Where to start?

[Noob]

Hi all, I got my Kaffelogic a week ago and I'm completely new to roasting. I've been using the default roast profile set at 3.6 and have been roasting 110g of Colombian and 110g of Honduras every second day. I've been trying to workout when the right time to drink it is. This mornings coffee, roasted a week ago, was nice but I needed to grind it super fine compared to commercially roasted beans (two notches finer, quite a lot!). I've never had any beans that have needed to be ground that fine. Why would that be? Do I need to rest it longer or is that a characteristic of air roasting?

[kaffelogic]

That's a great question, and my answer, like so many things coffee, is more an educated guess than the result of systematic scientific investigation...

I believe that it is to do with static electricity. Freshly roasted coffee is much more prone to picking up a static electrical charge. This means it tends to stick to the insides of your grinder more. It also makes it lighter and easier to fluff up when dosing. That's because the coffee particles all have the same charge and like charges repel. So, all other things being equal, there will be more space between particles and the shot will flow more freely. But all other things will not be equal when you make coffee because you will adjust them to get back to the desired flow during the extraction. You might tamp harder, extract at less pressure, or, more conventionally, grind finer.

Static electricity is not an indicator of flavour. So:

• rest your coffee until it has developed the flavour you are after (anything from zero to ten days)

• adjust the grind to compensate for the freshness of the coffee

[Noob]

Thanks for that. Another thing I wondered was if the roast was too light and wasn't producing enough fines in the grind? I've done a couple of roasts this morning at 4.3 using Guatamalan Hue Hue beans. So will seem what difference that does and report back.

[BenN]

Thanks for that. Another thing I wondered was if the roast was too light and wasn't producing enough fines in the grind? I've done a couple of roasts this morning at 4.3 using Guatamalan Hue Hue beans. So will seem what difference that does and report back.

Interesting, did you find any difference? I've hard for lighter roast, it may need toi grind finer than darker roasted beans.

I asked master roaster at Havana Coffee Works (Wellington) when I was there last week, they roast most of their beans to little darker than Medium. I should have asked more details but was mentions never go light roast or too dark. Judging from colour of roasted beans I have boughtfrom them (Mostly single origin) to sample, they looks bit light side of medium colour no sight of oil on surface and uniform brown colour but I'm stil learning about this.
I bought Bolivian greens at spot so may be the comment was conjunction with that variety but they said smiler for Brazil beans in April visit.

[Noob]

Yes it did make a bit of a difference but it didn't taste very nice. I think it was just the Colombia beans. I noticed they're physically slightly bigger than others, maybe that had something to do with it. I've since had Yirgacheffe, Carrado and Guatamalan and roasted them all individually on the 3.6 level default roast profile and the grind and extraction was as I would have expected with commercial roasted beans. I think my favourite is the Guatamalan. I might just stick to that, it's exactly my flavour preference and good to go after about 3 days.

[BenN]

Yes it did make a bit of a difference but it didn't taste very nice. I think it was just the Colombia beans. I noticed they're physically slightly bigger than others, maybe that had something to do with it. I've since had Yirgacheffe, Carrado and Guatamalan and roasted them all individually on the 3.6 level default roast profile and the grind and extraction was as I would have expected with commercial roasted beans. I think my favourite is the Guatamalan. I might just stick to that, it's exactly my flavour preference and good to go after about 3 days.

Thanks for info. I may try default profile again. i also find about 3 to 5 days mark is best with my roast. I think it's getting more to do with amount if degassing.

Likes lighter side like 3.0 on default profile i did with Brazil. trying bit of different heat curve now but nit's a slow process to find where i like.

[Noob]

Hmmm, after a few weeks of great espresso roasted at 3.6 that grinds nearly exactly like commercially roasted beans do I decided to splash out and buy 3kg of Guatemala (albeit a different variety than I have been using).

I tried my first roast of the new batch today and it's acting like the Colombian beans I initially posted here about, needing to be ground very fine (2 settings finer than I've ever needed to grind), and even then it's still losing pressure mid extraction and dropping out too fast towards the end of the shot.

Has anyone else found that some bean varieties need top be ground unusually fine?? I'm wondering if I need to compensate by adjusting the roast profile. I only use the default one.

[Noob]

I'm wondering if bean density is the issue...
https://www.perfectdailygrind.com/2017/ ... oft-beans/

[Noob]

Chris, was there going to be profiles provided for different beans?

[Noob]

Chris, was there going to be profiles provided for different beans?