Roast #6 - El Salvador Fina Matalapa Bourbon +

[qarl]

Here is Roast #6... 290 grams of El Salvador Finca Matalapa Bourbon with 67 grams of leftover Guatemala HueHueTenango Finca Rosma thrown in there... so 357 grams total.

Charged at 473 and dropped at 428 degrees

I'm still getting a hang of managing the heat and fan... but I'm getting a declining ROR... things are happening within decent time periods and the end result is tasty.

I'm still learning about roasting in general.. but having fun.

[hankua]

Wow, that was a really long RD time! I'm assuming your target was a dark roast? Is there a reason you dropped in at 473f rather than a lower point like 350f?

[qarl]

Several things went wrong... Too much fan during drying phase

I dropped gauge pressure (i.e. temp) too much after crack so it was taking a long time to get up to the desired drop temp

And yes, I am roasting for espresso.

Lastly this is my 6th roast ever on a machine that can do something, so I am still learning EVERYTHING.

To get started, I have been following some advice from user=Kfir on HomeBarista to start out with this roaster...

300g

Preheat the roaster to 220-230c (ET), no airflow.
Turn around point usually at 1:35.
Drop the beans, keep the heat at 50% until BT=150c, no airflow (you can leave the "chimney" open).
At 150c BT (~3.5-4 minutes), increase the heat to 75% and use very low airflow or 6-7 sec of high airflow every minute.
at the start of FC (~198c BT, ~8-9 minutes) give a strong pulse of airflow for few seconds and reduce the heat to 50% till the end.

400-450g

Preheat the roaster to 270-280c (ET), no airflow.
Drop the beans, keep the heat at 70-75% until BT=150c, no airflow (you can leave the "chimney" open).
Turn around point usually at 1:35.
At 150c BT (~4.5-5 minutes), increase the heat to 95-100% and use very low airflow or 6-7 sec of high airflow every minute.
at the start of FC (~198c BT, ~10-11 minutes) give a strong pulse of airflow for few seconds and reduce the heat to 70-75% till the end.

[hankua]

I can drop in a full pound at 180c and hit 1st crack way too early. Maybe someone else can chime in on this; it's easier to start out low and increase heat than too hot and compensate.

So around 80-90c at the turn leaves plenty of room for adjustments in the drying stage to 150-160c. One type of profile or heat adjustment that will work is to set a target drop in temp and turning point/temp. Let's just say for example 150-180c; low air and 50mmaq gas till the turn (@ 80-90c). Then gas to 3-4kpa to 150c at @ 5 min. Reduce gas 1kpa at every 10*c giving a full air bump every minute like Kfir suggests then back to low air.

 At 180c the air can be increased to 25%, and 50% during roast development stage. Just before 1st crack the BT and ET will start to converge, with the ET slightly higher; and the roast development stage can be controlled to your liking. If your roasting light the finish temp. can be just a tad higher than 1st crack for whatever development time you choose.

Or one can hit 1st crack with more momentum, then slow it down after one minute and finish somewhere between 1st and 2nd in the 2-3 minute window.

By slowly and steadily reducing the heat input; starting with high heat after the turning point helps with several aspects. You can control the time to drying end by starting with a low turning point, reduce the ramp time by "stepping on the gas", and control the development phase by letting the roaster cool stepping down the heat input.

Just one method of running the Huky, that in principal is repeatable and should give consistent results using the IR propane burner w/Huky regulator.

I'm not saying this method is better than something else; just an example to share.  With a Huky specific forum; I/we can try out different roasting tricks and profiles. So many variations and methods, not enough time to explore them. 

[Gregr]

You chose a couple of really good Centrals there- they both make great SO espresso.
Regarding that long development- when I started roasting about 6 years ago 4:30 was the commonly aspired to development time for espresso. I had a heck of a time learning how to stretch things out that far (without a decreasing RoR) with my Hottop but can do it pretty well with the Huky, though I choose not to anymore.

[SusanJoM]

Hank,  check out the two new entries under Resources:  "Convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and ..."

I put them in there just so I could make sense out of your roast temperatures :-)))
I started out using Celsius but caved to the bulk of the input I was getting from others who were/are using Fahrenheit.

[qarl]

I gotta say that despite the hiccups and long development time, I am sad to see this batch get finished at the end of this week.  It's made great espresso all week long.  I have about 100 grams of beans left... going on vacation soon... will roast again and tweak when I get back.