Sulawesi Gowa Desa Topidi

Beans: Sulawesi Gowa Desa Topidi
Varietals: Typica, S-795
Elevation: 1300-1500 masl
Process: Washed
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 234 grams
Roast Attempt: 21st
Roast Date/Time: March 24, 2021, 2000 CDT

I feel pretty sure that I've had Sulawesi coffee before... but if I did, it was before I was keeping track, and so I probably didn't really appreciate it anyway.  Either way, the chance to add two new Indonesian islands in the same order was way too much to pass up, so I had ordered a pound of this Sulawesi at the same time that I ordered the Flores Wolo Wio.  Once again, my hesitation in trying Indonesian coffee was removed by the fact that no Robusta genetics were present - mostly Typica and that bit of Liberica from the S-795.

At this point the starting information is probably always going to be the same, but for posterity's sake: 18:00, 100% power to the heating element (P5).

Chamber Temperature

16:00 - 147
14:00 - 231
12:00 - 287
11:00 - 307
10:00 - 298

This was a fairly typical progress profile, and the temperature didn't peak quite as hot as on a few recent roasts.  As with the Flores, the yellowing seemed to take just slightly longer - I once again clocked it at 7:45 into the roast, instead of what had become my typical expectation of 7:30.  At this point I hit D to increase the drum speed and lowered the heat to 75% power to the heating element (P4).

Exhaust Temperature

10:00 - 206
9:00 - 298
8:00 - 338
7:00 - 361
6:00 - 377
5:00 - 386

The progress towards first crack was fairly normal, though it ran a few degrees hotter than the Flores - which I don't think is surprising, as this turned out to be a much chaffier bean.  First crack started about 6:20 on the display, 11:40 into the roast, a full minute earlier than the Flores.  My goal was not to roast this one as far, since the Sweet Maria's recommendations were lighter, so I planned to go into the cooling cycle at either 2:00 past first crack or 15 seconds past the taper, whichever was shorter.  First crack had a pretty long tail, with a primary center of maybe only 45-50 seconds but continued popping all the way up through about 90 seconds past the start.  As the taper started, I also began to see some notable bits of glowing/flaming chaff.  This is always a little bit nerve-wracking - to date there has never been any significant risk of it turning into more, since the bits of chaff are very small, but knock on wood, obviously.  I didn't want to keep pushing with chaff lighting up inside the roaster, and at 4:30 on the display the A temp had hit 390.  I also wasn't sure how to gauge the timing after the taper, since even after the roughly 90 seconds there continued to be some isolated popping sounds.  1:50 after the start of first crack, and maybe 20 seconds instead of 15 after the taper, seems like an okay compromise.  As usual, I opened the door after 90 seconds to speed up the cooling process.

Complete Roast Time: 13:30
Post-Roast Weight: 202 grams
Loss Percentage: 13.7%

I was honestly a little surprised this wasn't higher, but it was pretty much exactly what I was shooting for - maybe slightly under (right at 14% would have been good), but the loss percentage and the initial color of the beans (a pretty consistent-looking milk chocolatey brown) suggests a nice solid medium, which was the aim.

Sulawesi Gowa Desa Topidi

These were the beans on Sunday morning, four days off roast.  The color continued to look pretty nice and even.  I ground them as usual at a medium-coarse for the V60.  The brewing time was a little under three minutes; 34 grams of ground coffee and 567 grams of water yielded 18.4 ounces of brewed coffee.  The aroma was sweet, with a spun sugar kind of note.

TASTING NOTES: I could tell right away that the roast was lighter than the Flores had been.  The acid wasn't high, but it was much more present and suggested lemon.  Notes of ginger, marzipan, and red apple emerged from underneath.  Less of the roasted flavor also meant less bitterness, so the cup was pretty pleasantly drinkable.

VERDICT: Since this was a mix of Typica and S-795, instead of just pure S-795 like the Flores, it had more of what I'm looking for from a cup of Arabica coffee.  Still maybe not my personal favorite in terms of flavor profile - but the point here is that I think this is basically the profile I would expect to get from these beans from most roasters, which means I handled them well.  In the end that's primarily what I'm looking for here.