# Baked roasts



## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

I've read about baked roasts but I'm not at all sure that I would know one if I tasted one. I also don't know how to avoid one, or better still, how to make sure that I do have a baked roast so that I can taste it to see what a baked roast taste/smells/feels like.

I do cook and bake and I know, for example, how a well-roasted almond or cashew nut should taste like, and what happens if the nuts are baked at too low or too high a temperature, for too long or not long enough. It's easy enough to tell with coffee if it's undercooked or overcooked ... but 'baked'? No, not for me (or perhaps I've never tasted a 'baked' coffee).

I've read this article by Scott Rao: https://www.scottrao.com/blog/2018/2/24/what-is-baked-coffee-most-pros-dont-know ... and I must admit that it makes no sense to me at all. He says that if the ROR drops suddenly at the end of the roast that this WILL result in a baked coffee. Well, a sudden drop in the ROR only means that the temperature of the beans is going up more slowly (not that the temperature change is level, or dropping). He doesn't say that the coffee will be baked if the ROR goes to zero or negative (which might make some sense).

So, according to him, unless the ROR is dropping steadily (not suddenly) in the last 60 seconds of the roast, the coffee will most likely be baked (and may even be baked if the sudden drop is within the last 30 seconds). (I take it that if the ROR is INCREASING in the last 60 seconds that we have a different sort of problem ... perhaps a burnt or scorched coffee?).

Anyway, I would really appreciate some help with this. Is there any way to tell a baked bean (







) by looking at it, or cutting it open ... or something? Or is it down to comparing roasts using blind cupping until one gets the hang of it?

There is something that was mentioned on this forum which I think makes a huge amount of sense: and that is to stick with the one bean for a long time so that one really gets to know the bean, what it tastes and smells like at different roasts. Maybe that's the thing that would teach one to recognise a 'baked roast?.

Robert


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

From a novice roaster...and definitely head above the parapet....

A baked roast is one where the bean has taken to long to reach first crack.

Some also call it 'stalling', but I have also heard that term used when the temp drop has been to deep (and or started to early) when the roaster is trying to stretch the roast between first and second crack.

You can not visually detect a a baked roast, but it is quite apparent in the mouth. The roast lacks sweetness and caramels. I have heard some describe it as bread, but a flatness of taste and lack of sweetness are good indicators.

So I am ready to be gunned down by those with more experience! Be gentle!


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Batian said:


> From a novice roaster...and definitely head above the parapet....
> 
> A baked roast is one where the bean has taken to long to reach first crack.
> 
> ...


Well, you're safe with me ... but I hope Scott Rao is not sneaking around this forum!

It does make sense to me that a long slow temperature rise to 1st crack (which, to me, indicates that the internal bean temperature has reached cooked point ... keeping my head down too!) would be problematic. Again, thinking of something like roasting almonds, you need to get the nut roasted quite quickly (10 mins or so), otherwise it gets chewy and lacks zip (I guess you could call it a baked almond!).

Again, a temperature drop when the nut has reached cooking point would be a very bad idea ... so it also makes sense that the temperature should be maintained after 1st crack. What doesn't make sense (sorry Scott!) is that slowing down the rate of temperature increase fast, after 1st crack, would cause a problem. BUT, let me think ... If the BMT accurately reflects the internal bean temperature, then slowing down its increase fast implies that the ET must have been dropped significantly (to below BMT) so that it is now cooling the beans. That would not be good ... so maybe Scott is right (or partly right anyway). This is very dangerous territory that I am on - questioning an authority like Scott!

OK, so I'll try that on my next two roasts: on the first I will really stretch out the time to 1st crack. On the second I will drop the set temperature on the Gene to 200C after 1st crack. I will then see if my coffee tastes of bread, flat and lacking in sweetness (btw: I make some seriously excellent sourdough bread and if anyone said to me that it tasted flat and lacked sweetness, I would take out the guillotine!!).

Cheers

Robert


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

The Davecuk instructions that comes with a Gene bought from Bella Barista suggest ( for most profiles) a hold of 30 to 60 seconds once a rolling 1stC is achieved, then drop the temp 5 deg C from the highest temperature achieved. Up to 8 for bigger loads.

