Home Coffee Roaster Competition 2017

[WhatEverBeansNecessary]

Well done tangles!

I am a little surprised that you did 400g batches. I always find the 400g batches from the behmor lack a little oomph form not quite having enough heat (I find the behmor struggles to generate enough heat to compensate for the larger batch).

[tangles]

Sorry for the lag in posting, only just got back to the hotel at 1:30am and have net access now.

Wow, what a crazy week. 1400 entries plus 75 home roaster ones puts it close to 1500 coffees.

Thanks for the congrats, from our little corner of the Internet, CoffeeSnobs managed to score 3 silver medals in the 3 biggest categories:
Milk - Silver for Organic@Origin (a long time standard offering and the coffee that Fiefy and Tim use in their Adelaide cafes.)
Milk - Silver for CoffeeSnobs GOLD (My first gold winning coffee, not gold this time but mighty close!)
Espresso - Silver for CoffeeSnobs GOLD (works in both milk and espresso, love that as do my customers!)
Filter - Ethiopia Biftu Gesha (while it didn't medal it did score enough to push my total up).

So a huge night for me and a real surprise to score so well in the overall. Funny thing is that the Biftu filter entry was easily my favourite coffee of all my entries and I was surprised that it didn't appeal enough to the judges to score higher than it did. That's the fun of roast comp though. This is the same coffee that you guys roasted in the home roaster comp... and I'm sure some of you scored better than I did (although I won't know my actual scores for weeks to come). I kept a small amount of the Biftu roast at home so I'll be keen to get it in the Brazen to see what the judges got.

Like a proud father, I love seeing the Home Roaster Category. We had so many comments from industry professionals through the week who were stunned at the quality of the entries this year. Great to hear that! I've seen the score sheets and the comments range from helpful to lazy but again, that's the fun of competition too. I also had a lot of pro roasters say "I love the idea of a control bean, wish we could enter a competition like that".

Already posted by Richard (ta) but the 1,2,3 for each category and the overall was:

Espresso
1: Vincent – tangles
2: Adam – WhatEverBeansNecessary
3: Sherry – SherrySham


Milk
1: Charlie – Charlieoan
2: Brad – bradory
3: Mark – Chihuahua


Filter
1: Richard - trickydicky2
2: Tilly - Tilledwards
3: Miroslav – mireq


OVERALL
1: Miroslav – mireq
2: Vincent – tangles
3: Richard - trickydicky2

AWESOME!
Congats to all the winners and all those that had a go!

Attached here is the excel sheet with all the scores in it. Colours are self explanatory for totals in each section and the overall to get the above results. The rows are by CS invoice number so if you have forgotten it, go to BeanBay [My Previous Orders] and check there first.

I'll post the score sheets to you early next week (I have tons of roasting to do on Monday when I get back so it might be Tuesday before I post them out but they will come. Please don't make them take longer by asking when they will come and making me spend posting time in email though, you know I'll get snappy. ;-)

If your coffee didn't score as well as you hoped, don't be discouraged. There are a lot of factors that can make a coffee miss the mark so instead, have a play and see what you can improve. We still have the Ethiopian Biftu in BeanBay so you can grab some to play with. Also use the forum (this thread if you want) to discuss with others which changes you could make.

It was a really complicated coffee to roast so getting anything drinkable was really a feat in itself.

Well done Snobs everywhere!

Wow, I'm completely stunned by the results! Big thanks to Andy for organising the home roaster category. Congrats to everyone who entered!

For my entries, I did 400g batches in my Behmor 1600. All were roasted on the P1 setting. My tactics were to roast filter, espresso and milk in order of lightest to darkest roast. Filter was roasted to just the start of first crack, then hit the cooling cycle. Espresso was roasted towards the end of first crack and milk was roasted to the start of second crack. I swapped 50g of the milk beans into the espresso beans, and vice-versa.

[sprezzatura]

As a long black filter drinker you won't regret it until you realise you haven't turned your espresso machine on for a couple of months. Brazen is what we drink everyday by choice.

