Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Coffee Smarter: Developing Coffee Flavors During the Roasting Process.

Transcript

Coffee Smarter: Developing Coffee Flavors During the Roasting Process. · Coffee People Podcast

0:08
Hey, good morning everyone. I'm Ryan Wilt and welcome to
0:11
season 4 episode. 4 of the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:16
This is the show where I bring you the stories of coffee
0:19
professionals and Entrepreneurship and coffee
0:22
education. This is our second coffee
0:24
smarter session this season. That's hard to say, with my
0:28
personal coffee sensei. Chris O'Brien, he is the founder
0:32
and head Roaster at Coffee cycle, roasting in Pacific
0:35
Beach, California. Last week, we covered.
0:38
Refractometer zazi tool to brew a better cup of coffee.
0:41
There was a lot of Science in that episode and afterward my
0:44
head hurt just a little bit. So this week, I wanted to move
0:47
over to the roasting side of things.
0:49
And ask Chris how a coffee roaster.
0:52
Might develop the flavors in a coffee bean.
0:54
Those flavors that end up as notes on the side of the bag.
0:57
I'm going to do that in a minute, but if I haven't
1:00
listened to this week's feature interview with Carrie.
1:02
Elliot of Elliot Marie, coffee from Hillsboro Oregon.
1:06
You should probably add that to your Q.
1:08
Carry is the first roaster from outside Southern California to
1:11
be featured on this show, but I found out during the episode
1:14
that she has SoCal roots. In a few weeks, I'm going to
1:17
share an interview with Hollis Swan of declination roasting in
1:19
Alaska, which is about as far west coast as one can go.
1:24
And while, he now lives in his hometown of Soldotna, he also
1:27
has deep ties to SoCal, coffee have Thing worked, building
1:30
Coffee Roasters for Renegade Roasters out of San Marcos in
1:34
San Diego County for years before returning home.
1:38
The point that I'm getting at is that the coffee Community is
1:41
smaller and more connected than I, even realized, which I think
1:45
is pretty cool. So listen to the show with
1:48
Carrie and get excited about that upcoming show with Hollis.
1:52
You can listen to all of the roast West Coast coffee smarter
1:54
and interview episodes on your favorite podcast platforms or
1:59
just sign up. Newsletter on roast
2:00
westcoast.com and I'll send it to you every single week.
2:05
Enough of all that talk, Chris is here.
2:06
My coffee is full and I'll assume that your coffee is full
2:10
too, which means it is time to get coffee Smarter on the roast
2:14
West Coast coffee podcast. Hey, Chris Chris O'Brien coffee
2:25
cycle. Roasting, welcome back to the
2:27
roast West Coast coffee podcast, coffee smarter session for the
2:31
week. Thanks for being here.
2:33
Bud, always a treat Ryan. I'm happy too.
2:35
Happy to spend some time with you.
2:37
And, you know, I always love chatting about coffee kind of
2:39
hard to shut me up. Once you get me started to, that
2:42
is true. I feel like whenever we start
2:44
one of these shows, I have like 12 seconds of awkwardness at the
2:47
beginning where I say hello to someone that I know very well.
2:50
And I was a guest on the show but is also my In the world.
2:55
Yeah I'd say we're friends. I mean it's that weird.
2:59
Yeah it's okay. I'm just gonna ask you a
3:04
question and the put the pressure on you because now I'm
3:06
feeling embarrassed and my face is all red, actually, before we
3:12
get started. Are you drinking coffee today?
3:15
Yeah, I had some coffee today. I actually was a bit of a
3:18
Savage, this morning. I dumped two copies together in
3:22
a unplanned, very For the measured blend.
3:29
I think I picked to Ethiopia is but I had not relabeled the tins
3:33
and I just been sort of filling them at random from what was
3:36
left over. And so, yeah, I had a had coffee
3:39
this morning was actually quite good and then I made myself some
3:43
tea. I've been on a bit of a tea kick
3:44
lately, we just got a new tee provider at my shop.
3:48
And so, I've been really enjoying sipping many, many
3:51
different kinds of tea lately sighs.
3:52
It's nice because I can kind of drink a lot more of it.
3:54
And so I'll start with Coffee, and then not build some nice.
3:57
Nice long tee that I'm sippin on.
3:59
Well, it's nice to hear that. Even, like coffee experts like
4:02
you sometimes don't like make the perfect cup of coffee every
4:05
single time for yourself, it was perfectly won't spit and
4:08
extracted. All right, perfectly roasted of
4:11
extracted. So, you know, just back down
4:14
there buddy. I know you're living that coffee
4:17
Instagram, life, Chris, before I go too much, further, you should
4:22
shout out that Tea Company. You've been talking about him
4:24
for a bit. I haven't.
