup score values. Sections of note include definitions of individual attributes, a breakdown of what cup scores mean, and a discussion of recent, controversial updates to the tools professional graders use to evaluate a coffee’s quality.
"It’s been said that those who stand for nothing will fall into a constant state of decline. As an outspoken critic of “my way or the highway” approaches to education and one-size-fits-all solutions to roasting and quality control concerns in specialty coffee, it may not surprise you to learn that I take issue with the popular strategy in certain roasting circles of using a “constant state of decline” in a coffee’s so-called “rate of rise” (ROR), change rate, or (if we’re being vaguely mathematical) derivative. In some coffees and for certain roasting styles, this theory popularized by consultant Scott Rao works well. In others, it does not."
Read"Becoming a Q Arabica Grader is one of the highest honors in the coffee industry. Serious study and practice are required to hone your sensory skills to the level needed to pass the battery of tests in the Q Arabica curriculum. No doubt finishing the course gives you a sense of accomplishment, but as with all things in life, where do you go next?"
Read"Lately, I’ve been speaking with my roasting students in the big-picture mode about their superpowers. Roasting is often spoken of in esoteric chemical terms or couched in industry-specific language that can sometimes alienate newcomers. To wit, the old SCAA flavor wheel was used to split certain aromatic compounds into three categories labeled “enzymatic,” “sugar browning,” and “dry distillation.” While fancy and scientific-sounding, I’m not confident this language really resonates with new roasters and tasters."
Read"One of the most frequently misunderstood accounting problems in coffee roasting is the loss of mass during the roasting process. Green coffee goes in, roasted coffee comes out, and there’s magically less of it. Even at small scales, improperly calculating your roast yields can cause major inventory and financial headaches, so it’s worth knowing exactly what to account for, and how to do it quickly and easily."
Read"For as long as we’ve been serving coffee, The Crown’s menu has featured a revolving door of fresh and seasonal coffees served across a number of brewing styles. By far, our most consistent outturns (aside from cold brew in the warmer months) are two single-origin espressos, and a light and dark roast option of two single-origin batches brewed drip coffee."
Read"It’s early in the morning and I’m trying desperately to get my brain and my voice warmed up to record a viable interview. Across the pond in Paris, France, Viva Lenoir is at the end of her day; her gregariousness is topped off by a hint of fatigue. We meander toward each other through the fog at opposite ends of our workday."
Read"Coffee blending is time-honored pairing of sensory arts and pragmatic concerns, and for many coffee drinkers remains one of the most recognizable ways to distinguish a coffee. This article will introduce roasters to basic blending concepts and attempt to answer some critical questions when creating coffee blends for various markets and applications. We’ll also look at a couple of common blend types and how you can create your own."
Read"Roasting in the comfort of one’s own home is, in our minds, one of the most pleasurable experiences in the coffee world. Having your creature comforts nearby while you roast makes the whole affair much more manageable; maybe you even have a support animal getting you through a tricky roast."
Read"What alchemy turns coffee brown and releases a plethora of flavors and aromas? Heat! Not the steamy heat of a summer night, but the tried and tested the application of heat energy, over time, in a controlled environment. This is thermodynamics."
Read"Cupping coffee is one, if not, the best-known methods for evaluating the quality of roasted coffee, and still one of the most considered methods when judging the sensorial attributes of this agricultural product."
Read"Over the past year, one component of our weekly Crown Analysis writings has gained attention with a demographic we weren’t used to hearing from home roasters. This welcome attention isn’t something we take lightly, and we want to thank all of you who have gotten in contact with us. The Behmor is one of the most popular home roasting machines out there, and you have all been very enthusiastic about reading and interacting with our posts!"
Read"A year down the road, and we are still roasting on the Quest M3s roaster, now set up here at The Crown in our roasting lab. We’ve had classes for our baristas and the public to learn to roast on this machine, and we’ve released more than 50 Crown Jewels replete with analysis since we introduced this roaster. It’s been a wild year, and so much has changed!"
Read"Roasting coffee influences flavor, but it is not the final step in the process. Unless you are roasting your own competition coffee, roasting for a barista or brewer competitor is a similar process to roasting for any other customer. Once a competitor chooses a coffee, they will need the roasted coffee to consistently produce the same flavor results from the beginning of the journey through to the end. You as the roaster are the steward of that flavor."
Read"Cupping is the coffee industry’s more-or-less standardized practice for sensory evaluation. Using aromas and flavors it is possible to determine the quality potential of a given coffee, the success of a roast, and/or the presence of sensory defects. Cupping is an integral component of green and roasted coffee transactions. It provides a common set of tools and procedures by which coffee community members across the supply chain may evaluate and converse about quality."
Read"The home roasting community is familiar with – and enamored of – the Behmor roaster. Look around on home roasting forums and the blogs of hobbyist roasters and you’re liable to find a Behmor machine or two. For some, this machine is the start of an obsession. For others, it’s simply a consistent source of freshly roasted coffee in what might otherwise be a coffee desert."
Read"Decaf is often the unfortunate stepchild in any coffee roasting operation. Most roasters offer only one decaf coffee and if there are two, then the other decaf is usually referred to as the organic decaf. Decaf is mistreated at roasting facilities around the world every morning as the first batch of the day. I admit that I have also used decaf to warm the roasting machine at the start of my shift. Most of the time, decaf is roasted dark and without much attention to detail."
Read"Every year in late winter and early spring, all US Roasters face a “time” where there are few freshly harvested coffees to refill their stocks. It is a waiting game familiar to everyone in the industry. During this time, many Roasters may wonder, “Did I buy enough coffee to get me through to next harvest?” We talk with our trader partners and producer friends to see when we can expect coffee to arrive and then secure just enough inventory to see us through. If we buy too much, we will be roasting and selling dreaded “past crop” coffee while we enviously watch our friends and competitors joyously celebrate all of their delicious “new crop” coffees."
ReadThis article outlines how coffees are graded and scored under commonly used systems, and works to define “specialty” coffee while examining the nuance and complexity of cup score values. Sections of note include definitions of individual attributes, a breakdown of what cup scores mean, and a discussion of recent, controversial updates to the tools professional graders use to evaluate a coffee’s quality.
ReadCoffee acidity describes flavor brightness. Most brews sit near 5.5 pH. Acidity comes from organic acids in green coffee and changes through roasting: lighter roasts retain fruity malic and citric acids, while darker roasts break them down into bitter quinic and caffeic acids. Robusta tastes more bitter due to higher caffeine, not higher acidity. Origin and processing affect perception. African coffees tend to be brighter, Asian coffees lower in acidity. Roasters can manage acidity through roast level, green selection, and process choice to match flavor or health preferences.
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