Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Doris Garrido
When roasting a decaffeinated coffee, I go as gently as I possibly can. For this roast, I chose a low-charge temperature and waited for turning point to start the gas. At that point I set for 100% gas and waited 4 minutes to start the lowering of the power till I reached 30%, all this before the color change at 292.9F. I got to spend 4:54 on the drying phase. Usually, on decaf coffees is hard to catch the color change but this coffee has an interesting aspect: it does not look fully brown as other decafs, and it had a greenish look with some black spots. It may look ugly to the eyes, but it makes color change easy to notice and this coloration seems to be normal due the cane sugar decaffeination process.
I spent 4:33 in the yellowing area. I noticed that in the middle of this phase the temperature started dropping, which made me raise the gas to 45% to be able reach first crack safely. It looks like this coffee uses more energy than the other decafs I have roasted. Giving up the moisture wasn't easy and resulted in me stretching the Maillard. For development, I dropped the coffee at 407F with a 1:45 minute time. It took me some time taking the trier in and out to call for the end of the roast. This can be noticed on the curve and on the taste.
Overall, this coffee turned out to be heavy, creamy and a little buttery on the body, I was looking for 55-56 Agtron on ground coffee on the ColorTrack reader but instead I got 59.62, it was tasting a bit dark. Not a bad roast, but for the next one I would manage gas better to get through Maillard and make a shorter development. On the cupping table, I got a low acidity taste but a good sweetness and body: persimmons, orange, chocolate, fudge, milk chocolate, cacao nibs, maple, tahini with a low decaffeination process taste. For sure there are some changes that will be doing in the next roast, mainly on the gas management to improve on the Maillard area.