4:25
We'll try them yet but I'm looking forward to it.
4:27
Yeah, Will Shine. T will wi LL Shi, any will shine
4:34
T down in Ocean Beach. Here in San Diego has taken over
4:38
from our previous T, provider, Mad, Monk T, which is, you know,
4:43
Departed, the available world as far as I know as far as I know.
4:47
But they still have some amazing.
4:48
Really special teas that are usually the kind of more
4:54
traditional Chinese. Styles and Taiwanese Styles.
4:57
They don't get too much into the Indian teas, though.
5:00
I think they do a little bit, but they're really cool.
5:02
Also, because they started doing some herbal Blends and just sort
5:06
of kind of broadening the horizons, but while still
5:08
maintaining a lot of that quality, and I just love the the
5:11
tradition and age of like the the Tea Ceremony is and the
5:15
passion behind it at these people have.
5:17
So they really are excellent. I definitely recommend anyone to
5:20
go do a tasting with sencha Will Shine T down ocean.
5:25
I should say, it's a special special experience, very cool
5:29
while will link to that, for sure in the newsletter this
5:31
week. Last week we talked about
5:34
extracting flavor using a refractometer and what a
5:38
refractometer does and a lot of that was identifying levels of
5:42
sugar and so on. I encourage anyone to go back
5:45
and listen to that. We're check out that newsletter
5:47
episode this week. I want to talk a little bit
5:50
about Flavor during the roasting process since that was more
5:54
about identifying flavors and profiles and sugars during the
5:58
Brewing process. How do you identify and develop
6:03
a flavor of a coffee? Bean during that roasting
6:06
process. I've seen the roasting process
6:09
in person I've seen you roasting where you taking beans out of a
6:12
sack and you're putting them in a hopper and it's going into a
6:14
machine and you've got a computer screen.
6:17
How are you, identifying? Which flavors are our most?
6:22
Most kind of, I don't want to say infused with.
6:23
That's not wrong word are naturally.
6:25
Occurring in those coffee beans. And then how do you as The
6:28
Roaster? Develop them, as you're going
6:30
along? I know, I've been roasting only
6:32
for a couple of months relative to some some other more
6:35
experienced Roasters. I did try to take a pretty deep
6:39
dive down the rabbit hole of the science of it when we're getting
6:42
into it. And there's always further to
6:44
go. So I'm certainly not the most
6:46
most educated, but we have kind of developed our own
6:49
understanding of and philosophy of how to approach that.
6:53
And I know you have a roasting expert that is um, guest
6:55
episodes on the show and I have a lot of respect for serious
6:58
Imran and she's just a wonderful gal anyway, so I don't want to
7:02
contradict anything. She might have told you when I
7:04
doubt that I will, but I just want to give the full disclaimer
7:08
on my limitations before I get started on this one, but also
7:13
you're in different situations where Siri works for lofty
7:15
coffee, which has multiple locations, and she's working on
7:18
a bigger scale and you're a new Young roaster.
7:21
And I'm going to ask her the same question.
7:22
So I think it's really interesting to see how you As
7:25
will have different answers or different perspectives, based on
7:28
both your size and the equipment you're working on which is
7:31
different. I know lofty, just expanded to a
7:34
big luring machine and you're working on a Dedrick and so
7:38
there's all kinds of little twists and turns at each place
7:41
is going to have that's unique to you.
7:42
Your if I'm not mistaken, I think your machine is propane
7:45
which is another another variable as well.
7:47
So I think it's fair to say that that we can have different
7:51
answers but also I think a lot of overlap Yeah.
7:55
And I'm sure that Syria has read a lot of the same information I
7:58
have, and is sort of seeing a lot of the same things I have,
8:01
but to get back to your question.
8:03
Rather than just the disclaimer part, our roasting philosophy is
8:09
very much modeled on Something that I heard at another roaster,
8:14
I worked at but is pretty simple.
8:16
We try to roast the coffee to its peak of flavor and no
8:21
further. You know, I've had some
8:23
experiences of having the same green coffee roasted by
8:27
different Roasters that were all.
8:29
Excellent. The one that comes to mind is a
8:31
directly sourced. Kenyan coffee can coffee sourced
8:36
by a partnership between for Roasters and the two that really
8:41
stood out to me. Was Bird Rock where I was
8:43
working at the time and klatch coffee.
8:47
They both have this Kenya coffee called Kenya mom, aqua and The
8:53
Taste profile on the two of them was different similar, but
8:56
different because the green coffee was exactly the same.
