Burundi Kazoza N'Ikawa Coop Lot 1

Beans: Burundi Kazoza N'Ikawa Coop Lot 1
Varietal: Bourbon
Elevation: 1700-1800 masl
Process: Washed
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 231 grams
Roast Attempt: 18th
Roast Date/Time: March 14, 2021, 1330 CDT

I started the manual process in the usual way: one pound setting to give me 18:00 on the timer, P5 for 100% power to the heating element.  The roast proceeded as usual to the yellowing phase, although interestingly the chamber wall thermistor read a little hotter this time.

Chamber Temperature

16:00 - 147
14:00 - 231
12:00 - 287
11:00 - 309
10:00 - 296

Although exact yellowing times are probably a little bit variable, I've found that by 7:30 into the roast you're where you need to be.  Sometimes the beans are probably a little bit more tan by 7:30; it's hard to do this any way other than visually, and under the light bulb inside the Behmor it's not necessarily an exact science.  At this stage of the roast I think I'd rather let the beans get slightly further into the yellowing phase before speeding up the drum than speed up the drum on beans that are still a little on the green side.  Realistically it probably doesn't make a ton of difference either way - the place to really worry about timing is around first crack.

Following what has become my relatively standard procedure, at 10:30 on the display I hit D to up the drum speed and lowered the heating element to 75% by hitting P4.

Exhaust Temperature

10:00 - 206
9:00 - 298
8:00 - 339
7:00 - 361
6:00 - 377

First crack started at 10:45 into the roast, 7:15 on the display.  My intention was to slow the drum speed at the start of first crack like I did with the Peruvian, but I forgot to do it this time; I think the idea is that slowing the drum speed here extends first crack a little by lowering that airflow, though you don't want the roast to stall out either.  I've never seen the exhaust thermistor (what I refer to in my notes as the A Temp because you check it with the A button on the front of the roaster) drop during a roast cycle so I don't think that's a big risk with the heating element still on 75% power even if the airflow is lowered.  Hasn't seemed to be a problem so far, anyway, at least as far as the end products I've tasted.  If I've screwed them up it's been for other reasons!

First crack lasted about 90 seconds, and this time I sent the roaster into the cooling cycle right at the end of the taper.  I expect East African beans to have more delicacy in their flavor profiles than a lot of others, so I wanted to get it out of there right at the end of first crack.  The A thermistor topped out at 377; it might have gotten close to 380 by 5:45 when I hit cool, but I certainly didn't want it to go much further.  As usual, I opened the roaster door after 90 seconds of the cooling cycle to get more cool airflow over the beans and bring the temperature down faster.

Complete Roast Time: 12:15
Post-Roast Weight: 201 grams
Loss Percentage: 13%

This is right where I wanted to be - a solid medium, maybe trending just a hair light.  The difference in roast time is interesting to note compared to the 14:20 of the Peruvian, especially since yellowing times were functionally the same.  It took the Peruvian nearly five minutes to go from yellowing to first crack, whereas it took the Burundian just 3:15.  The beans were roughly the same size (both 15-17 screen according to Sweet Maria's) and the batch sizes were almost identical, so I assume it must have been something about the beans themselves, although I'm not really sure what it would have been.

Burundi Kazoza N'Ikawa Coop Lot 1

These were the beans this morning, one week off roast.  I think the color is a bit more consistent than it was in the Peru batch, but you can certainly see plenty of variation in individual beans.  (I think my next batch came out more even, but we'll see when I get to it.)  The possibility of unbalanced exposure to the heat source is an obvious peril of home roasting, even in a relatively advanced drum roaster.

As usual I ground the beans in my Capresso burr grinder on 5/6 to produce a medium-coarse grind for the V60.  The smell of ground coffee does not necessarily tell you much about how it's going to taste but I have to say the ground beans smelled fantastic, maybe the best I've ever smelled.  The brew time was just about three minutes, including the 30 second bloom.  34 grams of ground coffee produced 18 fluid ounces of brewed coffee, using a 60 g/1 liter ratio (34 grams of coffee, 567 grams of water).

TASTING NOTES: The acidity makes me think of a stone fruit, like a peach at first but more like a cherry as I kept drinking.  The body is medium, I'd say - not distinctly creamy but certainly not thin.  Flavor notes were a bit of a moving target - this isn't uncommon as such, but it's not often that I repeatedly think I taste something only to feel like I can't pull it out again on subsequent sips.  There were notes of lemon zest, something floral like a jasmine, suggestions of clove and star anise, and a slightly tannic white grape finish.  The coffees I enjoy the most typically have a bunch of flavors I can pick out, so this did work for me.

VERDICT: This was undoubtedly an excellent cup of coffee!  I might be inclined to say it was more of a medium-light roast, so perhaps when looking at loss percentages, I would call 12-13% medium-light and 13.5%-14.5% medium, and then above that we start getting toward medium-dark (certainly by 15% that's where you are, in my experience).  The brightness of the acidity across the cup was suggestive of medium-light to me; it was definitely a brighter cup than the Peruvian, which was more creamy and chocolatey.  (Of course there's also varietals and terroir factoring into that as well, but I have to think the difference in roast times played some role here.  You can certainly roast brightness out of a bean.)  In any event, another successful roast that I would have happily accepted from any roaster out there.  Input quality is undoubtedly the single most important factor, but it's nice to know I'm doing a solid job of not dropping the ball on the last link of the farm-to-cup chain.