Roast Profiling

Green coffee is seeds from coffee trees that produce coffee cherries as fruits through processing on removal of different layers of coffee fruit. As in green coffee, you cannot extract anything without roasting, grinding and brewing it with water to produce flavor or as liquid beverages that we drink.

Picture 1.0 - Showing you the coffee cherry steps of maturation from yellow to red

First step - Knowing your green

The information such as density (varietal or cultivar, processing and growing altitude) and water activity level plus moisture content (fresh or old crops and shelve life) will help us to determine the roast planning, this info and guideline are available in SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) website or any other scientific blogs regarding to this. General rules of thumb that good moisture content in green coffee should be somewhere between 10% to 12% maximum and water activity level around 0.45aw to 0.55aw , more than that there is a chance to grow mold and bacteria that may contribute ochratoxin which is poisonous that can be deadly for human consumption in excessive amount. Also from flavor perspective this will be causing degradation in the intensity or vibrancy of the coffee itself during roasting and in the final product.

Picture 2.0 - Showing you the information from particular green coffee sample that I took before making a roast profile or roast plan

what is it roast planning, it it including deciding every single steps or technics that we are going to take or use to produce the final product which is roasted coffee. It is also needs to be suitable for what consumers or provides in the regions such as water, brew methods and brewing equipment that they are using mostly. For me personally, roasting is like playing chess, you ultimately need to pre design your movement either first opening, defending or even responding. Because you never really know what is in store for you before you goes further to make the final product into a liquid and using your sensory apparatus to sense and describes that particular coffee. Either you want to apply soaking at the early stage of your roasting or not, or probably the RoR (Rate of Rise) crashed at the end of the first crack so that you need to use gas dipping technic to maintain the roast timing and color that you desire. Time, temperature, energy that you forced into the coffee during roasting and color will affect the quality, vibrancy and intensity of the final product that you are going to represent to the consumer.

Picture 3.0 - The prototype of roast profile that hit my roast plan and target before further adjustment and improvement after tasting the coffee

Second step - Understanding your roasting system and set ups

knowing you variables to navigate your roasting profile will be very crucial, this including batch size, BTU (British Thermal Unit) or power that you generate to roast certain amount of coffee, what kind of energy that you are going to use such as conduction, convection radiation or anything in between, this including airflow control and drum speed, size of ducting system and type of gas that you are using or electrical units to generate heat and power to your roasting machine. By understanding this part, you are ready to roast any type of coffee in any roasting levels.

Picture 4.0 - Some example of specification that given by roasting machine manufacturing to further understanding our roasting system and set up

Third step - Roasting style and philosophy

In the end you have to make business and generating revenue as coffee business without sacrificing our standard. It is solely based on your audience level or consumers preference in your country or region. It is going to be different when you roast rare coffees for competition or roasting ordinary everyday coffees for daily consumption. Like what I had been experiencing currently, I cannot roasting the same way when I was roasting in Indonesia compare to when I was roasting in Saudi Arabia since we have different water, market, and set up.

For me personally, we need to set aside our ego for a little bit if you are working with medium or large roasting company, because you need to be a team player without sacrificing any good roasting quality. A good roasting profile must be simple and easily to be replicated and understood by our assistant or fellow production roasters in order to hit the roast goals that we set and ensuring consistency in each roast whoever roasting the coffees.