It's almost Christmas... and in fear of running out of coffee I hit the roastery (read: garage) this afternoon to come up with a new blend. What is a Christmas blend?  Any blend you make in December really. Unfortunately I don't have anything very spicey, i tend to buy the cleaner, washed coffees. So this is the best i could come up with...

• El Salvador COE lot26 Santa Barbara - 200g (nice mild, creamy body and lots of sweetness)
• El Salvador Finca La Fany - 50g (consistent all-rounder)
• Kenya Kagunyu - 100g (clean, fruity highlights)

Click to view high-res. This is a medium espresso roast pulled just before second crack at 211 degrees at 14 mins.

After a couple years of amateur roasting, and drinking your own roasts each day, you begin to get a fairly good understanding of how taste correlates to roast level. I should write a disclaimer here - every coffee drinker has personal preferences, and every coffee is quite unique and has different requirements in terms of roast level and roasting profile to achieve the desired cup flavour (obviously). However, broadly speaking i tend to find the most flavour from a roast that looks something like this one.

• dark enough that there is good roast development, imparting enough roast flavour to give good body
• chaff in the crease is still fairly light indicating the beans haven't been scorched (although this is also to do with the processing method)
• there is slight cracking in the bean structure (another indicator of roast level - the more cracks and the bigger, the darker the roast)
• colour is not too light (we are well past first crack) but it is definitely nowhere near a dark roast here
• bean structure is swelled but not completely puffed out
• pull was before second crack

In the cup, with a roast like this you generally:

• retain lots of the nice flavour nuance of the bean origin (which can be lost in a darker roast as roast flavour begins to muscle in)
• have a good dose of acidity (though not as much as a filter roast)
• have imparted just enough roast flavour for the cup to be well balanced

Here's a few of the roast details. Every roaster will vary.

First crack: 10:50 @ 195 degrees

Dump: 15:30 @ 208 degrees

Time between FC and dump is 4:40. I won't give the minute by minute breakdown of temps here - you can see plenty of that stuff in previous posts!

In general this is the roast profile i have been using for the past few months and it's working well with the quality of beans i am using. Using cheaper, lower quality beans this profile may not be very good (you'd probably go a bit darker) but with the more expensive stuff it works a treat. I've also insulated my roasting drum which means less thermal loss, so less heat input is actually required for the same roast. Doing this i've noticed a more even roast and maybe a tiny bit more body in the cup.