May
09
TOM OWEN - Sweet Maria's
(This a review by Thomas Owen from Sweet Marias. I sent Tom 3 sample roasts, roasted in a gas grill, with the RK Roasting Drum. Below are Toms remarks.)
Hi Ron - thanks for sharing the coffee! In short, I am incredibly impressed. The roasts really appear to be professional drum roast quality without any sign of scorching or tipping, and on the City + and Full City you really nailed the degree of roast on the head. The cup quality was excellent on these two. Again, I am impressed. This is better than a lot of small-batch roasters produce.
What I imagine, (and I am not a bbq person) is that it takes some mastery of the machine paired with some experience with the coffee. The darker roast blend would be, I guess, a faster roast and it cups as espresso with a lot of tang to the roast taste but a little more smokey-carbony-pungent than I would have expected. There is a big difference between the lighter ground coffee and the surface color, so that's why I think it was a little fast and might benefit from some more roast time ... specifically to back off on the heat a lot after
1st crack and really ease the coffee slowly into 2nd crack. This tends to preserve more sweetness in the cup. Once again, this is another indication that this drum paired with a good bbq gives the roastmaster a lot of choices in the outcome, whether that be faster
or slower roast techniques, and that level of control is something no
other home roaster machine can offer!
If for any reason you want to use my comments as an endorsement, please do! I think whatever you have learned to produce these great City and Full City roasts in terms of monitoring temperature, and judging smell, sight, sound of the roast, you should try to share in
a tip sheet too. I am going to try the dark roast as brewed coffee tomorrow am and see of there is more sweetness etc this way...
Tom
1st crack and really ease the coffee slowly into 2nd crack. This tends to preserve more sweetness in the cup. Once again, this is another indication that this drum paired with a good bbq gives the roastmaster a lot of choices in the outcome, whether that be faster
or slower roast techniques, and that level of control is something no
other home roaster machine can offer!
If for any reason you want to use my comments as an endorsement, please do! I think whatever you have learned to produce these great City and Full City roasts in terms of monitoring temperature, and judging smell, sight, sound of the roast, you should try to share in
a tip sheet too. I am going to try the dark roast as brewed coffee tomorrow am and see of there is more sweetness etc this way...
Tom
