Really getting hooked...

... on this Chiapas we're having.

A week ago I roasted some la Laja (the name of a farm) from Veracruz, Mexico for friends here in the park. It can be pretty good but it looks like I trashed this roast! We dumped our 1# bag and went for more of the Chiapas (from unidentified farms) I bought from Coffee Bean Corral in Jackson, MS.

The problem with the la Laja is that I took the roast too dark. We both thought the coffee tasted a little burnt. There is no point in trying to drink poorly roasted coffee when you have an alternative. So... out with the old; in with the new.

In the meantime I continue to support the development effort of RoasTime software from Aillio. The design is that of Matt-the-Code-Warrior (he lives in Idaho) who has turned the requirements that Aillio (offices in Taiwan) has devised into working software. The latest struggle is related to "Recipes" which are short sets of instructions that automate the roasting process inside RoasTime. Frankly I poo-pooed the feature and clung to manual operation of the roast process. But I have come to accept that Recipes can significantly improve repeatability roast-to-roast.

What I've implemented so far are simple button-pushing vs. time functions. I found boredom caused my mind to drift away from what I needed to watch . So Recipes have eliminated 10-30 second variations in stepping thru power and drum-speed settings. Then as the roast closes in on the end I'm free to pay close attention to sound (first crack, second crack) and color as the beans darken.

'Color' above reminds me that I bought a new toy to make objective estimates of roast character in terms of color instead of my very subjective WAG*. Color is the primary criteria for roast character although temperature at the time the beans are ejected is what the roast manager really looks at. There is a set of descriptors that identifies this 'character': City, City +, Full City, Full City +, Vienna, French Roast. Anything beyond French Roast is pretty much charred to destruction.

The color meter I bought, a Roast Vision sold by Espresso Vision, uses a number scale from "35" (the lightest color it can distinguish) down to "0" (the darkest color it can distinguish). 


I arbitrarily decided that "3" would be approximately equal to French Roast only to discover that I had a roast I called FC+ (Full City +) which hit a "5" on the color meter. Hmmm... better rethink this a little.


So color definition is a work in progress, but I'll get it worked out to some standard pretty soon.

* For the benefit of those who pay taxes to cover government spending for technical projects, a WAG is a Wild Ass Guess; adding numbers to a WAG elevates the WAG to a SWAG which is (surprise, surprise) a Scientific Wild Ass Guess. Both a WAG and a SWAG are considered preferable to the estimate refered to as a PIROOMA (pronounced puh-ROOM-uh). A PIROOMA was an estimating method devised by my old boss Des Bailie while giving an update to a project that was getting a great deal of scrutiny. When pressed for further explanation, Des explained-

P = Pulled
I = it
R = right
O = out
O = of
M = my
A = ass

And he said it with a straight face that suggested 'everybody knows what a PIROOMA is don't they?'

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