Diedrich IR-5 - Loring Falcon 15 Analysis by Doris Garrido
As part of my routine when I get ready to roast a new coffee I run the Sinar to take density and moisture, run the free density, and I'm good to go. In this case, I ran the Sinar with the wrong settings and I got high numbers. The free density was okay, but I thought I got high moisture to work with mainly during Maillard. I decided to start not too hard, but added gas around the turning point because energy was going to be needed in the middle of the roast. Because of my incorrect moisture reading, my coffee dehydrated faster than I anticipated, and I ended with a shorter yellowing time. I didn't panic because I wanted to end up with a more complex body, but I was sure that this coffee would show a lot of fruity flavors. I spent a short time in development and ended the roast at 399F for a 5.5lb batch in this 5-kilo roaster.
The coffee tasted just delicious the next day: sweet raspberry, blueberry jam, kiwi, mint, dry strawberries, and maple syrup. As is noticed on the notes this roast brings a lot of cleanliness to the cup and we were tasting fresh fruity notes with a slightly thin body. I would say that I could make a perfect pour-over out of this coffee, but I am not done here. This Burundi natural is going to the espresso bar here at the Crown, and by saying this I mean I must move to a bigger roaster for production, and here at the Crown, that means the Loring S15 Falcon.
I went ahead and got ready to roast an 18lb batch on this 25lb machine. On the Diedrich, I did a long drying phase because I thought I'll be doing a longer Maillard. In the Loring, I started with a 428F charge temperature and started adding gas around turning point to push the roast. Drying was 47 seconds shorter than my previous roast, which gave me the chance to stretch my yellowing area and use the time that was saved in drying. I was looking for a similar development time, and as tends to happen to me, when I was catching the first crack I ended up taking my time reducing the power, and my final temperature went high: 406F, remember that this is a natural and loses moisture faster.
Full time on both roasts: Diedrich 8:38, Loring 8:40. And on the ColorTrack differences were not that far apart: Diedrich 60 whole beans 55 ground, Loring 59.95 whole 54.7 ground - remarkably close. On the cupping table, the complexity of the sugar browning, the body, and the mouthfeel was simply great. I would say that I was tasting fresher fruits and fresh strawberries on the first Diedrich roast, and in this second one, the same strawberry was more like strawberry jam. Knowing that this is going to be an espresso I am very satisfied, and I am pretty confident it would do just perfectly. I got great information from these two roasts - even a closer color track number would taste different. I was looking for similar targets, but in terms of taste the spectrum of flavors here has a wide range and is amazingly tasty. I would never hesitate if it needed to be clean and floral with great acidity, or if I needed to bring more body, sweetness, and complexity: the sky is the limit with this coffee.
