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.
I was roasting my beans too long if I wanted a medium roast. After first crack he would roast for just a few more seconds while I was roasting up to second crack and then stopping. My roasts were closer to dark roasts than medium roasts. Also, his roaster measures bean temperature and incoming air temperature. It would be great if I could figure out a way to measure bean temperature instead of incoming air temperature but for now incoming air temperature is all I have. The incoming air temperature at the start of the roast was around 320 F. It slowly climbed to 420 F by the end of the roast. This caused me to change my roast profiles to start at a lower temperature and increase the temperature gradually.
Below is one of the roasts for the Costa Rican beans. The temperature is increased slowly causing first crack to occur seven minutes into the roast. Roast was stopped shortly after first crack.
Coffee sat for five days. Brewed and it is delicious. It is light at first, with some slight floral and nutty flavors, and finishes very clean. The flavors aren't strong but very pleasant. This would be a great daily drinker. Not roasting to second crack preserves more of the beans' intricacies. So glad I made these changes as I was getting frustrated with previous roasts not being as flavorful. It may be the beans but I think it was me roasting too fast and too long.
