I continue my journey into home roasting and this week I have two roasts of a single origin Colombian coffee to share with you. This was a totally different animal to roast than the Espresso Monkey from Part 2 of this series, and Sweet Maria’s wasn’t lying when they said this coffee “can take the heat!”
Part 2: Espresso Monkey Three Ways
This week’s coffee: Colombia San Antonio Palomos del Sur
A COFFEE GEEK’S VOYAGE INTO HOME ROASTING PART 3 – SINGLE ORIGIN COLOMBIAN
After the success I had with Espresso Monkey in Part 2 of our story, I was feeling pretty good about myself! Three roasts, all pulling good shots and tasting good, and I was amazed by the amount of variation I got in flavors just with slight changes in the roasting profile. I mean, I knew that’s how it worked and that every aspect of a roasting profile ends up being important, but I guess roasting coffee myself and paying more attention really drives that home.
The lovely people at Sweet Maria’s sponsored this series by sending me a box of 6 pounds of different coffees, so the next bag I reached for was the Colombia San Antonio Palomos del Sur. This coffee is sold out now, but Sweet Maria’s always has some good Colombians ready to shop to you. They described this coffee as, “Underlying burned sugar sweetness, Cracker Jacks, dark cocoa powder and a basil-like accent note. Full City roasts are as chocolatey as they come. City to Full City+. Good for espresso.” Their in-house cupping score of this coffee was 86.6 and the main attributes in their flavor wheel were body, cocoa, sugars and caramel. This coffee came from San Antonio, Inza, Cauca and was a washed lot of Caturra, Colombia and Typica varieties. The farm sits at 1750-1900masl and this tends to create dense seeds with a tight cellular structure. For this reason, Sweet Maria’s said it’s a good candidate for darker roasting.
I have two roasts to share with you. I just finished the third roast from the bag (I can get about three 160g starting weight roasts out of each 1 pound bag of green) yesterday, so it needs to rest a bit and I was surprised by this one, and I’ll mention why below.
Batch #1:
I roasted this batch on 5/17 and started with a cold roaster, no pre-heating. My starting weight was 157.8g and I had such good luck with the settings I used on Espresso Monkey that I kept it up with this single origin Colombian. So, I used the 1/2lb setting, program B and P1 on the Behmor 1600. I added time for a total of 13:30. This first batch was a little tough to determine first crack on because the coffee made quite a bit of quiet “puffing” noises leading up to it, but I noted 3:40 left on the timer when the first true 1C sounds started and they had mostly stopped by around 2:30. I hit the cool button at 1:55 and I either heard the first couple sounds of second crack or a couple strays left over from 1C. This coffee had a final weight of 134.7g, and I calculated a yield of 85%.
Batch #2:
I roasted this batch on 5/18 and I realized when I was setting it up that I had forgotten to put the chaff collector back in the Behmor when I did Roast #1. This turned out to be really important! The Behmor 1600 chaff collector is a substantial piece of metal and not having it in the roaster allowed Batch 1 to go a lot faster than Batch 2 or Batch 3 went. I used the same settings for Batch 2, and started 160.0g of green coffee. This time I remembered to put the chaff collector in! I did the same 13:30 time with 1/2lb, B, P1 settings. First crack started around 3:00 this time, a full 40 seconds later than Batch 1 that didn’t have the chaff collector soaking up heat. 1C slowed down quite a bit by 1:50 and was still giving some stray noises until 1:35 or so. I hit the cool button at :28 left on the clock. My final weight was 135.3g, for a yield of 84.5%.
Batch #3:
Roasted 5/30. 160.0g starting weight and I used 1/2lb, B, P1 settings just as with the other two. First crack on this batch didn’t start until 2:18 and it wasn’t mostly done until 1:00, so it had a really stretched out first crack. There were still some stray 1C sounds until about :40 left on the timer. I let this one go for the full 13:30. My finished weight was 137.4g, for a yield of 86%.
Roasting Summary:
So, this was interesting. The Espresso Monkey was easily getting into second crack and Vienna-French roast territory with these same settings, so this Colombian really could take the heat, as Sweet Maria’s said. I don’t think I was getting close to second crack on any of these roasts. Forgetting the chaff collector had a big effect on the roasting curve between Batch 1 and Batches 2-3. Batch 2 and 3 should have been identical, but Batch 3’s first crack started a good 45 seconds later than Batch 2’s. They both had 1C’s that lasted around 1:10-ish range. Based just on yields, Batch 3 is the “lightest” roast of the three as it came in at 86%, but Batch 2 was 84.5% and Batch 1 was 85%, so not a ton of variation. I can’t wait to drink Batch 3 and see how it turned out.
