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Roasting for filter - need help!!

West VillageWest Village
edited January 1970 in Roasting - How To do it
I'm starting to explore the world of filter (V60) as a recent trip to Melbourne lit the flame for me.

I currently roast on a behmor and have had a few attempts at roasting for filter but I'm not sure how long to go past FC in order to avoid undevelopment issues yet roast light enough for filter? I'm currently hitting  development times of between 20-25% on 200g batches in the behmor pulling roasts around the 12-13ish min mark. I roast full power till just before FC then drop to 25% power till cool about 3 -3:30 mins after FC.

In the cup I'm still getting some strawy/sour kinda flavours but I'm not sure if this is attributed to poor V60 technique and grind ( of which I'm a very fresh rookie at) or if it is more my roasts,  completed probably about 120 roasts on the behmor so still pretty fresh on that also.

Currently have in stock some:
Ethiopia yirg
Kenya AA
Columbia pitalitto
Costa Rica terzazu
Guatemala Huey
PNG

2 filter roasts so far have been with the yirg and the Guatemalan

Any tips on roasting for filter would be greatly appreciated or alternatively tips for preparing better filter
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Comments

  • Brett HBrett H
    I would be interested to hear also as I've been roasting lighter for French Press.  I'm happy enough with my results as the straw/grassy flavours disappear after a couple of days but there's no exactness to what I do.  I just hope to draw out the roast after first crack and pull before second.
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  • West VillageWest Village
    Yeah keen to hear the thoughts of those far more experienced than myself. I'm absolutely aware of the subjectivity of roast depths both for individual preferences and the differences in roasting machines so I'm aware of the lack of transferable knowledge regarding specifics . I was more after General rules for roasting lighter AND avoiding undeveloped coffees in a behmor. If I were to say stop my roast say 15 secs after FC ended is that considered a light roast and would that be undeveloped? Can you develop a coffee well enough in a behmor and pull it that early (end of FC or 15-30 secs after) or do you really need to keep it in there longer? If I stick to the rosetta stone functions preset on the behmor do they land me in the right zone or light/medium and developed sufficiently?
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  • mycuppamycuppa
    The terminology "development" and it's relationship to 1st crack is utter nonsense. Coffee develops the moment dries out. Hence, thinking you can **measure** a coffee's development by signal of 1st crack is wrong........so very wrong. What happened leading up to 1st crack - that will answer your straw and sour question, not whether you think XX seconds past 1st crack is the key. Game time for coffee roasting starts the moment the beans enter a vessel.......it's about every single second, not just the signal from 1st crack. That's enough......you can work out the rest from here.
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  • Brett HBrett H
    Makes sense Jeff. The small domestic equipment we roast on with it's many and varied idiosyncrasies means that I don't get really hung up on repeatability or set roast milestones.  Just the taste. 
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  • Unknown
    Given how much has been written about roasting coffee (a lot of it is rubbish) sometimes it's helpful to be pointed towards where some useful information can be found. This site has a lot of very helpful stuff and will certainly be enough to get you started...  ;) https://www.perfectdailygrind.com/category/coffee-roasting/ Mal.
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  • West VillageWest Village
    Thanks guys appreciate the tips and will absolutely go back to the drawing board to evaluate pre-heats and play around with charge temps. Pulling another v60 this morning (technique slowly getting better and beans had a few more days to chill) I've noticed that there isn't a lot of acidity in the cup nor much sweetness or flavour for that matter ( given it's an Ethiopian I'm surprised) but that has also likely indicated to me that I've fluffed the roast. Is that what you guys would term a baked roast? The charge temps were non existent! And so was the flavour and acidity. So from my understanding based on the very helpful comments above and perusing that very helpful website Mal, I should be trying to get a higher charge temp to get better flavour development. And whilst that's something a bit more difficult to achieve consistently in a behmor I could still try to mitigate that via a pre-heat. Hopefully I'm kinda on the right track? If not, happy to have my thoughts corrected.
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  • West VillageWest Village
    In terms of pre-heating I might try pick up a $20 infrared thermometer of evil bay to see what sort of pre-heat temps you can get on the behmor and how much you lose when inserting the beans after the pre-heat.
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  • Unknown
    Yeah mate...  :-| I wouldn't worry about trying to use an IR thermometer for this. If you mount a t/couple in the roast chamber, coupled with an appropriate interface and software so that you can track the environment temperature, and maybe the exhaust temperature, this would give you more useful info to work with. Even better would be to mount a t/couple through the shaft of the drum such that the bean mass is always in contact with it, will be even more useful. Quite a few people have done this on the other Oz Coffee place...  ;) If your Behmor is still under warranty though, I'd just stick with the t/couple mounted in the recommended place by the Ozzy distributor...  8) Mal.
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  • Brett HBrett H
    Great stuff Mal, thanks!  I've got the new Behmor and despite the options to tweak during the roast I think we are hamstrung in regards to charge temperature.  The little unit can't possibly act like a big drum roaster so some accommodation of technique is required.  What that is I'm not exactly sure but I'm happy with my results. Perhaps I have a tin palate :D
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  • Unknown
    on 1525343142:
    I've got the new Behmor and despite the options to tweak during the roast I think we are hamstrung in regards to charge temperature.  The little unit can't possibly act like a big drum roaster so some accommodation of technique is required.  What that is I'm not exactly sure but I'm happy with my results. Perhaps I have a tin palate :D
    Yep...  :) Indeed mate. The Behmor is a great little home roaster and probably one of the best around for what it is. Loads of flexibility for those who like to experiment and straight forward options for those who just want to push a couple of buttons then be rewarded with some pretty darn nice coffee for a minimum expenditure of effort. Don't get too hung up on the techniques that are required when using a commercial style Drum Roaster. Different setups need different techniques and many are not transferable between different roaster designs, and even between different drum roaster designs. Find what works best with the roaster you have and then make the most with that. I've tried a few different designs over the years and scientifically developed the most satisfactory process for each, that gave me what I want in the cup. It's what I recommend to anyone who's serious about getting the best that a bean has to offer. I used a Behmor for quite some time too and developed a technique and profiles that worked best for me, with a range of different bean offerings over that time. If you're not totally happy with the quality of the result in the cup, then you need to seek knowledge, experiment, keep concise records and, dare I say it, practice...  :P Mal.
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  • artmanartman
    The bean temp probe is surprisingly easy to make and works great too. The only permanent “mod” is to drill the centre of the drum spindle, otherwise it’s easily reversible. I think it would be hard for someone to say that it effects the warranty? Cheers
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  • West VillageWest Village
    My behmor is still under warranty so I'm a bit reluctant to start playing with it just yet. For those who have thermocouples in their behmors, do you know what sort of temps you can reach in terms of a pre-heat and how much you might lose out the door when you open to load beans in? More so curious than any roasting application at this stage I'll be firing up the behmor today with a pre-heat and a slight power drop around the drying phase to slow down the caramelisation process. I'll see how that translates versus my prior roast of the Ethiopian.
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  • Brett HBrett H
    Wonderful posts folks... thank you!  Mal, I think your middle paragraph especially should be the mantra for home-roasters.  Excellent!
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