Roasting Technology Deep Dive: The Roast Profile
Last month, you may remember my post about the dichotomy between technology and sensory perception in roasting, but this month, I'm delving into a specific technology that helps drive almost every production roast at Bugle Call. Allow me to introduce the unsung hero of the roasting process: the roast profile.
It’s important to us that each cup of your favorite single origin or blend seems just as smooth, balanced, and flavorful as the last. To reach this consistency, we develop a detailed map of how we roast each batch of coffee, known as a roast profile. It records the entire journey of the beans by tracking air temperature, bean temperature, and drum temperature over the duration of the roast. Each of these variables helps us understand how the roast develops and when to make adjustments.
Furthermore, the roast profile also records manual changes to gas, air, and drum speed in real time, and maps them onto a separate graph. With both graphs together, we can get a full picture of the roaster’s inputs and how they affected the environmental factors of the roast itself. From this, we can make adjustments to the inputs to create a more desirable roast, or even use the inputs as a template for future roasts.
However, don’t be fooled! Even the exact same inputs at the exact same times during the roasting process will lead to two completely different roasts if not managed correctly. It’s extremely rare that we roasters end up following the targeted roast profile inputs past first crack, since the beans have likely already reacted differently due to shifting environmental factors. These include differences in bean moistures from bag to bag, how many prior roasts we have done, or even the ambient temperature of the roastery (just to name a few). We treat the roast profile as a guide to follow, but not as step-by-step instructions on how to operate a roast. You can trust that every roast is manually guided to the finish line to ensure quality and consistency.
In short, roast profiles are like a memory of each roast. Not only are they a helpful tool for us to understand how our inputs affect the quality of the roast, but they also allow us to review and reroast our favorite profiles with greater accuracy and precision. Whether you're enjoying our bold Black Knight blend or our velvety El Salvador single origin, you can trust there’s a carefully crafted roast profile behind every sip.