expert baristas opinion on home roasting

[Dimal]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

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[ant_nakedcoffee]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Rob,

Im sorry you took it harshly but its blatantly obvious that you could do a better job on a deidrich compared to a home roast job, even if it is a super tricked out corretto. There is still more to a commercial roaster (probat, renegade, diedrich) than the corretto. If this isnt clear enough from this or the previous post...

Im not talking about trying to beat piazza doro or any other commercial BRAND but the ACTUAL ROASTING MACHINERY.
e.g DIEDRICH IR12 > corretto. PROBAT > corretto. Renegade > corretto. Sorry to single you out belinda (but its the example stuck in mind atm)

Hence the original statement that you cannot get the SAME depth of flavour. Bean browning- just exactly what Id call anyone who is just starting out, including myself if I was a home roaster with a couple of months experience. In another of your posts you mentioned that you are just learning the nuances of coffee tasting. Thats exactly what Im talking about when I talk about achieving a DEPTH of flavour- i.e several different flavours that tickle the nose and a corresponding mouth feel that intermingle and change over the course of several sips of your espresso. However, going back over the class I do remember you mentioning that you drink a weak latte yourself so I can understand that we are at different ends of the spectrum in terms of drinks so possibly a lot of what I said has gone over not only deaf ears but milk smothered tastebuds; especially in relation to that depth of flavour comment.

As for your offer of the brazil daterra I have to say thanks, but Ive had quite a lot of it in the past so Im a bit over it.

There is one thing I have to mention though, in this trade Ive never met any barista who could make good coffee especially if they a) added 2 sugars or other flavouring b) had a weak coffee c) didnt drink coffee. Ive talked with some other barista friends in the past 2 days and this is with people who each have at least 5 years experience working professionally so between us weve gone through a lot of staff. None of us have come across baristas who were good if they were in any of those 3 categories. Weve come across lots with inflated egos though!

Anthony "not trusting a skinny chef" Lau

[Sparky]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting


I think the Jury is still out on this one. For reference, Ive roasted quite a bit of Mountain Top bin 549 with excellent results in the cup. On a recent trip to Melbourne I managed a couple of visits to the Maling room (expert baristi, conical grinders, Synesso machines) where by chance they had MT bin 549 in one of their grinders. I went their twice at both ends of the week and had the Bin 549 as an espresso and in milk and must say that I wasnt overwhelmed with additional flavours or body. In fact I subjectively feel that some of my home roastes were better in that they developed more complexity in the cup.

Put it this way, I wasnt disappointed with home roasting after this experience.

BTW: I really have no ego attached to home roasting. If I felt that it couldnt get to within cooee of a commercially roasted product Id give up in an instant. This is the case with commercial blends. Currently my best efforts fall a long way short, which is disappointing. However, Ive achieved strong blueberries in Harrar, rich earthy complexity in Ismail and dark fruit cake and spice in MT bin 549.

I think Luca summed it up best though. If youre just starting out with espresso, then adding the additional complexity of home roasting is not the best idea. There are too many other things to master first.

As a note, I must say my visit to the Maling room was a standout experience. The barista enjoyed my feedback and made me a couple of shots with slightly different parameters just to try and zero in on the best shot. In neither instance did I draw attention to myself by harrassing him behind the machine. I had company so was sitting at a table, but my order must have alerted him to someone interested to getting a good shot. Thats what I call passion.

Cheers,

Mark.

[GrindOnDemand]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

... its blatantly obvious that you could do a better job on a deidrich compared to a home roast job, even if it is a super tricked out corretto.  There is still more to a commercial roaster (probat, renegade, diedrich) than the corretto ...

... and I suppose Ill never be able to extract a shot from my Nuova Simonelli with the same depth of flavour & quality than if I had a more expensive dual boiler LM? Or Ill never be able to bake a loaf of bread in my home oven with the same depth of flavour & quality than the commercial baker down the road? Or Ill never be able to cook a steak on my Weber with the same depth of flavour & quality than a Hogsbreath cafe ... :-?

With respect Anthony ... bollocks! Such dismissive, sweeping generalisations are absurd.

I think depth of flavour is arguably more attributable to, and variable depending on, the nature & quality of bean/ingredient/steak etc, rather than the particular method used to roast/bake/cook IMHO.

Tony

[Wushoes]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Just as a note, the new Mt top 549 is SHIT. Ive been very dissappointed cupping up the new crop....its TOO GREEN. Given that we dropped a fair bit of money on Mt Top and cant use it for competition is bullocks. Mark from St Ali sent the whole lot back.

[JavaB]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Or Ill never be able to cook a steak on my Weber with the same depth of flavour & quality than a Hogsbreath cafe ... :-?

With respect Anthony ... bollocks! Such dismissive, sweeping generalisations are absurd.

