Now that I’m an expert coffee bean roaster…
With two bean roasting sessions behind me I cannot believe that I didn’t start roasting my own coffee beans a long time ago!
The Hottop roasting machine has so many options and settings which can be tweaked that it seemed that I may have purchased a sledgehammer to crack a nut (OK a bean!), so I am still using the machine on ‘Auto’ mode at the moment.
The last roasting session produced a lovely mid-roast, one which I was keen to duplicate on this, my third roasting session. This should be relativley easy to achieve as I am still using the same green beans as the previous two roasts.
So in ‘Auto’ mode and an 18 minute roasting time the following results were observed.
The first crack started after 13 minutes 11 seconds at a temperature of 367 degrees f, slow at first but more speeding up at just over 30 seconds later at 381 degrees and very rapid after 14 minutes 30 seconds at 392 degrees.
The second crack started around 15 minutes 55 seconds into the roasting at a temperature of 398 degrees f.
As with the second roasting session I ejected the beans with 1 minute 30 seconds of the roasting session left (16 minutes 30 seconds of roasting time elapsed). The displayed temperature was 407 degrees f.
The second crack was very rapid at the time and I wished that I had ejected the beans a little earlier, perhaps 30 seconds earlier. There was more smoke this time than the second roasting, but nowhere near as much as the first roasting (or should I say burning) session.
An update on the second roast
When I went to find a suitable storage container for these beans I took a look at the beans produced from the second roast. They were stored in an airtight glass container (as per the suggestion in the Hottop manual) but there was noticeable moistness on the beans and within the jar. I wonder if I put the beans in the jar when there was still a little heat in the beans?
I will look at the beans from this third roast in a couple of days to see if they go the same way.
A warning
The problem with having a home coffee bean roasting machine is that you are so keen to move on to your next roast you will end up roasting more beans than you can use!