How Does Roasting Affect Coffee Flavor?

Coffee roasting process
Toasting means turning coffee beans from green to brown. There are different ways to do this, and this affects the taste. Here I will discuss the principles of roasting and toasting. Read about the different ways to toast coffee at home on Tomi's blog.

1. roast steps

There are three main steps in roasting: drying stage, darkening stage and stage of development or roasting stage.

2. Drying stage

The coffee bean has a moisture content of 8 to 12%. We have to dry before the real roast starts. The drying stage usually lasts for 4 to 8 minutes with the traditional drum toaster (see toaster designs below). The temperature at the end of the drying step is typically 160 ° C. Especially with drum toasters, you should be careful not to burn the beans when it is very hot at first. The drying stage is also important for collecting energy for the beans because the last stage of the toast is exothermic (producing heat).

3. Stage of gilding

At 160 ° C, the coffee begins to smell like toast and hay. That's when aroma precursors begin to become aromatic compounds. Although the darkening step occurs after the drying step, the drying continues during the browning step.

In the golden stage, the reaction of Maillard, responsible for the darkening begins. In Maillard's reaction, sugars and reducing amino acids react and produce hundreds of different compounds and flavor colors, known as melanoids. This is the stage when the roast slows down naturally, and some master roasters also want to slow it down, to ensure flavor development. At the end of the golden phase, the coffee begins to burst. This is called the first crack and the stage of development begins.

4. Stage of development or roasting.

At the beginning of the development stage, the reaction becomes exothermic and coffee break. During the drying and darkening stages, the grain has accumulated energy that causes the coffee to explode. The development time is when the desired aromatic compounds are developed. If we do not reduce the speed of the roast in the development stage, we easily get a coffee with a smoked flavor and the taste is very strong.

The duration of the development stage is generally 15 to 25% of the total roasting time, depending on the flavor profile and degree of toast desired.

Regardless of the name of the final color of the coffee bean, each coffee, although varying from one to the other, undergoes a similar transformation.

For you as a barista and coffee lover, these changes are not just about the physical transformation of beans, but especially about changes and the development of the flavor profile.

The purpose of this post is to provide you with a basic understanding of the taste changes that occur during the toasting process in relation to the intensity of the flavor compounds and their relationship to each other. Lastly, I want to simplify the process of finding the right grains with the right roast for you.

THE KNIGHTS SAVED POSSIBLE POTENTIAL IN THE BEANS
The final taste profile depends largely on the initial compounds that contribute to the taste in the coffee beans and how the toaster reaches them and can extract a balanced taste experience for you.

The main elements that contribute to the taste refer to the sweetness, acidity, aromas, mouth (body) and bitterness. Depending on how much the toaster pushes the grain through the roast, it alters the intensity of these flavors and the balance between them.

Coffee is like a rainbow: green, yellow, light brown, dark brown!

This is more or less the spectrum of colors a coffee suffers during its hot adventure in a toast drum.

But what you can see at the end are usually roasted coffee beans in a brown tone that can be anything from a light brown, cinnamon-like, to a deep, dark, cocoa-like brown.

"I'm sure that when you buy coffee, you read names about the color of the roasted coffee in the packaging, such as" French Roast Coffee "," Roast Espresso "," Roast Cinnamon "or just" Asado Claro ".

As you can see from these examples, there are no clear standards in the coffee industry and each company and toaster has different names for their roasted colors. These differences in the understanding of coffee roasters can lead to confusion within the world of toast. What can be referred to as a medium roast for a torrent, can already be a dark roast for another torrent.

Which variables affect the toasting process?
One of the best ways to understand coffee toast is to think of steaks. There are many types (T-bone, alcatra, etc.) and ways to cook each steak - on the barbecue, in the pan and in a weird, medium rare or well made profile. Roasting is similar - we are trying to get the right flavor and texture for a blend of coffee or a single origin. There are just a few more variables involved in coffee toast that affect the final result.

When it comes time to roast a bean for a blend or single-origin coffee, we begin with the taste and toasting profile we want to achieve. The degree of heat that is applied at the beginning of the roast and along the different roasting stages, the temperature of the air passing through the torrent and the application of air in the toasting environment and the speed with which the drum is rotating will be Each one affects the final result of the barbecue. The size and type of torrent itself also affects the focus and the result.

We have everything to do with consistency in Peaberrys, so we work hard to create a roast profile that meets our coffee goal and then use the same profile to produce the correct result each time (unless the variables demand a change. in the roasting process to produce the best result).

Does the bean affect the roast?
It certainly does. It is not just about placing the grains in the torrent and roasting them in the same way; there is much more than that.

The moisture content, the processing method, the density of the bean, the physical size of the bean and the species (arabic or robusta) affect the way in which the beans are roasted and the type or roast (light, medium, medium-dark). and dark). we seek to achieve.

There you have that. The next time you go into your local cafe or grab a bag of your favorite coffee beans, take a look at the color of the beans and take note of the flavor. The Brazilian of one coffee can be very different from the other, and one of the reasons for this is the way the beans are roasted.

If you want to know more about the process that involves a bag of Peaberrys grains, visit the door of our coffee cellar. We often find ourselves roasting in the micro toaster next to our coffee tables.