8:59
It come over to the same. It had been divided up equally
9:03
and much as I love bird rocks roasts, especially at the time.
9:07
But still I thought klatches was better.
9:11
And you know, there's kind of this classic taste, we get out
9:14
of a lot of Kenya's, that sort of verges between like cranberry
9:19
and tomato, you know, can be like a sweet cherry tomatoes,
9:23
sort of, you know what the ideal version is, you know, you kind
9:26
of get this current red wine and cherry tomato thing.
9:32
And I'm the klatch one, rather than the Bird Rock one.
9:35
We got instead this really big beautiful kind of blood orange
9:40
and, I really definitely like the clutch one better and it was
9:46
interesting to me because I really got to see instead of
9:49
just being rosti or not roasty. I got to see these kind of
9:53
different taste developed from the same being, you know, when
9:57
roasting coffee as far as I've been able to, determine there's
10:01
sort of two large approaches to it, you can break coffee down,
10:06
coffee roasting that the process of coffee.
10:09
Roasting from the minute, you put it in the machine.
10:11
The minute you You get out into sort of three stages and some of
10:15
them are sort of slightly poorly named or referred to, or thought
10:22
of like the first stage is the drying phase and that's poorly
10:28
called, because the coffee is actually drying and losing water
10:33
weight throughout the entire roasting process.
10:35
So, to think of it or even to refer to it as mainly occurring.
10:39
During the first third, is sort of doing yourself a disservice
10:42
Us, but we have to call that first third, something.
10:44
So we're going to call the drying phase is.
10:46
The second Fizz is usually referred to as the my yard phase
10:50
the caramelization phase. And so that's when the sugars
10:55
that are naturally present in this seed of the coffee fruit
10:59
coffee beans are binding to amino acids, and proteins and
11:03
caramelizing. And it doesn't actually make the
11:06
coffee sweeter caramel is actually less sweet than the
11:09
sugar that goes into making caramel.
11:11
But it's a more Complex and more, satisfying flavor,
11:14
generally and more nuanced flavor.
11:17
And so the third phase is the development phase which is
11:21
basically sort of trying to cook the inside of the bean.
11:24
And this is my understanding. Obviously I want to keep
11:27
throwing disclaimers in here, cook the inside of the Coffee,
11:29
Bean as close to similarity, to the way you've cooked, the
11:34
outside of the Coffee Bean as possible.
11:37
It's never going to be possible to cook.
11:38
It. Exactly evenly all the way
11:40
through it with Supplying heat through convection conduction
11:45
and Radiance just as a visual. I'm I'm gonna say this out loud
11:50
because it's how I'm imagining it.
11:52
But like if someone were cooking a steak for example, and you
11:56
have kind of rare, medium cooked.
12:00
Yeah. Where there's pink in the middle
12:02
or red in the middle, and there's kind of varying levels.
12:04
You're working at heat is working its way through the
12:06
being from the outside in, right?
12:08
And I usually use steak as my example, just like with cooking,
12:12
Steak, you usually want to sear the outside more and cook.
12:17
The inside less, you kind of want to be the opposite of the
12:21
Coffee Bean and you want to cook the inside as close to
12:24
similarly, to the outside as possible.
12:25
You want it really evenly done and it's not really possible
12:31
with the tools that we have, but that's okay because we still get
12:36
great results obviously. So, if we have these three
12:39
phases, we have the drying phase, the, my art phase.
12:42
And the development phase, one of the two main approaches to
12:46
Coffee. Roasting involves sort of
12:49
manipulating those phases. And usually it's you know
12:53
extending the my yard phase both main approaches to Coffee
12:57
Roasting that I know of both want to sort of lock in a
13:02
minimum on the development phase, you always want to be
13:05
cooking. Your coffee being evenly and you
13:08
always want to be drying out the coffee, so it's really has to do
13:10
with that manipulation of that. Art fits, we want to extend it,
13:14
we want to shorten it to develop different caramelization of
13:17
sugars and the other, you know, approach to Coffee Roasting that
13:21
I've generally follow is to really control the curve and
13:27
slope of the rate of Rise which is you know, and I know you said
13:32
you in our last episode that you didn't do too much science in
13:36
school, I don't know how much Matthew did, but the calculus I
13:41
did much. Unless, you know, the rate of
13:44
Rise sounds kind of, you know, complicated when I refer to as
13:47
the derivative of the being curved temperature, but it's
13:51
pretty simple. It's basically how quickly are
13:54
the beans heating up and we use software to track that for us.
