how to sample roast

[folkery]

I had a local roaster give me some tips on sample roasting 5oz and charging at 300F

what do you guys do for samples?

[folkery]

my heat settings

2.0 drop
2.5 300f
2.0 355f
1.5 400f
FC 7 minutes 1.0
7.45 seconds 0kpa
8 drop

[edtbjon]

First, what is your intentions with "sample roasts"? If there's a definition of "sample roast", it's a specified protocol for trying out small samples of various beans to compare them before buying bags, pallets or even containers of a specific bean. (SCAx does have these protocols...)
If your intention is "profiling roasts", trying to find the best way of roasting a specific bean, it's a different procedure altogether, being very roaster (in this case and this forum, to the Huky) specific. My best advice here is to read, digest, re-read and apply the Rob Hoos book on profiling.
Apart from that you can do a search on my Sample Roast thread, posted some 2 years ago in this very forum. The only thing I'd do different now is to charge at a lower charge temp...

[folkery]

I'll be roasting to compare - they will all be cinnamon.

I have read Rob Hoos' book!
And I will for sure check what you have wrote. I will also like to learn profiling for each bean.

[Wayneg1]

I think sample roasts are also used by those using larger roasters as a means of defining the proper profile before they commit to a much larger roast of say 5,10 or 20+ pounds.  I consider all of my Huky roasts to be sample roasts. 

[folkery]

First, what is your intentions with "sample roasts"? If there's a definition of "sample roast", it's a specified protocol for trying out small samples of various beans to compare them before buying bags, pallets or even containers of a specific bean. (SCAx does have these protocols...)
If your intention is "profiling roasts", trying to find the best way of roasting a specific bean, it's a different procedure altogether, being very roaster (in this case and this forum, to the Huky) specific. My best advice here is to read, digest, re-read and apply the Rob Hoos book on profiling.
Apart from that you can do a search on my Sample Roast thread, posted some 2 years ago in this very forum. The only thing I'd do different now is to charge at a lower charge temp...

Do you have a link to your posts on this subject?

[folkery]

I think one of my biggest issues right now as a roaster is understanding how to profile a coffee besides it's charge temp. Even charge temp I'm in the grey. I need to learn more. I know denser beans require higher charges, but I would like insight into the affects of acidity, body, sweetness and flavor it can modify.

In Rob Hoos' book he talks about lengthening the Maillard reactions. Does this mean a roast can still have the right curves and declining ror just by gradually pull heat back?

[edtbjon]

First, the link is here: Sample roasting with the Huky.
IMHO, I think it's important to use the proper term when discussing something. What I'm getting at is the term "Sample roasting", which in the business is used for comparing coffees before deciding to buy whatever amount of greens. Profile or Production roasting is when you tweak the roast controls to produce the best possible roast for a particular coffee. While both these roasts kind of implies small charges they have very different purposes.
I've written about this before and it took me quite some time to really get the importance of it. Hankua have always advocated a lower charge temp than what Mr Li recommended. (For starters, solid drums typically needs much less charge heat.) After some experimenting I found that charging a full pound at around 150-160C (300-320F) gave me the results I wanted. A typical roast goes as follows: Charge at 150C. After 60-70sec I fire up the IR burner at 4kPa. TP comes at around 1.30 and 70-75C. This will give me a drying phase at around 6 minutes. Now, when approaching DE (150C/300F) I set up the rest of the roast. (I.e how much should I reduce the heat to get to my intended Maillard phase time and consequently the development time.)
My profiling roasts should follow the same pattern, with even lower charge temps, to "mimic" a full charge roast. Else I find it hard to get something useable out of my profiling roasts. In short, you have to from the full production charge size down to the small profile size to set it up. If you do it the other way and find a nice profile that you want to use for a full size charge but find yourself with not having enough heat, all that time profiling is wasted.