Mahal Coffee Roast Log Blog

Beans: Mexico FTO Comunidad Tierra Blanca Varietals: Bourbon, Typica, Marsellesa Elevation: 1500 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams Roast Attempt: 49th Roast Date/Time: September 26, 2021, 1130 CDT It's hard to believe that it's only been nine months since I first roasted my own coffee at home, but it has - the initial roast was December 22, 2020.  That first roast was a bag of the eight pounds Sweet Maria's includes free with the purchase of a Behmor - Mexico Organic Chiapas Sierra Mariscal.  In my most recent purchase, I decided to look into revisiting Mexico for the first time since then, and the description of these beans sounded quite intriguing.  I was also surprised to note the location - I had been assuming that the coffee-growing areas of Mexico were relatively contained, but this batch comes from western Oaxaca, hundreds of miles from the border with Chiapas.  They also included a varietal I had not heard of bef...

Beans: Zambia Isanya Estate Varietal: Catimor Elevation: 1500 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 232 grams Roast Attempt: 48th Roast Date/Time: September 25, 2021, 1800 CDT The rare evening roast!  I was a bit leery of this one being exclusively Catimor - my palate tends to be iffy on coffees that have too much Robusta in their genetics.  But I couldn't pass up the relatively uncommon origin, and I once had a coffee from Yunnan, China that was 100% Catimor and was super enjoyable, so it's not an immediate rule-out.  My intention was to run this with my usual settings - manual control, 18:00, P5 heat setting - but then I screwed up and forgot to hit the P5 button at the start of the roast, and so the Behmor ended up running its automatic P1 program.  I believe that program runs hot for most of the roast, so it wasn't far off what I would have been going for anyway, but it annoyed me. Chamber Temperature 16:00 - 136 14:00 - 212 13:00 - ...

Beans: Yemen Mokha Matari Varietal: Yemeni Heirloom Elevation: 2000-2400 masl Process: Natural Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 232 grams Roast Attempt: 47th Roast Date/Time: September 18, 2021, 1530 CDT Ethiopia may be the home of the coffee plant, but Yemen is the major reason why the entire world has known what coffee is for half a millennium.  Yemeni coffee remains some of the most interesting on the planet, and I've never had any that wasn't incredible.  The trick with roasting my own, however, is that all Yemeni coffee is naturally processed, and I haven't always had the greatest success with natural coffees doing what I wanted them to do in the roaster.  I set this one at the usual starting settings - 18:00 on the clock, P5 (100% power to the heating elements), manual control - with the goal of roasting it fast for a light roast. Chamber Temp 16:00 - 141 14:00 - 215 13:00 - 242 12:00 - 264 11:00 - 282 10:00 - 271 Yellowing appeared to happen about ...

Beans: Cameroon Caplami Java Cultivar Varietal: Java Elevation: 1300-1800 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams Roast Attempt: 45th Roast Date/Time: September 6, 2021, 1000 CDT I forget if I've mentioned it before on this particular blog, but one thing that definitely hastened my obsession with coffee was the fact that there are so many different components you can control for and thus so many different ways to experience what is functionally the same product - as well as different aspects of the product that you can "collect."  Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to country of origin.  At this point I've tried coffee from almost every origin of note, but every once in a while a new one pops up and it's always intriguing.  Truth be told, I've actually had Cameroonian coffee once before - a few years ago, Trader Joe's sold some that I picked up a bag of - but never at the specialty level and certainly n...

Beans: Rwanda Rusizi Nyakarenzo Varietal: Bourbon Elevation: ~1800 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams Roast Attempt: 44th Roast Date/Time: September 6, 2021, 0800 CDT As I say often enough, I really like East African coffees, and those from Rwanda and Burundi often seem to be especially good.  Yet this is only the second Rwandan I've roasted, possibly due to the harvest cycle and when the beans are on offer on the Sweet Maria's site.  (I've actually had this batch for a few months already, only just now getting around to trying it out.  Fortunately green beans keep.) As usual, I started on the one-pound setting to give me 18:00 on the timer, with manual control and 100% power to the heating element (P5). Chamber Temperature 16:00 - 138 14:00 - 215 13:00 - 240 12:00 - 266 11:00 - 284 10:00 - 278 It was a cool morning and I was curious to see if starting early would allow me to get in before air conditioning use started drainin...

Beans: Costa Rica Dota El Conquistador Varietal: Caturra, Catuai Elevation: 1200-1900 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams Roast Attempt: 42nd Roast Date/Time: August 29, 2021, 1030 CDT These are the first Costa Rican beans I've roasted and only the sixth Central American, with most of those coming from the original sample box that Sweet Maria's sent with my roaster.  I tend to lean towards African beans myself, but this seemed like a good opportunity to experiment a little bit.  The description on the Sweet Maria's website, with a lot of chocolate and nut tasting notes, suggested a bean that would tolerate a darker roast; while I had no intention of going dark , I wanted to see if I could get a rich medium, just on the cusp of medium-dark, to bring out more of a balance with the roasty flavors. As usual, I started the roaster on the one-pound setting, giving me 18:00 to play with.  Control was manual and the heat was set at P5...