13:58
And we're very lucky to be in the era that we're in where we
14:02
can have software that can do this sort of calculation and
14:06
near real-time. But by controlling the slope of
14:09
that rate of Rise curve ensuring its you know, Smoothly declining
14:13
over time and that we're sort of hitting our minimum development
14:16
percentages. And so, and and just to
14:19
interrupt that's, you're essentially saying that you are
14:22
heating the beans up and you have a third.
14:25
There's essentially, a thermometer types of thing in
14:27
there, that's tracking on the software, so you're watching the
14:31
temperature of those beans, go up, and you're trying to do it
14:33
as evenly as possible. And then, at some point that
14:37
starts coming down, right? Well, it's going to be coming
14:40
down the whole, almost the whole time.
14:42
Basically the whole time you're roasting, so you can imagine
14:45
that the inside of the roaster, you know, I love to use these
14:47
analogies and stuff. Help me understand that.
14:49
I like to describe the people inside of The Roaster, you can
14:53
think of, as like, boiling water and if I throw an ice cube into
14:59
that boiling water, it's going to melt real fast.
15:02
This is the bigger the temperature difference.
15:04
Between two things, the quicker, the temperature change is going
15:08
to be between those two things. So if I have room temperature
15:12
water and I throw an ice cube in there, it's not going to melt as
15:15
fast. If I have really cold water, and
15:18
I put an ice cube in there. Ice cubes going to take a really
15:21
long time to melt. So, when I put my room,
15:24
temperature coffee beans into the very hot inside of The
15:29
Roaster, they're gaining heat very quickly.
15:34
And as the beans get hotter and hotter and Browner and Browder,
15:38
they are now getting closer and closer to the temperature that
15:41
is the inside of the coffee roaster.
15:44
And so the closer, those two temperatures, get slower, the
15:47
beans are raising in temperature, so, that is our
15:50
rate of Rise. How quickly, the beans are
15:52
getting hotter, is decreasing, over the course of our roast.
15:57
They start off getting very hot very quickly and as they get
16:01
hotter, they stopped increasing in temperature quite Quickly.
16:06
Since we approach it with that sort of second philosopher or
16:08
not really trying to manipulate the phases as much.
16:12
We're really just trying to control that rate of rise and
16:14
sure that it is smoothly declining and doesn't have any
16:17
big jumps or changes in it. We can basically control the
16:22
taste that we're trying to get out of the roasting, by doing a
16:25
lot of quality control on tasting, what our endpoint looks
16:30
like. So, If I have a smooth inclining
16:33
RoR, if I have my adequate you know, or ideal development and
16:39
the coffee is this color or this temperature or some combination
16:44
of both. And I try the coffee at a
16:46
variety of those different color temperatures.
16:50
Then I can say that this is the one I like the best.
16:53
And so for us, what we really do is we dial in those things, we
16:57
try a couple different ones of the the final result is Is light
17:02
dark, kind of goes. And what you're saying there is
17:05
you are actually roasting them and then sampling them tasting,
17:08
the end product. Exactly.
17:10
And then we say, if usually, if it's too light or roast, we're
17:14
looking for under roasted tastes underdeveloped, tastes we're
17:18
looking for tastes of grass, Enos any kind of vegetable
17:23
sometimes peanutty? You can be something that we're
17:25
looking to get rid of depending on the origin and then on the
17:28
other end of things, we're looking for roastiness to we
17:30
taste any kind of hint. Out of smoke or carbon.
17:34
And so for us that's sort of the roast profile that we aim at is
17:38
to roast the coffee to its peak of flavor and no further.
17:41
So we roast it until we roast it out.
17:43
All undesirable flavors and we stop roasting before we get any
17:48
undesirable flavors. So you know, in our last episode
17:52
we were talking about the refractometer.
17:54
We talked about extracting all the good stuff that we want and
17:58
stopping before we extract any kind of bad stuff.
18:01
Well, Same kind of philosophy can be used in The Roasting.
18:05
We're, we're sort of roasting to get all the best but none of the
18:10
none of the worst. That being said, I gave an
18:14
example earlier of this Kenya mock with at two different,
18:18
excellent award-winning Roasters and roasted neither of them were
18:23
roasty had any carbon or Smoky taste them at all and neither of
18:28
them were underdeveloped or under roasted So how did One
18:33
have a different taste than the other chances are that it had a
18:38
bit to do with that sort of phase manipulation and
18:43
manipulating largely? The my art fits, we actually had
18:48
you know a really good success with one of our first copies we
18:50
roasted which is also a Kenya coffee and one of the things I
18:53
really struggle with and appreciating Kenya coffee is
18:57
even though they're one of my favorite Origins is, I don't
18:59
like things that Tomato flavor. I don't like that and coffee and
19:04
it can be, you know, good, but it's not something that I enjoy.
