Curious about the optional “door- open cooling” method mentioned in the Behmor 1600 user’s manual? (Top of Page 11, “7. Quicker Cool-down Option”) Perhaps you’ve heard of other home roasters using it, or maybe you use it, but don’t really know what the effect is.
The Short Answer
We generally prefer cooling with the door open, and suggest you try it...it’s worth the extra chaff.
The Long Answer
Well, we’ve been experimenting with roasting the same coffee, and only changing whether we let it cool with the door open or closed. We took 3 different green coffee beanss, and roasted them twice each following the same recipes to test out how the differences in cooling affect your cup of coffee.
We roasted these three coffees:
- El Salvador Cerro Las Ranas
- Papua New Guinea Baroida
- Brazil Chapada de Minas
We chose these coffees to give us a variety of profiles, to see if different taste profiles were complemented by the different methods.
Our roast recipe was as follows - 4oz batch, set on the ½ LB profile using manual mode, and P5 heat with the fast drum speed. Roasted to 90 seconds after the beginning of 1st crack.
Results:
Well, we were surprised to find that we preferred the door open cooling method in all the coffees that we tried. Overall, we felt that the samples had more complexity, better balance, more sweetness, and cleaner acidity. The door closed samples were slightly muddled in the flavor, especially towards the aftertaste.
Tasting Notes for All Batches:
Brazil Door Closed - Dark Chocolate, mellow, malty, round body, slightly chalky aftertaste
Brazil Door Open - Creamy, smooth full body, milk chocolate, pecan, clean aftertaste
El Salvador Door Closed - deep, roasted walnut, milk chocolate, low acidity
El Salvador Door Open - creamy, buttery body, pineapple and orange zest aromatics.
Papua New Guinea Door Closed - lemon zest with sharp citric acidity, muted aromas.
Papua New Guinea Door Open - tomato and herbal aromas, with juicy lemon acidity, and cohesive complexity.