Also in the instructions Dave gives guides to when 1st C should be achieved...this prevents scorching and baking. To refresh, 1st C wants to be after 11 minutes and before 14/15 minutes. Failure to meet these targets requires temp adjustments early on in the first and weight adjustments in the latter.

I suggest a revision exercise of both user guides?


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

As beans hit 1C they go from being endo to exothermic and release moisture in the form of water vapour which briefly lowers the temperature in the system. This can cause a "flick" or temporary crash in the RoR which may cause baking. The earlier in 1C this happens then the more pronounced the "bake". The introduction of heat at an appropriate point can avoid this. At least that is what I take from his article.

Stalling is not baking in his terms but a different fault presumably a poorly judged profile.

I haven't tried to bake a coffee but maybe I should to understand how it tastes, but it goes against the grain to deliberately waste coffee...

Avoiding this will be roaster dependent on how you can adjust heat during a roast?


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Yes, I have read DaveC's notes with the Gene (I didn't realize he had written them though). It does make sense to me that getting the beans up to the right temperature in the right timeframe is very important and that failing to do so may result in a bad roast. I can also imagine that cooling down the beans before they are fully roasted is likely to also result in a bad roast ... so reducing the temperature 60 seconds after rolling 1C would need to be done quite carefully (he does say to do it gently I think).

I'm not so sure about lowering the temperature by 5C from achieved temperature though ... that could well result in cooling the beans down (as opposed to not heating them up more). Unfortunately, without knowing what the bean temperature actually is it's just guesswork (or relying on Dave's experience, which is no doubt a better strategy!).

BTW ... he says that it is NOT true that 1C is exothermic. Pretty much everything I've read says the opposite, but I suspect that he is right: the Malliard reaction is endothermic and I can't imagine what other reactions might occur at 1C that would be exothermic (but then, what do I know?







).

I agree that wasting coffee deliberately baking it is a bit wasteful ... but in the interests of science and knowledge! According to Dave, if small amounts are roasted in the Gene the roasting will take longer, so the long slow bake could be done with, say, 100gms of beans. If that results in a 'baked' roast then it will be a good learning experience.

At the other end, I personally don't believe that a fast drop in the ROR at the very end of the roast will result in a baked roast (sorry Scott!) so I don't think I'll be too worried about that experiment. And , if you think of it, anyone who uses the Gene cooling cycle will certainly be causing a crash in the ROR ... so every Gene-cooled-down roast should (according to Scott) be baked. That would not appear to be the case.

Cheers

Robert


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

Robert,

I recently roasted (in the Gene) a 100gm of a natural processed Guji as a sample. It was my first attempt at using the Gene as a sample roaster. The results were usable as a sample as I could get some idea of the beans potential, but they were not good. The end result was an extremely uneven roast, and for this reason, I do not think 100gm in the Gene will be suitable for experimenting with a baked roast.

I will just have to wait awhile and see if a true 100gm roaster appears when I have the spare cash!

Or get my samples as roasted ----but having seen what they are using to roast samples, I am not sure if that will be much further forward!


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

One thing to think about, as beans go through 1st crack they expand, by around 30-50%...this has a *huge *effect on airflow with a roaster like the Gene Cafe and hence temperature. So things are a little counter intuitive with a Gene (for a full fluid bed roaster it's different again). I also don't think you can apply principles from other roasters to a Gene. In fact you can't always apply principles from one roaster to another of exactly the same make/type. This is because there are many variables in roasting set-ups e.g. length and diameter of exhaust pipe, presence of draughts or airflow over the roaster, mains voltage fluctuations.

As with espresso machines, roasters are the same, as long as the basic design is reasonable, you can have all the electronic doodads a Cray computer controlling profiles...but at the end of the day a really skilled operator will get a good roast out of almost any roaster. Put someone with no skillz behind a Probat 1kg and someone with skillz behind say a Dalian 1kg, or "possibly "even a modded Gene Cafe and I know who is more likely to produce the better roast. Scot Rao isn't behind the controls of your roaster, at your mains voltage, in your temperature, with your beans and your venting system......you are.