19:09
So I'm always trying to find a good Kenya, that doesn't have
19:12
that. And so when I found a good
19:14
Kenya, I wanted to make sure that I didn't roast it in a way
19:18
that had that we kind of learned some interesting things through
19:22
a bit of a happy accident. Our roaster, was having problems
19:25
early on, it wasn't getting high enough gas pressure from the
19:28
propane that you mentioned. And so our rows times were
19:32
longer than they really should have been, we had our ideal, you
19:36
know, rate of Rise was, you know, nice and perfectly.
19:39
You know, curved. Whatever straight or whatever it
19:42
was, we had our development percentage locked in.
19:44
We tried different temperatures and we found one that we really
19:47
like temperatures and colors. And it found one that we really
19:50
liked and it wasn't tomato at all and the rose time was pretty
19:53
long. This is especially interesting
19:57
to me because one of you know, the authorities on coffee,
20:02
roasting is a guy named Scott Rayo.
20:05
And he's well I won't say anything personally because it's
20:09
you know, but he definitely is a very knowledgeable and very
20:14
opinionated and he likes to share a coffee knowledge as a
20:18
way to increase his his consultancy business and his
20:22
book sales. And so, he shared this piece of
20:25
Have your knowledge on his social media recently about
20:27
roasting where he said that the roast time, shouldn't really
20:32
have much of an effect on the coffee flavor assuming that it's
20:36
within, you know, sort of sort of relative range and assuming
20:41
that you get all the other things, right?
20:44
And yet, we have this wildly different experience with our
20:46
Kenya or when The Roaster was broken.
20:49
It was roasting for too long and we loved the coffee and then we
20:53
fixed the coffee roaster. And we were able to roast this
20:57
Kenya, just like you know some other sources had recommended we
20:59
roast this Kenya and it roasted very quickly it took on this
21:03
heat without scorching or or getting any kind of carbonized
21:06
tastes and then roasted fairly quickly.
21:08
We had all our other numbers and it was tomatoey, we were like,
21:13
what the heck, man? And we tried a couple different
21:16
temperatures and colors, you know?
21:18
And and, and still have this tomatoey note to it.
21:21
We're like gosh, darn it. And so, One of the few times
21:27
when we kind of identified a certain taste that we liked or
21:30
didn't like and were able to manipulate something while
21:32
keeping everything in these good Realms, then basically what we
21:37
did was we extended the roast Time by applying less heat early
21:40
on and we were able to change that tomatoey note into
21:44
something much more like a black cherry red wine, kind of tasting
21:48
note. That was really enjoyable to me
21:51
and to all the other people that can't stand the taste of tomato
21:54
and their Kenya. And so it was awesome because we
21:56
have this kind of happy accident that let us figure it out.
21:59
But when I sort of dive into why did this happen?
22:02
And how was this a deliberate choice that were able to make?
22:07
It probably comes back to that first philosophy of coffee
22:10
roasting of Fizz manipulation by having a longer roast time.
22:16
I was able to actually spend more time in the my yard phase
22:20
while achieving the same goals of a smoothly declining RoR and
22:26
an adequate development percentage.
22:28
And so that extended my art even though it was really just an
22:31
extended roast time, overall actually eliminated, this taste
22:35
that we didn't like and created taste that we did.
22:37
Like, but generally speaking, the overall Rose philosophy of
22:41
what kind of flavors we want to get out of coffee and how do we
22:43
get them specifically? Will you taste the coffee?
22:47
We determine if the green coffee has any flaws that we don't
22:50
think are that we think are recoverable.
22:55
We decide to buy that coffee because it's so minimally flawed
22:59
or you know, not flawed at all and because it has such good
23:02
qualities and then we roast it to the point where those good
23:04
qualities are all we taste and bad qualities.
23:07
Are not will be taste. That make sense.
23:10
Yeah, I think so, just because I'm curious how many times our I
23:15
know you can't be specific because every copy is going to
23:17
be different but different, but how much of time are you
23:20
spending on this sampling? Testing process before you think
23:24
you've dialed something in? Is there kind of a, you know,
23:27
you're going to at least create this many data points before you
23:29
go forward? Or is it possible that you could
23:33
do it once and be like, no, this is it.
23:35
I'm done now. I read recently that creating
23:40
quality control protocol for your Roastery, can be one of the
23:43
more difficult challenging standard operating procedures to
23:47
create. And I definitely agree with
23:49
that. And I think that the quality
23:51
control aspect is just so important and any decent or
23:56
successful roaster will tell you that even if it's, you know, a
24:00
bigger chain with kind of what we would, determine as lower
24:04
quality coffee that, Aspect of things is so important, just
24:09
from a consistency, consistency standpoint alone.
