New core profiles - why?

[beantacos]

Kaffelogic, saw that you released new core profiles (KL Washed, KL Natural, etc.). Couple of questions for you:

1. What was the general thinking that went behind them?
2. I see the fan profile is more aggressive than the previous core profiles, why?
3. KL Natural seems like an aggressive profile but I've seen the naturals often need a more gentle profile, what was your thinking behind this?

Thanks for adding some new profiles to try!

[SeanBrews]

Hi @beantacos, Sean here!

• The original core profiles released with the roaster were created at its invention. Its safe to say that they have been a favourite for many of our users, however there are many users that could not get a good starting point for the styles that they were after. Thos primarily being lighter roasts and filter forward roasts. These were profiles that I had created to be my own starting point profiles that I shaped after hundreds of roasts and as many coffees I could physically get my hands on. These profiles got shaped roast by roast of many different coffees in the processing methods of Wash and Natural. I used these for maybe 2 years before and started almost every unknown coffee I had through them and they began to become a pretty solid starting point for each processing mething. I was then called for new profiles by some of our distributors and users, and there they are now in the wild. KL Explorer was created through common changes that needed to be made to help some users that were struggling with KL CLassic, so one could call this a slightly more relaxed version of KL Classic. Also a great starting point.
  For focussing on lighter roasts and especially filter we found better tasting coffee and more consistency with the more aggressive fan profile.
  KL Natural is a bit more aggressive at the start as I found that a buildup of energy at the start of the roast and a slightly more backed off roast at the end tended to taste better at lighter roasts. Bare in mind these are built to be for lighter roasts. It is a very subjective topic about which approach could be correct, but this was one that I personally enjoyed and when I handed out the profile to a few users others seemed to like it as well so I kept it in this style. Maybe This year I can look at creating a few more profiles for release around Naturals as currently we have a lot of choice of them in the market in NZ.

Roasting is quite a subjective topic and there is a high chance that the profiles I create might not be perfect for the coffees that you might have, but I hope they they do perform their task of being a decent starting point, or at the very least something fun to try! There also is no need to follow them by name, if you want to roast naturals on the washed profile then by all means, please do. I have a lot on my list this year to create and I just hope that you all enjoy them.

Hope that answers your questions.

Cheers!

[beantacos]

Thanks Sean for capturing all of this - very helpful. Keep up the great work.