If you think roasts are baked try and think why, if they are scorched try again to work out why. I remember people heard burnt espresso from water being too hot and for years people thought adding water from the commercial machines tap to create an Americano from an espresso, somehow "burnt" the coffee, which is obvious nonsense because the extraction already took place before. If you believe a few degrees drop in ROR for 30s can bake a roast, then test out the theory! Usually the baked roast simply results from over long roast times...the temperatures involved have to be from around 140C ish anything below 140 isn't doing very much to contribute to baking (although long enough of course might affect things). Hitting 1st without enough energy, drawing out the roast at/after 1st, all give baked notes. However a roast of 14m or 17m may not make very much difference to being baked or not....17m plus and your moving into baked no matter how you roasted...however do it badly and shorter times can bake.

Remember, when a roast is loaded in a Gene it's essentially "cold" and warms up (so it's doing very little for 60-90s)...when you bung a roast into a big commercial drum roaster weighting perhaps a ton. The thing is hot hot hot and you start from that position. Do you really think an ideal number of minutes to 1st in that big roaster (for a given coffee) would be the same number of minutes in a Gene (for the same coffee), you you really think it would be remotely the same. Gene = starts col, Big roaster = starts hot. To reach 1st in the same time you wouldn't half have to push some serious heat through a gene....would that be good for the coffee?

Or (this is just an example, could a 11m to 1st in a BIG roaster be essentially the same as 12.5m to 1st in a gene....because it starts cold.

When 1st starts in a big roaster often the heat is cut (and stays cut), lots of residual heat, in a Gene you cannot do that, because there is always very high airflow....so you must reduce rather than cut the heat.

There is a lot to think about and I didn't pull the stuff out of my arse.....I did think about it. Of course I can only ever generalise, for each coffee each situation there is a way....but it's probably not in any book written by someone for other types of roasters..As always roasting depending on the particular coffee is a compromise, between speed, evenness, scorching, loss of flavour notes, sweetness, length of maillard, caremelisation, roast level. Both ends of a see-saw can't be at the top at the same time.


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

This link is interesting:

https://genecafeusa.com/blogs/news/84044678-how-to-optimize-performance-and-preserve-the-life-of-your-cbr-101-roaster


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Batian said:


> Robert,
> 
> I recently roasted (in the Gene) a 100gm of a natural processed Guji as a sample. It was my first attempt at using the Gene as a sample roaster. The results were usable as a sample as I could get some idea of the beans potential, but they were not good. The end result was an extremely uneven roast, and for this reason, I do not think 100gm in the Gene will be suitable for experimenting with a baked roast.
> 
> ...


I'm disappointed that you had such bad experience with the Gene ... perhaps you should experiment a bit with it, my impressions are pretty good (but I'm very far from an expert, but I certainly haven't had uneven roasts).

BTW ... I'm not AT ALL suggesting using 100gms as a normal roasting amount in the Gene ... I was just thinking that it might be a handy amount to experiment with to try to get a baked roast without wasting too much coffee.

Perhaps DaveC might have some suggestions?


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

RA5040 said:


> I'm disappointed that you had such bad experience with the Gene ... perhaps you should experiment a bit with it, my impressions are pretty good (but I'm very far from an expert, but I certainly haven't had uneven roasts).
> 
> BTW ... I'm not AT ALL suggesting using 100gms as a normal roasting amount in the Gene ... I was just thinking that it might be a handy amount to experiment with to try to get a baked roast without wasting too much coffee.
> 
> Perhaps DaveC might have some suggestions?


Robert, I did not have such a bad experience, I knew what to expect!

When you deal with wholesalers, they offer a free sample service. So far I have found that to be either 100gm green or 30gm roasted. ie Just enough for you to try.

To experiment with the Gene for the same purpose I would need, say, a kilo! They are not going to give me (or sell) a kilo, it's a free sample or the 60kg sack!

And after 2.5 years and some 65 kilos through the Gene, I think I am just beginning to get the feel for the machine and understand its capabilities!

It is not designed to roast 100gm.