I think depth of flavour is arguably more attributable to, and variable depending on, the nature & quality of bean/ingredient/steak etc, rather than the particular method used to roast/bake/cook IMHO.

Tony

Tony,

I love the flavour of the beans I roast..... BUT Dennis Yirg proved to me that - at least to my palate - my roasts arent as good..... and probably will never be!!! But that doesnt mean my roasts are just "browned beans" or have a "one dimensioned" flavour..... or that I should give up roasting.

Your example re Hogsbreath is a very good one....

Take the same steak they sell....
and cook it in a frypan - will it be as good - nope!!!
then cook it on a "stove top griddle"..... again not as good.....
On a decent barbecue..... almost as good
On your Weber... possibly as good..... but maybe not consistently so!!!

So what is the difference?.... well it comes down to rate of cooking, air flow, roast by products (from the meat itself and the heat source) flavouring the meat... etc - and for each of those methods the combination is different - do the results from any method taste bad - no..... but they will taste different and some people will prefer one over the other..... but the Hogsbreath / weber roast will be considered by most to have the best flavour.....

And , IMHO, it is the same with bean roasters..... they have different rates of heating, trap varying amounts of roast by-product, pass varying amounts of air through the beans..... and whilst we can emulate the actual temperature profile (if lucky) we cant emulate the other factors which contribute to the final taste....

So I have to agree that a HT, Gene, Corretto or popper will never produce the same taste profile as a commercial roaster..... now that could be good or bad.... Its just a matter of taste ;D ;D ;D

[luca]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that this site is called coffee snobs and everyone is sticking the sword into Ant ;P

[JavaB]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that this site is called coffee snobs and everyone is sticking the sword into Ant ;P

Not everyone luca.....

He makes some very good points which I agree with.

It strikes me that there are two camps....
1. a home roaster cant produce a good roast and
2. a home roaster can produce a roast as good as that done on a commercial machine (the likes of a Diedrich or Probat)

and IMHO both are equally wrong.......

A home roaster can produce a decent flavour profile.... but although decent - it wont equal that produced on a commercial roaster (given the same quality of beans and good technique in both cases)......

The middle ground is generally closer to the truth!!!

[GrindOnDemand]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

... so I have to agree that a HT, Gene, Corretto or popper will never produce the same taste profile as a commercial roaster..... now that could be good or bad.... Its just a matter of taste ;D ;D ;D

JavaB,

I take your point that commercial roasters are designed in a manner more conducive to bringing the best out of a bean (optimal taste profile). And sure, in that respect, my Corretto falls short with its lack of technological sophistication. :

However I would also argue that commercial roasters have been designed with the ability to churn out high volume at a total roast time a lot lower than I can achieve on my Corretto. I know for a fact that my local specialty roaster where I source my beans limits roasts to the 12min mark. The beans are consistently excellent, but I wouldnt say superb. IMHO, too quick a roast, & consequently uneven colour through the bean with the core slightly unroasted, & consequently a tad sour as espresso. 95% of my customers drink their espresso with milk, so this element of sourness is masked.

Admittedly I havent tasted Dens Yirg, but hes not just another commercial roaster - hes also a snob, which would explain the excellence! Give exactly the same Yirg green from the same crop to another commercial roaster down the road with a Diedrich, and the results may vary significantly & not surpass the taste profile achieved from your roasted Yirg JavaB.

So I suppose what Im saying, essentially, is that optimal depth of flavour achieved from roasting is more attributable to the operator, quality of bean, & their experience & nous, rather than purely technology.

Thats why I disagreed with the comment:

... its blatantly obvious that you could do a better job on a deidrich compared to a home roast job, even if it is a super tricked out corretto. There is still more to a commercial roaster (probat, renegade, diedrich) than the corretto...

Tony

[steve]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that this site is called coffee snobs and everyone is sticking the sword into Ant ;P

Not everyone luca.....

He makes some very good points which I agree with.

It strikes me that there are two camps....
1. a home roaster cant produce a good roast and
2. a home roaster can produce a roast as good as that done on a commercial machine (the likes of a Diedrich or Probat)

and IMHO both are equally wrong.......

A home roaster can produce a decent flavour profile.... but although decent - it wont equal that produced on a commercial roaster (given the same quality of beans and good technique in both cases)......

The middle ground is generally closer to the truth!!!

I agree. I like to think that the home roaster sits somewhere between stale supermarket coffee and a specialty coffee roaster :-)
I have roasted some of the Tanzanian Ameru Estate off bean bay, both on the little sample roaster at First Pour and at home with the heatgun.
My best heatgun roast was much better than what I got off the sample roaster. So at least I know that I dont completely suck at roasting. I also know that if they whacked it in their commercial roaster I would have no chance of competing.

[GrindOnDemand]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Does anyone else find it deliciously ironic that this site is called coffee snobs and everyone is sticking the sword into Ant ;P

I was hardly sticking the sword into Ant - I respect his opinions. I was more decapitating the gross generalisation he made which Ive already quoted a couple of times.