24:12
Then something you really have to have dialed in as a system
24:15
and as a procedure that you do regularly and given that we're
24:20
working with an organic product in sometimes not ideal
24:24
conditions. You have to be able to adapt to
24:28
change and so I would never say to any of our coffee is that its
24:34
final best level. It could be that as the green,
24:37
once the green hits three or four months old, it might be
24:40
better than when I first got it. And I don't think that's
24:43
generally true, but maybe because I have gotten used to it
24:48
more or because the roaster had a flake of carbon stuck in an
24:53
intake valve, and there's more gas coming through.
24:56
Now, you just Kind of never know, but for someone as small
25:00
as we are, you know, we have some extra challenges in terms
25:03
of infrastructure, where one of the top recommendations for
25:07
getting consistent consistency, out of roasting is to have
25:11
climate controlled green, coffee storage.
25:14
And I know, one small roaster around around our size.
25:17
Locally took a bunch of money recently.
25:21
Been invested into building a climate-controlled green coffee
25:24
storage facility. Inside.
25:27
They're roasting inside the Roasterie.
25:29
We don't have that luxury at the moment, so if the day is really
25:34
cold, are green, coffee starts at a different temperature, than
25:37
if the day is really hot, and that's going to have a really
25:40
big impact on how the coffee roasts that day.
25:43
You know, I want to create exactly the same coffee product
25:46
every time with this, you know, excellent green that we've
25:49
managed green coffee that we've managed to find and Source but I
25:54
take a bit of a different philosophy to it.
25:56
Given our limitations, and given just my own limitations as a
26:01
human and say, is there a range? Just like when I do in the cafe
26:06
and say, okay, if I'm serving at 18 to 22 percent, I know it's
26:09
probably good enough for most people, it's gonna be great.
26:12
Is it perfect? Is it the best that it can be?
26:15
Well they might be it might be but I have to accept that some
26:20
days. It's maybe going to be slightly
26:22
less good or slightly better and maybe I've never had the best
26:26
cup of coffee out of that Kenya. Or that Columbia Gas show Blend
26:30
or that Guatemala that there can be.
26:32
Maybe maybe there is a better way to do it and so I have to
26:35
always be willing to adapt and change and I have to always be
26:38
tasting my product and, you know, that the Guatemala that we
26:41
were serving for a long. Is another great example of sort
26:43
of deliberate changes where the coffee was a little bit more
26:47
delicate than we were expecting. When we first put it in the
26:49
roaster and so early too. Early, high temperatures tended
26:53
to create this very, very slight scorching of the tips of the
26:57
coffee being known as dipping because the heat kind of
27:00
transfers out these edges. And so we almost never were able
27:05
to reduce or eliminate this this tipping in the first couple
27:09
weeks of are serving was coffee but we roasted it.
27:12
Well, Well and we tasted it and we freaking love this coffee.
27:14
I mean, it was just awesome and we just love serving it.
27:18
And so over time, we kept trying to sort of tweak the roast
27:20
profile little by little always maintaining that it was good
27:23
until we, you know, reduced or eliminated this tipping and we
27:27
were able to do it using a technique called the soak that I
27:30
won't really go into too much but that sort of works well on
27:34
smaller Roasters like ours and we managed to get this coffee
27:38
roasted without tipping and all other numbers were the same, all
27:41
our all our other Results for the same.
27:44
Same color on the digital analyzing device that we have
27:48
all this all this different things.
27:50
And yet when we did a quality control taste, when we
27:53
eliminated the Tipping the coffee, didn't taste as good, it
27:56
tasted slightly under roasted and underdeveloped.
27:59
So we realized we had to change our other profiles to compensate
28:03
for this correction that we had already made.
28:06
So it's really all about just continually re-evaluating Andre
28:11
tasting and retesting, and that's the only way to get the
28:14
best results. And that's the only way to
28:16
ensure consistent. Good results is just to have a
28:18
really good system of quality control.
28:20
In place and to always be open to the thought that this coffee
28:24
could be better. Well, I think that is a great
28:27
place to end this episode. That was a lot of info and I
28:33
think it's really an awareness piece both as a consumer and as
28:37
someone who cares about coffee and also, for for you that we've
28:40
set it on this show between you. And I a bunch of times.
28:44
This is an organic product that is constantly changing and the
28:47
variables as you just mentioned. Mature climate age.
