Roasting for Aroma with the Melitta Aroma Roast

Thanks to my Melitta CBR-10 fluid bed 1000 watt personal coffee roaster, fresh coffee is available to me at a moment's notice in 40 gram increments.  That's right, this thing is designed to hold 50 - 55g green coffee maximum capacity which nets a little over 40g of roasted beans.  I aimed for a 40g batch since this is my usual ground coffee volume when making a 20 fl oz pot using the venerable Krups Cafe Prima 4 cup coffee brewer.  This translates into approximately a 14% moisture loss which is what I get with my other roasting methods.

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I chose a mediocre Dominican Republic green coffee bean for my first roast - I was not sure if this Melitta would bake the beans or roast them.  A lot of info on the web places this roaster in the likely to disappoint and bake the beans category so the beans chosen can be lost and will not be missed much.  It took ten minutes but it did roast these beans to an acceptable level and i suspect it would have worked better with more bean mass to slow the movement and build more heat.  

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My Poppery I needs more bean mass thanks to a powerful fan which spins a small quantity too fast and the bean mass is cooled by this rapid movement - go over 100g and the roast settles in nice with a slow undulation until they become light and enter a strong first crack. The next roast with the Melitta CBR-10 I think I will go to 55 - 60g beans even though this might exceed the max level by a little bit. I notice too when I work the slide from off to roast the fan speed picks up the closer toward roast the lever is positioned - there is a bit of profiling possible then so more experimentation is warranted.

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The resulting beans - 40g like I aimed for - turned out OK as you can see in the photo. They entered first crack without fanfare and the chaff collector worked as advertized to keep the process very clean.  I used a metal bowl to cool the beans and will make a fresh pot early next week with the results. 

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