How to get that sweet taste in own blend ?

[Monsooned_Bean]

As I am new to this forum : Hello to alle Home-roasters and espresso drinkers (EDIT: sorry, didn't mean to discriminate against other than espresso coffee-drinkers - let me extend that to coffee-lovers )



I've been roasting for one and a half year now, beginning with an Imex CR 100. I achieved my best results when stretching roasting time to 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the kind of beans and the prefered taste. [Using Kenneth David's - "Home Roasting ... " as orientation]

I just bought the I-Roast 2 10 days ago, and after being quite unhappy with the fast roast results, I modded it with an 2,2 kOhm resistor, just after reading about this in some thread here. It works fine now, temperature being controlled by a multimeter now.

What I'm looking for is a very special - very sweet taste - you can get f.e. from Lucaffé Mister Exclusive.

I've roasted several beans until now (Monsooned Malabar, Brasil Santos, Columbia Supremo, Sulawesi Kalossi, Kenia AB, Mexico Maragogype, Costa Rica Tarrazu) but yet haven't found a bean exactly matching that sweet taste, though trying different roast approaches and roast levels for each bean. Mostly City to Full City (+) Roasts.

Anyone can tell me what kind of bean would come close to this ?

[CakeBoy]

Have a look through the catalogue at www.hasbean.co.uk - you may not choose to buy there but the range and descriptions are excellent. I would suggest a Daterra Sweet Yellow, which I found very sweet, though your taste may be different of course. Good luck

[espressomattic]

The Columbian Relationship 'Los Idolis' is another...

I prefer longer roasting times myself and usually go for between 12-15 mins.

Welcome to TMC

[BazBean]

Welcome Monsooned......
What Cakey said.........bout the Daterra
looking through what you have ready tryed i would have to agree personaly, those particular selections i would find hard to describe as "sweet" from my own experience with maybe the exception of the MM which for, me has a warm sweetness to it depending on how you like to roast etc etc. ........but thats the beauty of coffee ..... Its all sooooooo subjective in reality.

[Joris]

Welcome at the funhouse Monsooned...

[Monsooned_Bean]

Thank you very much for your fast responses and advices. I'll order some Daterra Sweet Yellow as soon as my purse will recover from my last order of beans including the I-Roast.

Guess at that time I'll be ordering some more beans at hasbean (like Yirgacheffe and Harrar Longberry), too keep the rate of shipping cost as low as possible - just took a look at the page, but couldn't find exact shipping costs (to germany), does anyone know more about that ?

[lukas]

Willkommen! Endlich mal jemand aus der Umgebung!

You'll sure enjoy your trip to the world of toomuchcoffee(.com). And you got PM

[GeorgeW]

Welcome to the forum Monsooned.
My favourite by the way.

[CakeBoy]

Thank you very much for your fast responses and advices. I'll order some Daterra Sweet Yellow as soon as my purse will recover from my last order of beans including the I-Roast.

Guess at that time I'll be ordering some more beans at hasbean (like Yirgacheffe and Harrar Longberry), too keep the rate of shipping cost as low as possible - just took a look at the page, but couldn't find exact shipping costs (to germany), does anyone know more about that ?

Either email Steve at his HasBean address or PM him on here

[Gouezeri]

And as soon as you want to open up your I-R and shove a pair of pliers up her bottom (resistor change) and drill a hole through her top (thermocouple installation) just give us a shout! Though there are other useful mods you can do that are far less evasive!
D (causing warantee issues for steve accross sea and land )

[Monsooned_Bean]

That's just what I did some days ago. I replaced the resistor and put in a 2,2k Ohm resistor. I also installed a multimeter with a temperature probe, with which I'm meassuring temperatures at the chaff collector. Works great so far, time for roasts extended from 7-8 minutes to approx. 10 minutes, with 5-6 minutes between cracks. (My I-Roast went much too hot before the mod - reaching more than 200 °C though 160 ° were programmed - seems to be a common european I-Roast problem) [I found the advice when I found this boards some days ago so thx a lot]

