Diedrich IR-5 Analysis by Doris Garrido.
It is now time for the Indonesian coffee to arrive, and I have the time to get into roast analysis. This coffee has an average moisture content of 10.5% and fairly average density. We found this coffee clean with bold body, citrus acidity, lemongrass, lemon, greenish guava, citrus zest, nutty, and sweet caramel notes. I got a lot to work on the 5.5lb batch on Diedrich with this coffee. First, I would roast this coffee for up to 10 minutes, soft in the beginning, looking to highlight the lemon, and lemongrass, and going softly during caramelization to exploit the body, bringing out caramel but trying to avoid the caramel getting bitter.
To start, I decided on a charge temperature of 400F. I watched how fast my coffee was dropping and before turning point I added 100% gas, let it run for little up to 4 minutes, and started lowering my speed on the rate of rise by reducing gas to 70% and then 45%, waiting for a moment longer and reducing again to 30%. I noticed the color change and marked it at 304F. My roast didn't slow down enough, and I wanted to go slow at this point, so I went to 0% gas (I call 0% when I stop the pilot) for about a minute and as soon as I went back to 30% I started 50% airflow. I finished the yellowing phase at a great pace and hit the first crack at 380F, after which I opened the airflow to 100%. Temperature management went great on post-development and let it run for 1:31, with an end temperature of 387F.
On the roast curve, I achieved my goals, and on the tasting table, these were the notes: Grapefruit, lemony, lime, on sweetness: brown sugar, fresh fig, raisin, honey, maple, nougat, pecan. On mouthfeel: Bold, syrupy.
Overall, the acidity was great, and I tasted some savory notes. This is probably part of the coffee profile the coffee came with, and if I want to shadow it on the next roast, I will work the airflow during drying as my first approach. Regarding sweetness, I was more than happy mouthfeel and sweetness went as I pictured.
Then I moved it to an 18lb batch on the Loring Falcon 15, this time not trying to match the profile but using the characteristics we have found in this coffee as our delicate dark roast offering here at the Crown. For this, the main goal was to use the body, bring the sweetness and use the savory taste in our favor. After 14 minutes total time in the Loring, I went fast on drying and stretching Maillard for long development, and a great amount of air at the end. This is kind of a short explanation of the dark roast, but I look forward to explaining it in the future as this profile is going to need some shape. As always even when it tastes good, we know it can taste better and we put a big amount of work into the profile base in our tasting. Because this is a long and slow roast, we need to manage to work carefully the caramelization to get the elegant dark roast we want. To be continued…