28:52
There's all these different things that can affect your cup
28:54
of coffee. So that consistency, that is one
28:59
very challenging to create. But also I and this is just kind
29:03
of a personal opinion. I'm not, I don't want to put
29:05
words in your mouth, but I think it's kind of interesting to say
29:09
I went to this coffee shop and I tried this coffee in the first
29:14
week that I was roasted. And then I tried it again a
29:17
month later in a month later. And I might be getting they
29:19
might be the And beans, but a different flavor experience for
29:22
me because of all the different changes that have happened.
29:26
And I guess, I think I would look at.
29:27
That is something interesting and fun as opposed to a flaw.
29:32
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think a really excellent, really,
29:35
really experienced roaster. You know, with hundreds and even
29:41
thousands of roasts under their belt.
29:42
You know, can can arguably create a pretty close to Ideal
29:47
roast the first or second time on a Batch of coffee, but
29:52
there's just so many. Variables that are.
29:58
Basically impossible to account for, you know, I once read that,
30:02
you know, all coffee is a blent, you know.
30:04
You think you have this single origin thing, you think you have
30:07
this this single unique homogenized thing and it's never
30:11
going to be that every cherry on each of these shrubs is
30:15
different. Every shrub is slightly
30:16
different and at the farm level. It's, you know, pretty
30:21
impressive. How much they are able to
30:23
produce consistency and it's hard for us to know exactly What
30:28
happened there. I mean I know of one farm that
30:31
separates out different varieties and you know one
30:34
variety is this very distinct big beam variety.
30:38
And a couple of years, you buy the same coffee and you open up
30:40
the bag of that big bean variety and they're all big beans and
30:43
it's great. Little one.
30:45
Here, you open up the bag and you can see some smaller beans
30:47
in there and you realize that two of these varieties have
30:50
gotten mixed at some level. And how do I know whether that's
30:54
one bag or part of one bag? Or all the bags that I Got that
30:58
year how do I even know you know to check every I can't check
31:02
every single Bean that goes in my roaster.
31:05
You know you just never know what's going to be actually
31:08
going in there. Even if you have a good
31:10
relationship with a really excellent producer.
31:12
There's just, there's just something that could happen that
31:15
you just don't know about and you have to be ready for that.
31:18
And, you know, I wish I was already at the point where I had
31:21
thousands of roasts under my belt and I could say that the
31:23
first or second roast of any coffee that I produce, is going
31:26
to be really Excellent them close to the best one but I'm
31:31
happy to still be learning. I'm really enjoying the process
31:35
and I love the idea of correlating taste to data.
31:40
Okay, I did this with the coffee.
31:41
This is how it tasted. How did that change from the
31:45
week before, or the day before, or the day before that?
31:49
And then learning and growing along with the coffee that I'm
31:52
producing. Very cool Chris.
31:54
I'm going to marinate on all of that, and come up with a
31:57
question that will hopefully be as insightful for you next week.
32:02
That's my goal. There are a treat to chat with
32:04
Ryan and I'm just very grateful for you.
32:06
And, you know, if your mom is listening, I just want her to
32:09
know that I am nice to Ryan pretty often.
32:23
To recap, there are generally three phases to roasting a batch
32:27
of coffee beans. Stage 1 is the drying stage,
32:30
which is poorly named because drying happens throughout the
32:34
process. It is the first time the
32:36
temperature of the beans is rising.
32:38
It'll be the biggest spike in temperature.
32:40
Change when looking at the rate of Rise, which is represented in
32:44
the The Roasting software as a line.
32:45
Graph rate of Rise is the measurement of how quickly the
32:49
beans are heating up. Those beans are heating up the
32:52
entire time. They are in The Roaster, but
32:54
they are not increasing in heat as quickly the further into the
32:58
roasted they get. So the chart will be a steep
33:01
Spike at first and then a gradual decline as the
33:04
temperature continues to rise, but does so at a slower Pace,
33:09
stage 2 is the mired phase. My art is spelled, like male
33:13
lard. Just in case you're looking it
33:15
up, this is the caramelization phase, which doesn't necessarily
33:18
mean that you are making the beans sweeter.
33:21
But it is the period in which the roaster can most enhance the
33:25
flavors found naturally in the coffee.
33:28
At this point, the rate of Rise has peaked and The Roaster is
33:31
trying to increase the temperature of the coffee,
33:33
beans, as smoothly, and consistently as possible.
33:36
The rate of Rise line graph will look like a long Bunny Hill
33:40
slope coming down from the peak stage 3 is Is the development
33:45
phase where the bean is cooking and The Roaster is trying to get
33:47
the inside of the bean cooked to match the outside as evenly as
33:52
possible. Like the reverse of how a master
33:54
griller might cook a steak, Chris mentioned tipping as an
33:58
issue. His roasting team was facing
34:00
when dealing with some equipment issues and the edges of the
34:03
beans were cooking faster than the rest of the bean from the
34:07
context, it made sense, but I looked it up on the Sweet
34:09
Maria's website anyway, so to confirm a Sweet Maria's.com.
