# Kenyan Peaberry - Gene Cafe Roaster



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Just roasted my very first batch of Kenyan Peaberry and would welcome thoughts and suggestions. I preheated the Gene to 150c and then set the temp to 223c. Got up to full temp at 8 mins. Had real difficulty hearing either first or second crack so relied on developing colour. At 11.5 mins, backed temp down to 220c and finished the roast at 16 mins giving a medium dark colour which I was after for this first experiment. Do other roaster have difficulty hearing first and second crack with Peaberry? I roasted some Malabar the other day and had no difficulty hearing both cracks. I roast in my kitchen with ambient temp around 15c and vent the fumes out of the window using a length of aluminium ducting connected to the chaff extractor. This works brilliantly. The house is now full of a wonderful fresh coffee aroma. Must invite some wannabe house buyers round for an inspection! I know I shouldn't, but I am going to crank up the espresso machine to see what the roast is like. I know it won't be properly ready for a few days, but I am curious.


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## RisingPower (Dec 27, 2009)

Isn't this a roasting question?









Malabar is a very loud, exothermic coffee which really gets going. Most coffees are much, much quieter and are far less active.

Some, you won't hear any cracks on at all, you have to go by the colour of the roast.

I think you need to experiment with a lot more beans


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Very definitely! I've just put some of the roasted beans through the espresso machine as I was curious. I know they need to rest but I was impatient. The ground beans smelled of fig and chocolate - wonderful. The espresso was great - plenty of acidity but no bitterness. Be interesting to see what it's like when it's had time to properly degas.


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## RisingPower (Dec 27, 2009)

The Systemic Kid said:


> Very definitely! I've just put some of the roasted beans through the espresso machine as I was curious. I know they need to rest but I was impatient. The ground beans smelled of fig and chocolate - wonderful. The espresso was great - plenty of acidity but no bitterness. Be interesting to see what it's like when it's had time to properly degas.


Just co2 crema right and lots of it?

I'd still really like to have a hottop or quest m3 to compare with the gene. Radiant heat that is vs convected heat, supposedly far better for the earthy, rich notes like in malabar.


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## golden1 (Jan 21, 2012)

Peaberry is imho one of the quieter beans. So quiet i have a hard time hearing it crack. You should still hear second crack though...

IIRC without checking my logs, i think first happens at an indicated 230c... possibly 232. After first crack, there was a lot of chaff evident in the air vent.. which had pretty much cleared by the time second started..

personally, i usually drop the temp by 3 or 4 degrees after first crack, and open up the clear lid.. which sort of kind of stops heat building up quite so fast, (and makes second easier to hear)

you may want to leave that peaberry about 3 or 4 days to develop though... i found it to be quite gassy .. but really tasty come Wednesday...


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