The comp settings were:

40g of coffee
fill to the calibration line (600ml)
45 seconds pre-soak
92C

It's a 15:1 ratio and our default starting point for most coffees before tweaking temperature up/down to see where it "pops". We prefer to make full batches though... so 80g and 1200ml of water. Enough for a couple of coffees in the morning and we both fill a travel cup for the trip to work.



That's the post quote of the month MrFish.
We are all on the same journey and all at different points along it. As long as you keep learning you will keep improving. Hopefully you got some good judges that provided some helpful feedback on the score sheets (not all were good but some were excellent).

Remember, pro roasters entering a competition like this would have burnt through many kilos of beans with a tonne of previous experience before they settled on their roast profile for the comp. You guys only had a spare kilo to learn / test / try, that's a massive ask.



I should have mentioned before the comp... for those that don't do much filter a simple plunger is a pretty close tool for taste testing, or an aeropress does okay too.

Dose at the same 15:1 (15 parts water to 1 part coffee) and let it to steep for a fixed amount of time before plunging... say 1 minute. Darker roasts in a plunger will be BBQ/bitter, too light a roast will be pull-a-face-sour and taste like peas, anything that fits inside those two ends of the flavour spectrum will have some appeal to judges and if you can find a profile that enhances a flavour (fruit prefered) or aroma (floral) or sweetness then you score higher.

Thanks for the tips, Andy! I’ve been a big fan of 1:15 and use that ratio for lighter roasts through the V60. Now that the folks come over so often being able to brew 4 coffees at once with more precision will be fantastic.

[Andy]

Crazy busy here after most of week away and arriving back after midnight Sunday and forgot to say that all the score sheets were posted off on Monday.

So keep an eye out for the postie... they should be arriving soon.

[Yelta]

Colour variation is perfectly normal for a dry processed bean as there is a large density and volume difference between the beans. Often the "salt and pepper" roasts also bring a range of flavours to a single origin roast.

Golden Bean comp does not show the judges the whole bean (unlike some other comps) which is a good thing, taste is king, not how pretty the roast is.

Interesting observations Andy.

Have contemplated this over the years but hesitated in verbalising my thoughts, I sometimes feel we obsess over obtaining the (visually) perfect roast, forgetting that it's what's in the cup that counts.

Iv'e had good results combining beans of different origins pre roast, obviously the beans usually roast at slightly different rates and the finished batch can look a bit mottled, however what I finish up with is a batch of beans roasted to different levels, and usually provides a nice balance of flavours in the cup.

There I've said it, will now await incoming.

[Andy]

Colour variation is perfectly normal for a dry processed bean as there is a large density and volume difference between the beans. Often the "salt and pepper" roasts also bring a range of flavours to a single origin roast.

Golden Bean comp does not show the judges the whole bean (unlike some other comps) which is a good thing, taste is king, not how pretty the roast is.

[WhatEverBeansNecessary]

Great looking roast, I'm not surprised it scored well.

Thanks Andy! Appreciate the kind words.

Does have quite a bit of variation in colour (compared to some wet processed SA beans i have roasted). But I figured that is mostly the nature of the natural process beans like some I have roasted before.

[Andy]

And the results! After taking out the uglies

Great looking roast, I'm not surprised it scored well.

[Andy]

...I finally broke down and bought a Brazen. Took long enough...

As a long black filter drinker you won't regret it until you realise you haven't turned your espresso machine on for a couple of months. Brazen is what we drink everyday by choice.

The comp settings were:

40g of coffee
fill to the calibration line (600ml)
45 seconds pre-soak
92C

It's a 15:1 ratio and our default starting point for most coffees before tweaking temperature up/down to see where it "pops". We prefer to make full batches though... so 80g and 1200ml of water. Enough for a couple of coffees in the morning and we both fill a travel cup for the trip to work.

This experience has only increased my eagerness to learn more about this fascinating art.

That's the post quote of the month MrFish.
We are all on the same journey and all at different points along it. As long as you keep learning you will keep improving. Hopefully you got some good judges that provided some helpful feedback on the score sheets (not all were good but some were excellent).

Remember, pro roasters entering a competition like this would have burnt through many kilos of beans with a tonne of previous experience before they settled on their roast profile for the comp. You guys only had a spare kilo to learn / test / try, that's a massive ask.

