Hello Everyone, roasting a new natural yirg on my MCR-1. Trying to get this coffee dialed in and I have limited experience with roasting natural coffees. I roasted this coffee 5 times now and this most recent roast I increased the maillard phase by 2 minutes compared to my last profile. From what I understand, spending more time in the maillard phase for naturals brings out more fruity notes and develops the sugars on the outside of the bean. The issue I am having with this current profile is I seem to be hitting FC really late (BT at 403-406F) and I end up getting no development at the end of the roast in fear of getting it too dark. Although cupping the coffee today, it would serve well to develop it more, very little body in this cup of coffee, tastes very light. I see two options at this point, I can either continue to run the roast further into development or can hit this roast with more heat during the Maillard phase to help it crack earlier on.

Compared to washed coffees I have roasted, where they are roasted hotter and faster and 406F is a decent medium roast level, has anyone ran into this same dilemma? Where stretching out the maillard phase causes for a late FC and a need for a higher final BT on naturals as compared to roasting a washed coffee hot and fast.

Have a look at my profile, I welcome any and all input to roasting natural coffees. Thank you!

Hello, I have been roasting on the 1kg since about January this year. I have adjusted the drum gap, oiled the chain, and greased the rear bearing with the zerk fitting. The front bearings are starting to squeak quite a bit and I know they need greased. Cannot find a zerk fitting anywhere in that area. Do people typically just take the front plate off and pack grease into the bearings with their finger?

When roasting to match a specific profile I frequently come into issues where the roast is running a little fast or a little slow. With all things considered, I have heard that the time spent in development will have the biggest impact on matching the profile in the cup. If say a roast hit 1st crack 1:00 early and youd like to plan on spending about 2:30 in development and drop at a BT of 401F, but you know you will hit 401F before 2:30, would an experienced roaster plan on dropping at the desired BT or go more for development time?

My gut instinct says to try and modify the roast by lowering gas in development and try to lower ROR to get the most time possible in development and rely more on dropping at BT.

I have included my 2 roasts for reference if interested.

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/2812853071700250322

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/6130987081200070422

Thanks @theroastery ! I worked on the profile this weekend, and have yet to cup it. But the profile looks more promising. I gave the beans more gas upfront and did shorten the maillard phase by two minutes. Got a decent crack and development time.

Here is the most recent profile.

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/6473327105916100324

Here is link to full profile

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/4682636160217030324

Between the two cups, profile 9 is better. Profile 11 is quite flat which makes me think the drying time of 5:35 is too long. I will shoot for drying time of 5 min on the new profile with a static air approach. Rob has a graph in his book that shows tipping to occur either in the drying phase or in the Maillard phase. I have seen no signs of tipping when I am pulling the trier for my G-Y marker. I believe it is occurring in the Maillard phase.