I will use it to roast samples, but I am aware that they will not be at the best the machine could produce, but good enough to know whether I am going to risk purchasing a sack!

And maybe, just maybe, I will be able to afford something else to roast the samples better!


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

DavecUK said:


> One thing to think about, as beans go through 1st crack they expand, by around 30-50%...this has a *huge *effect on airflow with a roaster like the Gene Cafe and hence temperature. So things are a little counter intuitive with a Gene (for a full fluid bed roaster it's different again). I also don't think you can apply principles from other roasters to a Gene. In fact you can't always apply principles from one roaster to another of exactly the same make/type. This is because there are many variables in roasting set-ups e.g. length and diameter of exhaust pipe, presence of draughts or airflow over the roaster, mains voltage fluctuations.


Just be to clear ... I don't believe that any of my roasts to-date have been baked. I'm just trying to understand what a baked roast is, how to tell one, and how to avoid them. So I was thinking of trying to deliberately roast so that it has a high chance of being baked to see what a baked roast taste/smells/feels like.



DavecUK said:


> As with espresso machines, roasters are the same, as long as the basic design is reasonable, you can have all the electronic doodads a Cray computer controlling profiles...but at the end of the day a really skilled operator will get a good roast out of almost any roaster. Put someone with no skillz behind a Probat 1kg and someone with skillz behind say a Dalian 1kg, or "possibly "even a modded Gene Cafe and I know who is more likely to produce the better roast. Scot Rao isn't behind the controls of your roaster, at your mains voltage, in your temperature, with your beans and your venting system......you are.


I'm sure you're right ... I have no experience with other roasters to go by so I can only compare my roasts to good locally roasted coffee by an excellent coffee shop. On the whole I would say that mine are pretty good ... but I would have thought that having additional information, like a reasonably good BMT and ET, and perhaps being able to control the heater better, would help. At the moment it is flying blind a bit (although there is plenty of feedback in terms of smell, look, sound etc).



DavecUK said:


> If you think roasts are baked try and think why, if they are scorched try again to work out why. I remember people heard burnt espresso from water being too hot and for years people thought adding water from the commercial machines tap to create an Americano from an espresso, somehow "burnt" the coffee, which is obvious nonsense because the extraction already took place before. If you believe a few degrees drop in ROR for 30s can bake a roast, then test out the theory! Usually the baked roast simply results from over long roast times...the temperatures involved have to be from around 140C ish anything below 140 isn't doing very much to contribute to baking (although long enough of course might affect things). Hitting 1st without enough energy, drawing out the roast at/after 1st, all give baked notes. However a roast of 14m or 17m may not make very much difference to being baked or not....17m plus and your moving into baked no matter how you roasted...however do it badly and shorter times can bake.


Yes, that's exactly what I intend to do: experiment to try to understand it all better.



DavecUK said:


> Remember, when a roast is loaded in a Gene it's essentially "cold" and warms up (so it's doing very little for 60-90s)...when you bung a roast into a big commercial drum roaster weighting perhaps a ton. The thing is hot hot hot and you start from that position. Do you really think an ideal number of minutes to 1st in that big roaster (for a given coffee) would be the same number of minutes in a Gene (for the same coffee), you you really think it would be remotely the same. Gene = starts col, Big roaster = starts hot. To reach 1st in the same time you wouldn't half have to push some serious heat through a gene....would that be good for the coffee?


Well, this has come up in another thread where I appear to be somewhat at odds with the others. I preheat my Gene (to 200C normally) and emergency stop at the end to dump out the beans and cool them quickly (it takes about 30 seconds). At the start of the roast the air temperature is at 150-160C so the beans may not start off as hot as in a big roaster (no idea what temperatures typically are in a big roaster ...) but they do start off in a hot chamber.



DavecUK said:


> Or (this is just an example, could a 11m to 1st in a BIG roaster be essentially the same as 12.5m to 1st in a gene....because it starts cold.
> 
> When 1st starts in a big roaster often the heat is cut (and stays cut), lots of residual heat, in a Gene you cannot do that, because there is always very high airflow....so you must reduce rather than cut the heat.


