A question to sleepy...
Sleepy, so far my roasts have ended as light (City), medium (City+ and Full City) and Full City+ (just as 2nd crack is starting). I find these three make a nice blend of flavors. Recently I decided to go past Full City+ because I wanted to know what really dark, oil roast would look and taste like.
Here's the deal. My air popper does first crack in the 4 minute range, then second seems to start around 6 minutes or a bit more. By 7 minutes the 2nd crack was going nuts - lots of them and non-stop. Finally, at about 7-1/2 minutes I felt as though the 2nd crack weren't going to stop, so I ended the roast.
Very dark, and with a number of the beans missing pieces. After a day of rest many are oozing some oils. Questions: what kind of a roast do I have, what should I expect, and is it a candidate for blending? Also, will 2nd crack stop at a point or just keep going until they burn?
Second crack dept: How long does it last?
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Capn Jimbo
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sleepy
- King of Koffee
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By the time you get to a full rolling second crack, you are usually leaving the domain of Full City+ and entering Vienna and, fairly quickly thereafter, French Roast. At Full City+, you start getting some more roast tones in the aroma from the carmelization of the sugars and charring of the cellulose, but still have strong elements of the coffee origin scents and flavor. As the roast darkens, the origin flavors begin to disappear below the roast character. I will rarely roast to Vienna, usually for something that I want to blend into an espresso mix. I personally consider French roast a waste of beans - it's too close to brewing charcoal.
As far as an "oily" roast goes, that depends a whole lot on the origin. I've had some Kenyan beans that start exuding oil well before 2nd crack and Central Americans that you had to burn to get there. Most Colombian coffees that I've roasted I would consider "low-oil".
I think that it's great that you are experimenting with this - don't forget to note the changes in aroma as the roast progresses. As you move to trying different origins, you may find, as I have, that the scent is a far better tool than time or sound in selecting the roast you want. For that reason, when trying a new coffee, I will usually take it to about the darkest roast that I'm likely to use, then use that scent profile to zero in on my target roast for future batches.
As far as an "oily" roast goes, that depends a whole lot on the origin. I've had some Kenyan beans that start exuding oil well before 2nd crack and Central Americans that you had to burn to get there. Most Colombian coffees that I've roasted I would consider "low-oil".
I think that it's great that you are experimenting with this - don't forget to note the changes in aroma as the roast progresses. As you move to trying different origins, you may find, as I have, that the scent is a far better tool than time or sound in selecting the roast you want. For that reason, when trying a new coffee, I will usually take it to about the darkest roast that I'm likely to use, then use that scent profile to zero in on my target roast for future batches.