high grown/hard beans and for soft/low grown beans

[jasonclick]

Ok... newbie question. I was reading "Roasting Guide for a Rao Curve" and it was mentioned different settings for high grown/hard beans and for soft/low grown beans. My question is how do you know if you have a high grown/hard beans, etc? are all beans from certain regions the same or is it up to the descriptions of where beans are purchased to tell you? Thanks.

[edtbjon]

The type of coffee, washed-natural-etc is "one" variable. The grow height is another. Variety is also part of the eqauation...
You should be able to get this info when you buy the beans from most suppliers.

You can find very good information on SweetMarias and also on this CoffeeShrub page. (CoffeeShrub is essentially the "professional" side of SweetMarias.)
Joe Marrocco have also talked a lot about this in the various Roasting videos over at MillCityRoasters.com.

[Gregr]

Lately we've been seeing a lot of natural or honey processed coffees from places that traditionally only produce high grown/hard beans-- they will roast more like a natural. There are generalizations you can make about different areas. For instance, central American coffees are almost all high grown hard beans except for these new lots I mentioned, same with Columbia and a lot of east Africans. Africa is tricky though- it's mostly high grown/hard but you see a lot of dry processed coffee from Ethiopia and Yemen and you don't want to treat them the same as a hard bean.
Indos are pretty much all soft. Brazil and Peru are more soft than hard. Island coffees- Hawaii, etc. are soft.
Those high grown hard beans are a lot more forgiving than softer beans. The soft ones take heat on faster so I start at a lower charge temp and take a little longer to get to 300F (maybe a whole minute longer). After that I try to do the same as with hard beans until first crack is over then usually end the roast with less development. The reason for that is two-fold-- natural/soft beans take heat on much faster at the end so you can very easily see the bean temp shoot up higher and faster than you want. Second reason is those naturals usually have lots of fruit type notes that you want to preserve and the more development you have the more the flavor shifts from fruity to caramel or dark chocolate or beyond.

[jasonclick]

I ordered beans before I got my roaster. Are these the high hard beans?

https://www.royalcoffee.com/crown-analysis-cj1117-ethiopia-yirgacheffe-birhanu-family-double-washed-crown-jewel/

[Gregr]

lol- they never make it easy do they? Double washed this time but definitely high grown hard beans. And this is one that you would probably enjoy with a lighter roast to retain those floral notes that make coffees from that area special and unique. If I were planning a strategy for this one I'd go a little slow to 300 (like 5:00ish), then 4 minutes to first crack then drop with about 2-2:15 minutes of development, hoping for a drop temp around 410-415F. Probably a lot of people would drop it right after first crack finishes but it's gonna be mighty bright so personally I'd go just a little longer.

[jasonclick]

thanks for the help!