From what you said earlier, when you cut the heat in a big roaster the temperature should hopefully no longer increase, but neither will it decrease by much because of the high thermal mass of the roaster (and beans). On the other hand, with the Gene, lowering the temperature will quite quickly result in a cooling of the beans because the roaster will be pumping in cold air. So I would have thought that one would need to be very careful about doing this, and make sure not to lower it too much or too quickly to avoid causing the beans to start cooling.



DavecUK said:


> There is a lot to think about and I didn't pull the stuff out of my arse.....I did think about it. Of course I can only ever generalise, for each coffee each situation there is a way....but it's probably not in any book written by someone for other types of roasters..As always roasting depending on the particular coffee is a compromise, between speed, evenness, scorching, loss of flavour notes, sweetness, length of maillard, caremelisation, roast level. Both ends of a see-saw can't be at the top at the same time.


I hope you didn't get the impression that I thought you had pulled all of the very useful information in your booklet out of anywhere but experience, knowledge and thought.

But going back to Batian's comment above, do you think the Gene is a good roaster, and is it suitable as a sample roaster (given that it can't really go below 200gm roasts)? I hope you do because I would be very upset to find that I had purchased a roaster from a reputable company like Bella Barista only to find out that it is not capable of roasting well.

Cheers

Robert


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Batian said:


> Robert, I did not have such a bad experience, I knew what to expect!
> 
> When you deal with wholesalers, they offer a free sample service. So far I have found that to be either 100gm green or 30gm roasted. ie Just enough for you to try.
> 
> ...


OK ... good. I misunderstood you









Well, I certainly wouldn't expect to get a good roast out of 100gms ... which is really the reason why I may try a 100gm roast: I want to try to get a baked roast so that I get to know what a baked roast is.

Was your 100gm roast baked by any chance (as well as uneven etc.)?

Cheers

Robert


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

It was not baked...unless by the odd bean, but I did not detect any baked characteristics.

To complicate matters the sample was that of a 'nearly straight from the wild' Ethiopian.

In reply to yours to Davecuk above.

From what you said earlier, when you cut the heat in a big roaster the temperature should hopefully no longer increase, but neither will it decrease by much because of the high thermal mass of the roaster (and beans). On the other hand, with the Gene, lowering the temperature will quite quickly result in a cooling of the beans because the roaster will be pumping in cold air. So I would have thought that one would need to be very careful about doing this, and make sure not to lower it so as to cause the beans to start cooling.

I can assure you that in a 1kg roaster, when you turn off the heat, the temperature can and does continue to rise quite dramatically! It's all good fun, hence DaveC's advice elsewhere on the forum, to bite the bullet (no slur intended!) buy 60 kgs of cheap Brazilian and play!

Last week my roaster took 45 minutes to cool from 200 ish to the turn off temp of 100C. And because of the high ambient, I exercised caution and did not turn off until 80C!


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Batian said:


> It was not baked...unless by the odd bean, but I did not detect any baked characteristics.
> 
> To complicate matters the sample was that of a 'nearly straight from the wild' Ethiopian.


Would that not explain the unevenness of the roast? Nearly straight from the wild Ethiopians are likely to be a mixed bag, so to speak ... hardly major 21st Century quality control!



Batian said:


> I can assure you that in a 1kg roaster, when you turn off the heat, the temperature can and does continue to rise quite dramatically! It's all good fun, hence DaveC's advice elsewhere on the forum, to bite the bullet (no slur intended!) buy 60 kgs of cheap Brazilian and play!
> 
> Last week my roaster took 45 minutes to cool from 200 ish to the turn off temp of 100C. And because of the high ambient, I exercised caution and did not turn off until 80C!


Well, exactly, so on a big roaster you won't be able to lower the temperature: the best you will be able to do is to slow down the rise, so cutting the heat makes eminent sense. Not so on the Gene ... so cutting the temperature on the Gene may not make so much sense, and even if it does, it should be done (as Davec says in the booklet) slowly and carefully.

Anyway, it all takes a lot of experience (and coffee beans)! You must be a real expert by now, having roasted so much coffee in the Gene (not to mention big roasters)!

