Guatemala Organic Huehuetenango Familia Ovalle

Beans: Guatemala Organic Huehuetenango Familia Ovalle
Varietals: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai
Elevation: 1400-2000 masl
Process: Washed
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams
Roast Attempt: 24th
Roast Date/Time: April 16, 2021, 1330 CDT

This was the second of the three coffees picked out for the tasting session (see the previous post).  I was perhaps slightly more nervous about how to handle it because ordinarily I like to push Central Americans a little bit deeper into the roast (unless, as with the El Salvadoran Pacamara, it's specifically suggested otherwise), and if I go a little too far it will still work for milk drinks.  Given that this one was being roasted with the intention of pulling out tasting notes, however, I couldn't really afford to overdo it.  I settled on trying something I hadn't really done before, though perhaps I should have: using a planned maximum temperature as the guide for when to go into the cooling cycle.  Trying to use the end of first crack as a guide is normally fine, but it can be a touch fraught on extended first cracks where a smaller number of beans keep popping for longer than the whole batch needs to be kept on the heat.  It's become relatively clear to me at this point that there are maximum temperatures I don't want to exceed for certain roast levels.  So my plan for the roast involved going into the cooling cycle when the exhaust thermistor ("A Temp") hit 385, which has tended to indicate a nice medium roast.

As usual, I started the roast on the one-pound setting, with 18:00 on the display, with 100% power to the heating element (P5).

Chamber Temperature

16:00 - 149
14:00 - 233
13:00 - 264
12:00 - 287
11:00 - 307
10:00 - 293

So far so normal.  Notably, this roast did not cause the front window to fog up like the last two had, which only adds further evidence to my suspicion that that is caused by moisture content in the beans.  What specifically causes the higher moisture content in the Congo and PNG beans compared to these, I don't know.  These beans did come from a slightly older shipment - they arrived in August 2020, while the Congo beans are from February 2021 and the PNG from March - so it may be that the extra time sitting around a warehouse or whatever led to the beans being a bit drier and thus not creating that window fog during the initial roasting phase.  Green beans do keep for a while and I don't think the lower moisture content will make that much difference in terms of the end product.

In any event, I also called the yellowing phase slightly earlier than usual (although I've hit this number multiple times before), at 10:45 on the display, 7:15 into the roast.  I hit the D button to increase the drum speed and lowered the heat to 75% power (P4).

Exhaust Temperature

10:00 - 204
9:00 - 294
8:00 - 334
7:00 - 356
6:00 - 370
5:00 - 381

One interesting thing I noticed was that during roasting there were more than a few little bits of chaff that turned into glowing specks on the heating element - you'll see these tiny pinpricks of light at the back of the roaster as the bits escape the roasting drum, hit the coils directly, and quickly burn up - but it wasn't a super chaffy bean overall.  There wasn't a ton of chaff in the chaff tray after roasting, nor were there any slightly scary bits of flaming chaff flying around near the end of the roast as has happened several times to me with Central American beans.  In fact, the final product after being poured out of the roasting drum had quite a few beans that had retained a notable amount of skin even after going all the way through first crack, which isn't something I've seen happen too often to date.

First crack started on the later side relative to all the roasts I've done so far, at 5:45 on the display (12:15 into the roast).  Like the PNG, it only lasted about 60 seconds, and indeed it was a rather discrete first crack - there weren't too many isolated pops prior to the obvious full start of first crack, and when it was done it died quickly.  15 seconds after first crack ended, the A temp went from 384 right to 386 (skipping my marker of 385 entirely), so I sent the roast right into the cooling cycle at 4:30 on the display.  I slowed the drum right away, but instead of opening the door after 90 seconds to accelerate the cool-down, I forgot to do it until a full two minutes into the cooling cycle.  That probably won't make too much difference.

Complete Roast Time: 13:30
Post-Roast Weight: 203 grams
Loss Percentage: 13.6%

That is right where I normally want to be for an easy medium roast, at least with this type of bean.  For example, it's basically identical to the 13.7% on the Peruvian beans I did in the first roast that I tracked for this blog, and those were also high-grown Western Hemisphere beans that came out to a nice medium at that loss percentage.  So hopefully the same will happen with these.

Guatemala Organic Huehuetenango Familia Ovalle

These were the beans on Sunday, two days off roast.  That's a little sooner than I usually jump in, but I wanted to get a sense for how it went before we got to the coffee tasting next weekend, and it's easier for me to do pourovers on weekends.  The color of the batch looked pretty good, with the beans having a medium, maybe to the side of medium-light appearance.  I did a pourover for my wife first and it looked slightly light, so I decided to make mine just a skosh stronger than usual; I used 28 grams of beans (ground on the usual medium-coarse setting) but only 450 grams of water (the amount I would normally use for 27 grams of beans).  In the V60 this translated to just under 14.5 fluid ounces of brewed coffee.

TASTING NOTES: Despite the incrementally stronger brew, I still found the body to be on the light side.  The acidity was up front but slightly soft, with cherry-like notes.  Suggestions of chocolate and nougat emerged from behind that, with a mild hint of tobacco leaf towards the bottom of the cup.

VERDICT: Since I've gotten into specialty coffee, one origin that I have just never really been able to get into is Guatemala.  I don't know why - it's a fairly well-known origin and obviously a lot of people like it, and I've had success with beans from reasonably similar terroirs, but Guatemala has just never quite done it for me.  This one was somewhat similar, especially with what I tend to like out of a cup of coffee - it didn't evolve much during the drinking process, the flavor notes were pretty standard, and just generally it didn't wow me.  You could always argue that I underdeveloped it in the roast, but I know for a fact it went through first crack so if there was more to be found it should have been at least somewhat present.  It's also possible that it will be a little richer given another couple days to further degas, so I guess I can revisit it in midweek and see if that makes any difference, but I'd be surprised.  Just not quite for me.  But I do think a lot of people will like this coffee - it's certainly approachable and the classic flavor notes likely make it less intimidating to the average coffee drinker who doesn't want or need to get way in the weeds of flavor variety.  This isn't to be a snob about it (at least not on purpose), it's just a matter of taste.  Chaque un à son goût, as it is said.