Tasting Pourovers:
I used the same method for all my pourover tastings… a 1:16 ratio of 22g of coffee to 352g of Third Wave Water in a Trinity Origin dripper with Kalita 155 filter. I pulse pour through a Melodrip to minimize agitation and my grinder is a Knock Aergrind.
I brewed up Batch 1 for the first time on 5/19, so two days off-roast. I did a 50-second bloom because it was still pretty gassy and the total brew time including the bloom was a fast 3:18, so I did tighten up the grinder for subsequent rounds. I got tons of caramelized sugar aromas, like roasted, slightly burned marshmallow. Medium body. Lots of sweetness, light caramelized sugars and honey. My notes say, “bright, almost bracing” and I’m not sure if that was the roast itself or the too-fast extraction. I was getting roasted marshmallow in the flavors, green apple acidity, some lemon candy, hints of baking spices. I was picking up more tart cherry as the cup cooled. The finish was a bit dry and left a dryness on my tongue. Lingering fruity aftertaste. Long between sips I was getting a bit of pencil lead/freshly sharpened pencil notes (weird, I know, but I can’t help how my brain works).
I brewed Batch 1 again on 5/25 with a finer grind this time. The total brew time was still 3:06, but I noted “not as bracing as first time.” There was more balance. I noted honey sweetness, green apple acidity, citrus that reminded me of both orange and lemon candy, some cherry. It had a silky mouthfeel and a medium body. It became fruitier and brighter as it cooled and leaned more toward orange in the citrus notes than the lemon I was getting before. I got some savory notes in the cool cup, too.
Batch #2 got its first extraction on 5/21, so it was three days off-roast. The grounds themselves had a very sweet fragrance and lots of molasses. I did a 45 second bloom and the total brew time was 4:30. So, same grind settings, but much slower to brew than Batch 1. The aroma was sweet and I wrote, “This is nice! Less bracing” LOL. Caramel and brown sugar, peach notes (yes! Peach… one of my favorites and when I get peach/apricot in a coffee it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll love it!). I was getting a little citrus and more of a red apple acidity from this cup. The peachy notes persisted as it cooled and I got flashes of Concord grape juice here and there, too. It was super sweet and super-inviting. The finish was sweet with some baking spice in the aftertaste. If this coffee had been sent by a professional roaster I would’ve raved about it, not to toot my own horn (heck, all I’m doing is pressing buttons and trying to stop the roast at the right time, let’s be honest!).
I drank Batch 2 again on 5/26. This was a 3:30 total brew time this time. It smelled darker than the first time. I wrote, “caramel, brown sugar, molasses.” I was getting quite a bit of cherry out of this cup, the peach was still there, and brown sugar in the flavor, too. THis cup was a bit more floral and the finish was dryer. I noticed some tobacco in the finish and aftertaste and it reminded me a lot of a very specific pipe tobacco made by Cult called Blood Red Moon. This is a fairly mild tobacco flavored with vanilla and cherry and when I got that tobacco note in the second half of the sip, with the cherry notes already on board it was an instant connection in my mind.
Espresso Tasting:
I don’t know how, but I don’t have good tasting notes from my espresso shots with this coffee for some reason. I thought I was putting them in my Notes app, but apparently not. I had better luck with Batch 2 than Batch 1. Batch 1 just wanted to run fast and be inconsistent, although I did pull two shots using a 19g dose instead of 18. The one I just did as I was writing this up was 19g in, 38.7g out in 27 seconds and it was pretty tasty. Bright, lots of raisin, raw sugar, cherry, lemon candy. Cocoa finish, tobacco and raisin lingering 10 minutes out still.
I pulled an AWESOME shot of Batch 2 on 5/29, so it was 11 days off-roast. As it extracted and I was watching the bottomless portafilter I just knew this one was going to taste great! This one had an 18g dose, 34g in the cup in 26 seconds. It was one of those shots I wished I had recorded because it just looked perfect. It tasted phenomenal, too… mango, tropical fruits, raw sugar, tart cherries and peach, which I almost never get in espresso flavors. It was SO good and, again, this would’ve been a coffee I RAVED about if a roaster sent it for review.
For the espresso geeks, I’m using a Quick Mill Carola Evo that I think I have set to 92-93C. Bottomless aftermarket PF with IMS 16/20 precision basket. I replaced the shower screen with IMS precision. Grinder is an Orphan Espresso Pharos I modded to the 2.0 version.