Roasting for Hombres: Bars for Beans

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Costa Rica, Perla Negra, Las Lajas beans, airmailed to us ahead of the shipment
A year ago I roasted some samples of Costa Rican beans for Erik Rauws (http://www.anemoicoffee.com)  of Tres Hombres, a sailing ship owned by three friends who are building a green, sustainable fair trade logistics network, transporting chocolate, rum and coffee beans across the ocean.

At the time I was still using my Fracino Roastilino and we had small batches of 220g so it was a matter of trying out which profile would work best with just a chance or two to get it right.

This is one Artisan profile saved from last year:
July 2015 profile of Costa Rica Las Lajas beans
The result wasn't bad but it would have been better with a lighter roast. Profiles are not easily translated between roasters but we kept this in mind preparing the roast of 1.25kg in the Coffee-Tech FZ-94 today.

Background design

Erik Rauws and I started off with a background design. The idea was to stop the roast earlier but keep the 175ºC end temp as theoretical target. 


The beans smell absolutely beautiful. Bean moisture (measured on the Wile device) is 10.1% which looks good as well. 


(picture by Erik Rauws)

As Erik and I were chatting about Tres Hombres, I overlooked two details of the roast: the max DT was still at 155ºC instead of the correct value of 180ºC to be set after start of the roast. This could be corrected before it would cause trouble. The other thing was drum speed which I had left at 40 RPM instead of 60 RPM, as was reflected in the Rate of Rise being lower than expected. After I corrected this (after minute 7), the roast ran as planned. After First Crack started, Erik and I discussed the developing color, comparing it to another recent roast and discussing our intention to avoid over-roasting and also aiming for 25% development time. We stopped the roast the moment we agreed and when we ground a handful of the beans the smell of the grinds was quite delicious, lots of fruity notes.

The resulting profile:



Bagged and sealed for different tasting sessions, picture by Erik Rauws:



In return for the roasting session I received a stack of four Trinitario chocolate Tres Hombres Bars. Very happy with these!



Check out this graphic micronovel about the Hombres:






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