Costa Rica Doca Estate (Len's Coffee)

For Christmas my son gave me several varieties of green beans. He did research to determine which beans received the best reviews. This was one of them.

I've made a couple of changes to how I roast after visiting a local coffee roaster who allowed me to observe him roast several batches. He uses a commercial roaster that can roast up to 11 pounds of coffee in one batch. He typically roasted 8-10 pounds depending on how much he planned to sell. I learned a couple key things from watching him roast.

Colombian Supremo (Portside Java)

I bought three (3) pounds of green beans from Portside Java a while back. I recently got around to roasting some of it. The Colombian beans have been the easiest to roast to produce a crisp, nutty cup of coffee.

Colombian Santa Barbara (Portside Java)

It's been quite a while since I roasted but I finally found some time. I did some experimenting with these Colombian beans as Colombian beans are the hardest to screw up. It doesn't seem to matter how you roast them they always turn out delicious. Welp, I was sure wrong about that. Apparently I can roast so bad that even Colombian beans don't taste all that hot.

Mexican Chiapas (Portside Java)

Roasted two batches of these beans and unfortunately, like the Panama roast logs, I cannot locate the roast logs.

After sitting for seven (7) days I brewed some coffee.  It is pleasant and smooth with very slight body. There is a slight trace of some nuttiness in the middle. I like this one better than the Panama. I'm wondering if I under roasted both of these since they both seem to lack some pizzazz. If I do these again I'll roast them longer after first crack.

Panama Boquete (Portside Java)

I roasted a couple batches of this coffee last Sunday. The roast charts have gone missing. If I find them I will update this post.

The roast profile was similar to the profile I used for the Ethiopian beans. Since this is the first time roasting this bean I will use another profile as a place to start.  The beans were roasted a little past first crack producing a city+ roast.

ELF Software Improvements

At the request of a fellow roaster I'm adding some clicking capabilities to the ELF control panel. I've already made the power button toggle the power when clicking on it and I'm working on adding some new buttons to increase and decrease the temperature. When I first designed the control panel I thought it would be easier to use keyboard shortcuts instead of looking for the mouse pointer in the middle of roasting. However, some folks, to my surprise, are running ELF on tablets and phones so using keyboard shortcuts is difficult. I should have the temperature buttons done in the next week or two. It doesn't take long, I just have to find the time to do it.

Papua New Guinea, Peaberry (Portside Java)

My wife informed me of a new coffee place that opened near where she works called "Portside Java". Apparently they roast their own coffee and sell green beans. She purchased three green varieties for me to try.

The first one I tried was a Peaberry from Papua New Guinea.