El Salvador Matalapa Calagual

Beans: El Salvador Matalapa Calagual
Varietal: Pacas
Elevation: 1200-1350 masl
Process: Washed
Retailer: Sweet Maria's
Pre-Roast Weight: 230 grams
Roast Attempt: 54th
Roast Date/Time: October 17, 2021, 1400 CDT

After a couple of more experimental roasts, it was back to what I expected would be a fairly "classic" roast with an easy Central American bean.  But nothing's ever totally easy, is it?  A note on the varietal here: the Sweet Maria's site stated Bourbon in its specs, but in the farm description they mentioned that it's actually Pacas.  Pacas is a natural Bourbon mutation so the difference between the two in the same terroir is probably not gigantic, but you know I need these things to be specific!

As usual, I started the roaster on manual control with a one-pound setting, 18:00 on the timer, and with 100% power to the heating element (P5).

Chamber Temperature

16:00 - 129
15:00 - 172
14:00 - 208
13:00 - 237
12:00 - 264
11:00 - 282
10:00 - 266

I have yet to see a complete rebound in temperatures with the weather cooling off, so I guess we'll see if the theory about the power availability relating to air conditioning turns out to be 100% correct.  In Kansas City the 11:00 temperature was pretty much always within a few degrees of 310 in either direction.

These turned out to be pretty moist beans, and the window was almost totally fogged over as yellowing approached.  I opted to call it at 10:30, a fairly standard time, just to get the drum speed increased.  For the first 40 seconds the heat was still on P5 until I remembered I was intending to lower it to P4, which I did at 9:50.

Exhaust Temperature

10:00 - 192
9:00 - 280
8:00 - 316
7:00 - 338
6:00 - 348
5:00 - 357
4:00 - 365

The chamber temperatures really plummeted during this section, going all the way down to 215, but with the exhaust heating curve rising I didn't worry too much about it.  At 5:00 I pushed the heat back to P5 to try and get a launch into first crack... which didn't really work.  Isolated pops started at about 4:15, with full first crack seeming to arrive around 4:00, but the crack was pretty staggered.  I hit cool right at 3:00; the A temp was not soaring, only about 374, but because the crack was kind of odd I worried about overdoing it.  There were also a fair amount of chaff embers flying around, and even though I've never ended up having substantial issues with the chaff, it's always something to keep an eye on.  This turned out to be a VERY chaffy bean; after I hit cool, some bits blew out around the edges of the door, and when I opened the door at 90 seconds to expedite cooling, little pieces kept drifting out and landing on me.  It's been a while since I've seen one with quite this level of chaff!

Complete Roast Time: 15:00
Post-Roast Weight: 196 grams
Loss Percentage: 14.8%

That seems like a higher percentage, and it was certainly more than I anticipated based on the temperatures, but you do have to consider both the moisture content and chaff levels of this bean, which were both elevated.  More material to lose means you can have a higher loss number and still have a lighter roast than that number would normally indicate, so that's what I'm counting on here.

El Salvador Matalapa Calagual

These were the beans on Wednesday, three days off roast.  The color definitely put me in mind of a medium-light, so I think the chaff/moisture distorted the loss percentage as I've seen in the past.  I ground 32 grams on the 5/6 medium-coarse setting, then brewed them in the V60 with 533 grams of water, generating a bit less than 17 fluid ounces of brewed coffee.

TASTING NOTES: The flavor was definitely that of a lighter roast, with a bright citric acidity that made me think of both key lime and berries.  Behind that I tasted almonds, leaning a bit towards a marzipan sweetness, and a mild bass note of cardamom.  The body was a nice medium, with just the barest hint of syrup in the mouthfeel.

VERDICT: Any concern of overroasting was out the window with this one - despite the lower growing elevation, there was a nice bright pop of citric acid up front and some fun notes to pull out of the cup, with really not even a hint of roast flavor.  When you're a nerd like me, you want to highlight the origin and not the roaster, and that's definitely how these came out!

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