Toning down Chocolate profiles..

[flynnaus]

By the sounds of it, using a Ugandan and Mexican al ong withan Indo and Peru which have their own choc characteristics, you have the ultimate chocaholic blend.

This is now about 3 days post roast right? It might have calmed down a bit by the time you are ready to brew. But I doubt anything else will start to come through to shift the overall flavour. Journeyman is probably right in that some will like it as a pleasant improvement on their Blend 43 existence.

I would roast up some Yirgacheffe pulled before second crack and then try different combos with your chocaholic blend to see which works.

[KJM]

@Matt: The central I uses was the Mex I also went just into 2C with that too. I think that was the lynchpin mistake. I kept some out of the blend and WOW is that stuff like something that should have "Old Gold" on the label! I'll roast some up lighter and see how I go. The huge chocolate is (IMHO) over the top. I like the dark chocolate finish, but this has dark chocolate start middle and finish!

@Journeyman: you don't work in marketing do you?

I guess my problem is that I want to present a proper product... something that tastes like coffee! I kid you not - you could flog it as cocoa with a dash of coffee added and no-one would notice. It really is that dominant! I regret listening to those who must be obeyed. Should have done my usual thing and it would have been fine! Sigh..

I'll post an update once I've more sensibly roasted some dilution beans!

Cheers
/Kevin

[Journeyman]

You're selling to the public. Most of them are not coffee drinkers at the level of members here. I'd offer it all at 50c above the cost of 'normal' coffee and call it a 'Special Chocolate blend of South American beans'

You will sell it out before you sell the rest of your stash.

[DesigningByCoffee]

You could add in some lighter roasted Central?
That current Mex El Tru is a cracker - I've done some brilliant 2 bean blends with 50/50 Eth/Mex - Kisoro should work just as well too. The lighter pre-roast blended Mex (all that acidic citrus goodness) seems to really work well the the slightly darker choccy Africans.
Good luck with that!

Though who will complain about huge chocolate in their coffee anyway! Not this little black duck :-)
Matt

[KJM]

This verges on the embarrassing...

I've roasted up 5kg of beans over the weekend, for use at an Open Gardens event that our fire brigade will be using for fundraising. The blend is a KJM blend variation and I tweaked the roast depth of the South American beans to lift the chocky notes (on advice from those who can't be ignored ). When I came to roast the Kisoro, I figured I'd go a bit deeper with that too - to try to make it super smooth and inoffensive to the great public who will be so generously paying for coffees.

I have (IMHO) gone too far. It is less coffee, more like chocolate with some coffee notes added. I'm thinking I might roast up some more Ethiopian beans to my usual pre-second crack level (rather than just into 2C) and mix them through just to tone down the chocolate. Any thoughts, oh fellow CSers?? The open day is in 2 weeks, and the chocolate note tends to increase with age. I really think I'll need to beat it with a stick to keep it under control at the event!

My other thought was to ad-hoc blend on the day for those who actually like the coffee to taste of coffee. Needless to say, at the moment those who suggested more chocolate depth think this the most wonderful thing since sliced bread.... so I'm a little torn on this.

/Kevin