First Roast

First Roast was Originally Posted on November 22, 2009 by

A few days ago, I did my frist picking from the new coffee trees. I pulped the beans, washed the mucilage off and dried them, leaving the parchment covered beans to dry. Because there were not many beans, I just dried them inside the house, rather than on a drying deck.

The beans are quite small as you might expect; these trees being planted just in April of this year. I did not expect any crop at all the first year. There are still many cherry waiting to be picked and in fact, some cherry has already dried on the trees.

Today I cracked open the parchment to reveal the green beans with their silverskin covering. Silverskin is a fine covering that is usully removed in milling. Since I “milled” these myself, there is still some silverskin left on the green beans, but it should burn off very quickly in the roasting process.

Speaking of roasting, I decided to do that today and currently have 4.8 ounces of green in the roaster as I type this. Based upon my calculations, I should have just under 4 ounces of roasted when I am done.

I’ll roast past 1st crack, which will take this to a bit past medium, but I have to be very careful as this coffee has not been graded and I have larger and smaller beans all mixed together. There are even peaberries in there!

Minutes later… I just dumped the coffee having let it go 20 seconds after the last pops of first crack. Because there is not much mass in the roaster, I’m afraid I can’t calculate how soon 2nd crack would have started, and then the beans get dark and a bit oily. I wanted to avoid that on this first roast of a small sample.

I should know at some point tonight what a first picking of immature coffee beans will taste like. No farmers have told me what their experience has been, because many have waited a full couple years and performed a full picking.

I am sure if the coffee doesn’t taste good, next year will be a lot better, as the trees mature and the beans become regular size. However, if the first pick tastes great, next year will be even better!

I’ll let you know soon.