Put it down to my legal training in a distant past life :, but I prefer to deal in relativities, rather than presumptuous certainties. I know that my 1 years experience roasting on a Correto wont match results achieved using the same bean by a master Roaster like Peter at Veneziano with over 20 years experience ... but the key word here is experience.

Reverse the situation, and say Peters roasting prowess of over 20 years was limited purely to Corretto roasting, & my one year with a whizz-bang u-beaut commercial roaster, Id say the probability of Peters roasts being better than mine would be higher due to his years of accumulated knowledge.

Tony

[Dimal]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

For what its worth...

I think all sweeping statements to the like of "A home roaster with an x domestic roaster can never equal the depth of a commercial roaster", or "An experienced home roaster with x domestic roaster can equal the best of the best commercial roastery" are way too general and do not acknowledge the proponents in each camp with the respect deserved.

My experience with home roasting has been such that I have regularly compared my roasts with commercial roasts from Roasteries with acknowledged excellent reputations with the outcome that cupping comparisons between them have been quite equally spread, i.e. about 50% of the time, my roasts cup superior and the other 50% the commercial roasts cup superior.

In the end I dont believe it is down to hardware alone, the most important factor is the person with his/her hand on the trier that makes the most significant contribution. Sure, you get someone with the knowledge, experience and passion of say, someone like Hazel de los Reyes and give her the best hardware that money can buy, Im sure the resulting outcomes would be mind-blowing, more often than not. In fact, I bet if you gave Hazel the most basic home roasting device that amateurs start off with, she would still produce some dazzling outcomes.
But to make a statement that "someone" with a Diedrich, Probat or whatever will always produce a superior outcome to an experience home roaster is just ridiculous in my view and completely disrespectful and in complete ignorance of the work that a lot of we home roasters have put in to our craft. A very elitist view that carries very little weight in my book,

Cheers,
Mal.

[Remy]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

As a passionate home roaster/CoffeeSnob could I achieve roasts as good as a commercial roaster?
As long as I could mimic a roast profile very close to a commercial roaster,.... Maybe!
With that, and if the commercial roaster doesnt really have a passion for roasting and I do,... Without a doubt.

With the above factors in mind,..could I do it consistantly?
Without passion, knowledge & practice... No.  With passion knowledge & practice... I think possibly.

Could I achieve equally good roasts at the same volume as a commercial roaster?
Of course this would be,...No!

Until Im able roast anywhere near the quality of commercial roasters,.. what do I get from it apart from mostly less flavour extracted roasts and the occassional awesome fluke roast?
I get that added sweet sensation and excitement of having done it myself.  I get the thrill of the chase. The satisfaction of being able to say to yourself occasionally...wow that tastes awesome..and I created it.

So what I lack in the cup until I gain more knowledge and experience,..I gain in pure syrupy satisfaction..YEYYAH!!....and I cant get that from a commercial roast.

I have mentioned before that I have tried three of Dens roasts and without a doubt,. the Yirg and Gambella absolutely took me to what heaven in a cup is like. But do I ever think that I will be able to produce roasts like that?.  Nope not for a second,.. not me personally (maybe other home roasters with more knowledge, passion and experience could),..I dont think I will ever have the knowledge and experience needed,.. but thats not going to stop me trying,.and Im hoping I might be able to fluke it more and more over time.

A few parallels;  My fathers home brew produced from his minimal home setup was a much more flavoursome beer than most of the commercially produced watery beers Ive tried. He had a passion, knowledge and keen interest in producing an awesome beer.  We used to brew ginger beer too,.. and Ive never tasted a commercially produced ginger beer as flavoursome in all the years since.  So while these examples might not be completely parrallel to roasting coffee beans,.. my point is,..I think it is the passion, knowledge and experience behind the  driver that gets the results.  Put a passionate home roaster against a guy who was a real estate agent before he inherited his commercial coffee roasting business from his grandfather and I would put my money on the home roaster.  

Its all relative,... and to say that a home roaster could never produce as good a roast as a commercial roaster is a bit silly,.. given the variables (passion, knowledge & experience) from roaster pitted up against roaster, commercial or home.. and so that claim cant possibly be true.  

I would however love to know what the outcome of a Roast-off between a very passionate, knowledgable and experienced commercial roaster against a home roaster with equal passion, knowledge and experience with his setup. But how does one measure those variables to ensure a level playing field.   ;D

[Remy]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Snap Mal.  I never saw your post until after I posted mine and cant believe the similarities... same words even .  I have a habit of starting a post,.. racing off to drive the kids some place and coming back,.tidy up kitchen bench etc. Your post was posted way before mine but it wasnt there when I started writing mine,lol.

[Dimal]

Re: expert baristas opinion on home roasting

Snap indeed Remy....

Im going for the Great Minds.... interpretation

Mal.