Journey to the Darkside

Roast Progressions

We were roasting some pretty dark profiles the other night for a client and decided to whip out the GoPro and take a little video through the sightglass to show you how the coffee beans change color as the roast progresses.  From the color of the roast and the smell at specific times, we can determine how far we are along we are in the roast and where we might want to drop depending on the desired results.  In our case, on this night, with this series of roasts, we were looking for something right along scorched earth.  And I know what a lot of you are thinking, dark roasts are horrible (well some of you hipsters are anyway).  Well they can be, if they aren’t done right, and the you use the wrong coffee.  Most of what you have had is poor quality bean roasted dark because the roaster wanted to either hide the lack of quality or just didn’t understand how to roast properly.  I like to think the latter is the case for most of the garbage out there.  I just see something inherently wrong with trying to trick customers.

Going dark should not be taboo.  It should just be another tool in your belt to enable you to deliver what the customer is asking for.  So, don’t get me wrong, I’m by no means a dark roast kinda guy, I like lighter roasts, but I’m not afraid of a properly done dark roast with a quality coffee.

Enjoy the 1 minute video and pay close attention to the subtlety of the color progression. By the way, you would be surprised how hard it is to put a GoPro on a 400° roaster and not melt it.