Filter - was really a bit of a guess as I don't drink a lot of filter

I should have mentioned before the comp... for those that don't do much filter a simple plunger is a pretty close tool for taste testing, or an aeropress does okay too.

Dose at the same 15:1 (15 parts water to 1 part coffee) and let it to steep for a fixed amount of time before plunging... say 1 minute. Darker roasts in a plunger will be BBQ/bitter, too light a roast will be pull-a-face-sour and taste like peas, anything that fits inside those two ends of the flavour spectrum will have some appeal to judges and if you can find a profile that enhances a flavour (fruit prefered) or aroma (floral) or sweetness then you score higher.

[WhatEverBeansNecessary]

As promised roast profiles of the espresso bean - I ended up using a bit of a 'blend' between these two roasts. I found the first one I did a little better which had the heat ramp up at the end.



And the results! After taking out the uglies - still a few in there but not too many yellow/beans that have exploded.

[WhatEverBeansNecessary]

I will upload some of the roast log photos later, but the general principal I went in with this bean was to bring out the more fruity notes. I wanted to try to coast the roast as long as possible between 1st crack and second crack. I also used the Behmor 1600+, 200g batches. Double sorted the beans, the uglies in the greens and the uglies in the final roast.

P1 Auto to first crack around 9 mins, then P1 manual and coast to around 1 min to go, hit the rosetta stone (C) at first rolling crack, with double drum speed (D).
Once I had about 1 min to go and the temperature started to stall - hit full heat P5 until cool. I reckon I got one or maybe two second cracks as it started to cool - I opened the door and blast the fan to cool it quicker.
That was the espresso roast which got the silver.

I think my latte was similar but I should have gone slightly darker to cut through the milk. It still scored well (maybe around average) but not great So super keen to get some feedback/hear others milk profiles as I mostly drink short lattes/piccolos/machiatos.

Filter - was really a bit of a guess as I don't drink a lot of filter. But I knew I wanted to go even lighter again and maybe coast more to get more fruit. Easily my worst score and I think it showed the lack of methodology/knowledge on filter roasting/drinking.

[Mrfish]

Congratulations to the winners of the Home roaster Cat, and to the rest of us who participated and learnt a great deal from this experience. Well done Andy on another superb GB. Keep up the fantastic work Personally I must have torched the beans way to dark for the milk and espresso roasts as was reflected in the lower scores. I was using the Behmor 1600 roaster and using the P2 profile (fully auto) for these two roasts, which on reflection may have been way too hot to display the delicate flavours of this particular bean. The Latte roast I stopped 30secs before 2nd crack and the espresso just hit the 2nd crack. On both roasts the door was opened and cooling was done as quick as possible without stopping the machine and taking out the beans. I read that some CS roasters went through the beans and sorted out the good from the ugly, this would have been a good idea me thinks I would love to know what everybody else did or didn't do. This experience has only increased my eagerness to learn more about this fascinating art.

[sprezzatura]

Nice work, Andy! I was so impressed by all this GB coverage I finally broke down and bought a Brazen. Took long enough! I’m very excited to try it and I threw in some Biftu to roast too. Been so busy lately (I’ve picked up PM and water care on a Modbar fit out, a 7 month old Slayer v.3 3 group, a dozen various LM machines and helping a colleague set up a roastery here in HB, QLD) I’ve neglected to get back to doing what I love: roasting and brewing at home.

[Andy]

...intimidated by how much I “assumed” the big roasters would be spending on beans!

Don't be intimidated, I won 3 silver medals this year with coffee that my roasted customers drink everyday at home and in cafes. These are two of our oldest blends that are always available in Beanbay.
Crazy expensive coffees can win but so can good retail priced ones made with love, I try and prove that every year!

[chokkidog]

I agree totally. I entered the commercial comp this year and was really intimidated by how much I “assumed” the big roasters would be spending on beans!

I didn’t think I had a hope of winning a medal but am hoping for some feedback so it will be worth it none the less.

A control bean/s would really level the playing field (although do you then also need control roasters!!)

A roaster of note, who doesn't enter the comp, does 'calibration' roasts for the judges prior to the comp judging.