34:14
Tipping refers to the roast error that can be discerned by
34:17
inspecting. The roasted coffee where the
34:20
ends of the elongated Bean appear burnt.
34:23
It goes on to say that the impacts can be easily tasted in
34:26
a cup of coffee, often, as burnt or smoked flavors, or a lack of
34:30
overall, sweetness tipping off and happens as the result of an
34:33
overheated roast environment. For example, the initial drum
34:37
temperature is too high or an overcharged roast rum.
34:41
Which means they added too much coffee to the drum Or possibly
34:45
not enough air movement during the roasting process to me.
34:49
It seems like there are a lot of ways to mess up a batch of
34:52
coffee beans. But like, all things there are
34:55
varying degrees of messing things up.
34:57
A coffee that is roasted only to 80 or 90 percent of its
35:00
potential. May still be a damn good cup of
35:03
coffee. What's so unique about coffee
35:05
roasting? Is that reaching the peak
35:08
flavors of bean can offer? Depends on so many variables
35:12
because it is a continually Jing organic product, how the beans
35:16
are stored. The temperature, they are stored
35:18
at the humidity that week or the sunlight coming in through a
35:22
window onto one corner of the bag, of coffee, can impact how
35:26
those beans evolve. And that isn't even accounting
35:29
for aging beans from the same bag that are roasted at
35:33
different points in their life span may have some differing
35:36
flavor characteristics trying to roast the perfect batch of
35:39
coffee is an absolutely crazy Endeavor so I'm glad there are
35:44
Like Chris who have devoted their careers to doing so, and I
35:47
get to enjoy the fruits of their labor and he isn't the only one.
35:51
This shows industry partners are some of the best of the best at
35:54
offering up coffees, that range from great for every morning
35:58
drinking to holy shit, this may be the best cup of coffee ever
36:01
brewed ever. I always linked to the roast
36:04
industry Partners in the show is podcast notes but if you can't
36:08
find them where you are listening, you can also click
36:11
into any article, on roast westcoast.com.
36:14
They'll be there at the bottom, so a deserve and shout out to
36:17
ignite, Coffee Roasters, Cafe litter, most her Coffee Company,
36:22
coffee cycle, roasting leap coffee, zoom bar, coffee and
36:25
tea, Maria coffee steady-state, coffee, roasting Camp, Coffee
36:30
Company, first alight, whiskey and Cape Horn coffee importers.
36:35
I'll be at Camp coffee company in a few weekends covid
36:38
permitting. Mark your calendars for Saturday
36:40
morning, February 19th from 9:00 to noon, I'll be there.
36:44
Are with stickers, drinking a great cup of coffee and
36:47
interviewing customers to be featured on a future episode of
36:50
the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
36:54
I also want to thank everyone who has signed up for the paid
36:56
subscription to this show. You're a huge reason why this
36:59
show is getting made and I can continue these efforts to share
37:02
the stories found in the world of coffee one.
37:05
Last time head to roast westcoast.com for those links
37:09
and to check out the other coffee content, including show,
37:12
updates, Coffee News and coffee. Even you can also send me your
37:16
coffee questions on Instagram at roast West Coast.
37:19
I'll ask our coffee experts, as many as I can, Chris will be
37:23
back next week and I warn you now.
37:26
I know that he gets a little Rowdy when I asked him about the
37:28
topic of Bulletproof Coffee and if you want some more in-depth
37:33
yet, still accessible coffee education, Chris is hosting
37:36
coffee smarter, 101 classes, covering chemistry history and
37:40
economy covering chemistry history and the economy.
37:44
A of coffee along with some flavor profile.
37:46
Sampling, you can get tickets on coffee cycle roasting.com, but
37:51
don't wait till later because all of the classes so far, have
37:54
sold out. I'll leave you with this
37:56
question that came up earlier and is going to sit on my brain
37:59
for a bit, is all coffee a blend.
38:02
It's an interesting way to look at Coffee considering all the
38:05
focus we put on single origin products.
38:08
Thank you for listening everyone.
38:10
This episode of the roast West Coast coffee podcast is Was has
38:15
been written produced and recorded by me, Brian Walt.
38:19
I hope this show is found you happy healthy and with at least
38:22
enough sanity and coffee to make it through the day.
38:25
And please always tip your Baristas now more than ever and
38:29
be sure to drink. Good coffee.