I would like to install the temperature probe into the roasting chamber, but i'm not sure if the wire of the probe will stand the temperature, as it s way would pass in front of the heating element.? But at the moment it also works fine in the chaff collector, as you can tell the time of the cracks by nearly 1°C difference surprising exactly

[Gouezeri]

Well, this is going to depend on your individual TC, but once the heat shrink sleeving I put on mine had finished shrinking and giving off odours, it has since had no effect on my roasts whatsoever (been up to 240 and have used it for over a year). I drilled a _very_ slightly larger hole in the lid, then enlarged a hole in the chaff ring a couple of mm and created a wire guide inside the roasting pot to hold the TC stable (and in a repeatable position). I also doubled over the tc probe and strengthened it with wire so that the probe itself sits in the middle of the bean mass and doesn't make contact with the metal bottom of the roasting pot and either short or give false temps. The other thing you want to watch out for is chaff ring slippage, in which case you want to try my little silver foil pad trick, for which I am owed a fortune in royalties by fellow TMC members, but am likely to die a pauper as a result of their financial negligence

[ivdp]

Some sweet taste in a blend:
Easiest way is to add some sugar.
Trying to neutralize acidity = sour vs sweet: use some beans that lack acidity like Monsooned Malabar or (if you so wish) some robusta.
You might want to experiment also with very good Tanzania/Panama/Cuba

Ivo
www.ongebrand.nl

[Monsooned_Bean]

@gouerzi: I used the hint for hot running I-Roasts from SweetMarias to lower the chaff collector and make it fit tighter - by putting the screws in the chaff collector in those other screwholes.

How exact (close to the approx. internal bean temperature) do the meassured ambient temperatures get, when taken in the roasting pot ? Is there also a way to put a probe inside the roasting chamber from below ?

@Ivo :

I have some washed Robusta from Mexico and of course some Monsooned Malabar - so I could give it a try. So you mean adding absolutely no other beans than those to avoid the acidy notes ?

I read a roast somewhere between City and Full City Roast would give the sweetest possible taste, as by then only approx. halfe the sugars have been caramelized. Is there some kind of optimal point to hit for that ?

[Gouezeri]

@gouerzi: I used the hint for hot running I-Roasts from SweetMarias to lower the chaff collector and make it fit tighter - by putting the screws in the chaff collector in those other screwholes.

Been there, done that (for a bit), but didn't like it. I felt that the lid no longer fitted as tightly as before (next time you roast, run your hand around the edges to see if you are leaking any hot air). Whilst my silver foil pad is far from perfect, it is simple and is not a permanent mod.

How exact (close to the approx. internal bean temperature) do the meassured ambient temperatures get, when taken in the roasting pot? Is there also a way to put a probe inside the roasting chamber from below?

Ah... um... Steve? Jim? Heeeeelp! Measuring the actual core temp of a bean is notoriously difficult. So I'll refer you to the experts on that. The best I have managed to achieve is by making sure my probe is right in the middle of the bean mass, in contact with the beans as much as possible, without being in the direct air flow or taking a reading from the pot itself. This is about as good as you're going to get, and is better than an ambient temp of the roasting pot. The problem with the onboard temp display is that this reading is taken somewhere within the airflow itself, so it varies greatly (approx 10 degrees C) according to the cycle speed. Whereas my probe readings only vary +-1 degree between cycles.

I've never tried passing the TC up from the base, simply because I don't want it to run too close to the heating element, or the hot air, and frankly it is just easier to go from the top. The best way to gauge readings is to look at common temperatures at which beans reach first and second crack and then compare with your own results over time, which should give you some idea of offset.
There are so many variables though, that I use temp only as a (valuable) guide. There are far more highly skilled roasters here capable of roasting without such information, and that is where the art and experience comes in. (Make mine a bag of the usual Carlos )
D