Coffee Blending Tutorial [with or without a Roaster] 

Great question, and you absolutely can. It's all experimentation. The main issue with mixing different roast levels is varying sped of extraction. So for example if you have a dense coffee and a light coffee, the dense one will extract more slowly (underextract) and the light one will extract quickly (overextract) so instead of being able to find a nice balance of flavours, your coffee will be in a weird middle point where it's part over and part under-extracted. Basically won't taste good unless you are very specific with finding maybe a dense coffee and roasting it darker (breaks down more, easier to extract) and a light (in weight) coffee and roasting it lighter (harder to extract) so they kind of meet in the middle. It's hard but doable, and could be very exciting if done well. Just really really hard.

@@homecafecharlie thank you for the reply. You're absolutely right.

Sounds delicious! I should try some Indian coffee again. I had a Monsooned Malabar that was amazing once.

I've been roasting at a company for a year and for those particular coffees I'd up the brighter coffee (the Ethiopia in this case) to 20% and adjust the rest without any of them exceeding 40% (eg. Brazil 40%, India 20%, Colombia 20% or Brazil 35%, India 30%, Colombia 15%). Then just work your way from there to your taste preference :) (Personally I only blend 3 origins at max because above that usually it gets pretty incoherent so for this case I'd get rid of either the India or Colombia).

This blend seems like the best seller in Amazon called Lavazza Super Crema.

It's all experimentation. Make french press coffee with each one and try mixing them in ratios and see what you think!

You can just weigh and blend them together. A cup is pretty rough, you might end up with much more of one than the other if it is a dense coffee. I'd say just use a scale and weigh them and mix together before grinding

Recently I never use robusta. No need as arabica processes are so nice and I don't need the extra caffeine or body. I'm hoping farmers start using better processing methods that give robusta and Liberia beans more character so they can complement arabica

Do it! You'll love the process the more you get into it ☺️

@@homecafecharlie Ive heard it is cheaper to get green beans anyways and that the shelf life is longer when they are green.

@@robtheknob7791 100% true. I pay maybe 15% of the price for green beans, then roast them myself as I need them. It's awesome! My roaster has paid for itself twice over!

Let me know how you get along!

Glad you found it useful! Yes different beans bring different flavours and textures. You have to think about the ratios, but I've found that starting off with the 20:60:20 rule works great to start, and you can finely adjust from there based on taste. Takes a bit of training your palate to achieve this, but you're on the right path!

Sure! It's gonna taste awful but the caffeine content will knock your socks off 🤣🤣🤣

Whatever works for you!

How do you define easier? It’s certainly easier to dial in your flavor balance, post roast, but once you dial in your ratio I find it easier to pre-blend so that way I don’t end up with a lot of single origin left-overs on the lower ratio components. On my Hottop I’m doing a lot of 120g Brazil, 60g Costa Rica, 40g Ethiopian blends for my espresso. I’ll mix that up by replacing the Ethiopian with Kenya or Papua New Guinea. Cheers.

Yes, exactly - it's not perfect but it's a good approximation.

It's always gonna be an issue, every bean is different so with blends you end up with a middle point rather than a clear taste. That's just the trade off!

🤣

Very true, I mostly use single origins now anyway, but the consistency isn't a huge issue and I've mostly had good experiences with high quality blends.

I don't know, try mixing them in various levels and tasting them? Sounds like you have a lot of studying to do for your dissertation (and by studying, I mean drinking coffee) ;)

I'll try now that soon, maybe in a short video. I have some beautiful green beans arriving soon. Can't wait to receive them!

It's easier to discern with a brew method that gives you more liquid and isn't so sensitive. Personally I find it easiest with a French press or pour over 😜

Hehe yeah pretty much 😎

Good question. It's a little complex. I put in 200g, charge temp (preheat) to 220, then lower the temp at around 8 minutes to 218, then 216 at 12 mins and 214 at 14 minutes, and around that time it's usually at around first crack. The temp is a bit less reliable than gas but you can get a decent declining ROR by controlling the drum temp like this. I hope that helps

@@homecafecharlie Thanks Charlie, I’ve been roasting for 15 min. @250C and depending on the bean I can get a lot of scorching or not, even with 150gr. which seems to be the maximum my machine will tolerate- every machines different but I’ll try your profile and see if that makes a difference. Love from Australia.

@@homecafecharlie Thanks Charlie, I roasted to your recipe, very nice.

@@homecafecharlie Typical first crack temperature is usually at around 196C. What you had mentioned is 218C during the 8 mins roast. Can you please explain this?

In Japan I use Namamame. They have been pretty reliable!

@@homecafecharlie great.. but the website is in Japanese. how do you order from there?

Google translate 😅