Cheers

Robert


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## Batian (Oct 23, 2017)

I consider myself to be a novice, but getting to grips. I have only had the 1kg roaster since January and I roast 3/4 kgs every fortnight. So not even on the first step of that ladder.

When you explore your coffee passion, you will either like the uniqueness of beans from Ethiopia or even the Yemen, or you will despise it because they do not fit your idea of quality control. If you want precise roasting, use commercially bred beans of one type ie all one species, and a computer controlled roaster.

There are coffees in Ethiopia that have not even been catalogued. They are so important to the industry and the future of coffee.

And they also happen to produce some wonderful tastes! But they do come with roasting problems.

For me, it's worth it.


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Batian said:


> I consider myself to be a novice, but getting to grips. I have only had the 1kg roaster since January and I roast 3/4 kgs every fortnight. So not even on the first step of that ladder.
> 
> When you explore your coffee passion, you will either like the uniqueness of beans from Ethiopia or even the Yemen, or you will despise it because they do not fit your idea of quality control. If you want precise roasting, use commercially bred beans of one type ie all one species, and a computer controlled roaster.
> 
> ...


You misunderstood me. I wasn't implying that Ethiopian coffees are bad! Not all! In fact my very favourite coffee is a Yirgachefe (still to try Harar, Ghimbi,Sidamo etc). What I meant is that because they are mostly from mixed small holdings there can be a lot of variation between the beans, so that a roast may look at bit uneven compared to a Colombian Supremo, for instance.


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

Well, I can confirm that I believe that I have successfully ruined 125gms of not the greatest Brazilian Santos and achieved a well baked roast!

I did a really slow heat up to 240C: 100, 175, 200 with a minute at each, then 205, 210, 215 ... up to 240 with a minute at each. This gave me 1C at 17mins and I eventually ended the roast at 25 minutes for a medium roast, and cooled it down quickly so as not to add more unknowns.

I brewed a cup of V60 about an hour after the roast (I know, probably too soon, I'll try again in 12 hours).

SO:

- the beans (both whole and ground) have almost no fragrance.

- equally, the brewed coffee has no fragrance (unsurprisingly)

- I can only describe the taste as flat: thin, no acidity, no sweetness ... blah!

- very little aftertaste except a rather unpleasant bitterness (slight)

Anyway, I was happy to dump the cup (contents of, that is).

So, is this a baked coffee?, or are there a whole lot of other possible problems caused by the way I roasted the beans?

Robert


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## johnealey (May 19, 2014)

You may want to rest your experiment beans at least a couple of days if trying to V60 them so as to avoid picking up the roast flavours rather than anything else. Fragrance and flavour will be less overpowered over time.

Even when cupping the day after roasting I am aware that there may still be elements I am picking up of the roast that can disguise some of he more subtle flavours in the cup. Purely my observations.

John


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

johnealey said:


> You may want to rest your experiment beans at least a couple of days if trying to V60 them so as to avoid picking up the roast flavours rather than anything else. Fragrance and flavour will be less overpowered over time.
> 
> Even when cupping the day after roasting I am aware that there may still be elements I am picking up of the roast that can disguise some of he more subtle flavours in the cup. Purely my observations.
> 
> John


Yes, I'll try again tomorrow and the day after too. I'm not cupping because I have no experience of doing that ... at least with V60 I'm used to the taste/feel/smell of this coffee when roasted reasonably well, so I thought that it would be a better way to go, for me.


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## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

RA5040 said:


> Yes, I'll try again tomorrow and the day after too. I'm not cupping because I have no experience of doing that ... at least with V60 I'm used to the taste/feel/smell of this coffee when roasted reasonably well, so I thought that it would be a better way to go, for me.


On the Gene, for espresso, rest for a pt least 7 days. Otherwise it just tastes like grass.

For V60, wait at least a couple of days. Or even better, try a a bit every day and see how it evolves.


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## RA5040 (Jul 2, 2018)

OK ... but this lovely baked roast probably won't even taste like grass. BTW ... that's a bit strange ... I wonder why a Gene roast would taste like grass if brewed as espresso within 7 days??


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