Great Guatelamaugoly!

[Gregr]

I love a good SO Guatemala shot- sweet, intense, chocolatey with that long delicious aftertaste...
This is a profile of the one I'm enjoying now, one of the best I've had in quite a while. Xinabajul Pena Roja, roasted to the very first second crack. I've roasted it with 3:00 and 3:45 development times and this one, with 4:15 development time, is the best. No roast notes even with the long development- this is a bean that can take a darker roast very well.
The adjustments I made are pretty minimal:
Charge 1# at 430F, fan at 20%, heat at 2.5kpa. Vent open full always.
Dry at 287F, 4:00, fan to 50% for 25 seconds, then back to 20, heat still at 2.5kpa.
At BT 325F heat to 3.25kpa, fan still at 20%
At BT 365F heat to 1kpa, fan still at 20%
At first crack heat to .25kpa, fan still at 20%
At end of first crack heat still at .25kpa, fan to 50%. At this point I watch the RoR like a hawk and decide what to do based on that. If it drops below about 8F/min I would increase the heat a little, lower the fan, and if it's going to fast I kill the heat altogether and if necessary hit the fan hard. Frequently no adjustments are required, especially with 3 minutes or less of development.

[Johnny4lsu]

From seeing your profiles, you seem to do a really nice job of stretching out your development.

I'm always scared to stretch mine out too much because I'm normally aiming for light roasted coffee for brewing.

[Gregr]

Thanks. I almost always roast for espresso so there's been a lot of practice and experimentation with that last phase. If you want to try some longer development just keep an eye on that RoR and don't let it flatline- when they say that leads to baked flavors they aren't kidding. But it's pretty easy to avoid with the superfast reaction time this roaster has.

[Johnny4lsu]

Thanks. I almost always roast for espresso so there's been a lot of practice and experimentation with that last phase. If you want to try some longer development just keep an eye on that RoR and don't let it flatline- when they say that leads to baked flavors they aren't kidding. But it's pretty easy to avoid with the superfast reaction time this roaster has.

When you say flatline, do you mean a 0 RoR or more like a 5 degree RoR? Negative RoR?

Does any baking happen if I'm stretching development out at such a low RoR for a few minutes?

I know we are roasting for different results (espresso vs brew). I'm just curious.

[Gregr]

I remember roasts that went to very slightly negative RoR in the last stage and that led to bad results- thin, slightly bitter, without the usual instensity I normally get out of my roasts... baked. I use 7-8F as the low RoR number by which to add heat if I intend to stretch things further. I don't recall roasts where there was a 5F/min RoR as far as being baked or otherwise. If the RoR drops to 5F/min cranking the heat very quickly could get you back on track pretty quick but I wonder if there may be a price for that- as in roast flavors. By keeping it between 8-15F (approximately) things move along at a slow enough pace to get plenty of development time. And that's a big enough window to make it fairly easy to keep within. In the early days going too fast was more common for me.
But here's a little fly in the ointment for those of you with newer roasters- in the early days instead of putting the fan to 50% I needed a heavier hand- more like fan to 100% and gas off altogether. I don't recall exactly when it was but somewhere along the line the adjustments became a little more subtle.

[Johnny4lsu]

I'll give that a shot using 8 degree RoR as my bottom...I figured flirting with much lower RoR's would introduce baking.

Thanks Greg