Coffee roaster training course summary freshly roasted coffee roaster

I often come across friends who ask me how to start learning coffee roasting. Or, how to make their own baking please climb to another tall building? My answer is always simple. Buy a bag of Yega Sheffield and a bag of Columbia and go back to practice. If you think about such an answer, you may think that I am perfunctory, but in fact, isn't that how I came here? When I recall that I had just started to learn baking, the pipes and ways of learning were nothing more than climbing articles on the Internet or going to cafes to seek advice from my predecessors. And every time I get face-to-face skills, or get a curve, it's worth me to get excited all night. When the actual practice comes down, it always feels as if there is something missing. But what is the difference, or what is missing? Actually, I don't know. In the end, he blamed the problem on his lack of proficiency, or poor machine and poor quality of beans. Even after drinking the works baked by my predecessors, I can't find out why. I'm just so-so when I say it's good, but I can't say what's wrong with it. So he stumbled like a blind man touching an elephant. Buy this bean at once, buy that bean at once, bake a little sweet and sweet is a good bean, baked hemp tongue is bitter is a bad bean. In retrospect, this learning process can really be called muddle-headed.

Later, after the guidance of seniors, and crawling on foreign websites, and began to do some experiments, want to find some rules from the induction of the data. But sometimes it seems to sort out some clues, but there is no way to give a reasonable explanation, not to mention that these laws sometimes fail with the change of environment. I am often discouraged by this futile work. After studying the books related to baking during the interview and operating according to the techniques in the books, but confidently completing the replication of the manipulation curve, the result is also disappointing. Sometimes you even wonder if you have bought fake beans? I even suspect that my mouth is not sharp enough to taste the cups written by bean merchants.

After another period of time, I seem to have learned something. I was very proud to be able to bake some sweet and sour beans, and I began to write a bunch of flavor descriptions. If I felt a little sour and sweet, I wrote about the bright acidity and the aroma of berries, the deep and dark clouds of baking, and the sweet smell. Write "Tobacco and Chocolate, Caramel" that feel good about yourself, and treat your work as if you put on the king's new clothes. In retrospect, I am really ashamed. Let's calm down and review: if we can't tell the difference between good coffee and bad coffee, how can we know whether we bake well or not? If we can't tell whether the quality of raw beans is good or bad, how do we know if we have been cheated? Or have you wronged the beans because you are not good at learning? If we don't understand the principle of baking, how can we adjust our baking? A lot of ifs. This series of summed up problems continue to impact us, if we really buy a bag of beans to go home to practice, can we really get the right results? Perhaps, it is not just the experience brought about by the amount of practice that needs to be strengthened. After carefully summing up the problems in mind, we find that first of all, we not only need a lot of practice and a lot of information, but also need to establish a set of stable operation methods and procedures. Just imagine, the heating mode and thermal performance of each roaster are different, even the position and sensitivity of the temperature probe are different, and each has its own corresponding mode of operation. However, the same set of operation methods may not be applicable to all baking systems, so it is often a copycat to copy the baking techniques of well-known players. But skilled and stable operation is also very important, such as the reheating machine and standby after each pot is baked, and try to reproduce the same baking environment in order to maintain the stability of quality. And the cleaning of the machine can not be ignored, regular implementation of cleaning smoke pipes, fans, fire rows and other parts is also one of the elements to maintain stability. And these parts that should be paid attention to in the daily baking process, just like practicing kung fu, must be continuous and careless, just like the "skill" of baking.

In addition to the method of function, it is bound to have the method of mind and internal skill, so that both inside and outside can be taken into account. In fact, the "method of mind" is not so profound and mysterious. As far as baking is concerned, it is very important to establish a complete and systematic baking theory. When we are faced with a strange roaster, a strange bean, we can only rely on our own baking theory to sort out a thought. This section includes various heat conduction properties, physical changes and chemical reactions and phenomena (color, smell, body shape changes) during baking. ), the causes of baking defects, the sources of various flavors of coffee (sour, sweet, bitter, salty), the sources of coffee aroma and the knowledge of raw beans. Of course, it includes my familiarity with coffee in various producing areas and long-term practical experience.

In the past, when baking information was not popular, we used to get information through foreign forums. And every time I learn new information, I feel like a treasure and share it with my colleagues. It's hard to even try it over and over again without knowing it. Of course, many "rules of thumb" have been accumulated. When you think about it, can this information and rules of thumb apply to other roasters? If not, can we go back to the principle of baking to explain these experiences? And then use the principle as the basis to apply it to your own machine? Assuming that we have obtained the baking curve and technique of a well-known baker, should we also know the performance and characteristics of the roaster they use? After mastering the characteristics of the roaster, and then using the "mind method" to interpret the idea and baking view behind the baker's technique, will the work be copied more deeply?

Let's talk about it further. It is often heard to discuss the effects of dehydration, taxiing, fire and throttle on baking results when communicating with each other. In fact, if you go deeper, you will find that the problem is actually quite complicated. first of all, the definition behind these professional terms varies from person to person. What is dehydration? What is taxiing? It doesn't make much sense to discuss the baking techniques and phenomena when the performance of each machine is different. But if the deliberate method is used as the basis for the discussion, then everything will be very different. And the part of internal skill is one's own sensory ability. I do not want to simply use the word cup test to simply represent, but also hope that everyone can use their eyes, ears, mouth and nose to participate in baking and inspection baking.

Use your eyes to observe the bean-like changes during baking. Ears to listen to the sound of coffee beans rolling in the boiler and the sound of cracking, is the sound crisp or dense? Is it loud? When testing after baking, use your tongue to feel the sour, sweet, bitter and salty strength and match, but the importance of smell is needless to say. Why is this sensory information so important? Because all the signs come from the physical and chemical reactions in the baking process, and after these signs are collected by the sensory ability, they can be analyzed and adjusted by the baking theory. And the correct distinction between taste, smell and touch will be more effective for analysis.

The test part of the cup after baking is nothing more than the sense of touch, smell and taste in the mouth, and the test items of all cup meters are constantly around these three senses. By correctly mastering the definition of each item in the cup meter, we can correctly analyze the baking results and improve the baking through mental interpretation. To put it simply, the cup meter will be a physical examination report, not just an unreasonable score. The details of the cup test and the use of the cup meter will be introduced in a separate article. Just imagine, on the basis of baking theory, to interpret the results presented on the cup meter, the contents of the table are like medical records and test reports to give the baker the right medicine. As the saying goes, "the connoisseur watches the doorway, the layman watches the hustle and bustle." when the fire of a famous Norwegian store is popular, have you really tasted the works of this cafe? And have you ever known the gap in machine performance? If you can taste this kind of coffee, and use the senses to record the intensity and fineness of the aroma and taste, as well as the tactile weight, coating and grease in the mouth. And through their own understanding of the machine, with the baking theory as the starting point to match the results of the taste with the baking curve, then the final result may no longer be a half-baked knockoff version.

When we continue to strengthen from these three aspects, there may be some questions. For example, what is good coffee? Of course, everyone has different preferences, life and eating habits, and the definition of good coffee is different. Whether it is the pursuit of the delicate sense of sweet and sour collocation, the change and meticulous flavor, the rich taste brings out sweetness and so on. Coffee is a drink, so it's natural to return to life. How to present it, of course, has something to do with life, joy and beauty.

Perhaps it can be divided into three realms to look at this matter, the first stage is to "see a mountain is a mountain". We have a copy object, because we like that kind of coffee, so through learning, imitation, take this as the goal. Then we continue to learn, increase their own taste and vision, the pursuit of more delicate and in-depth. With the improvement of taste and beauty, he entered the second stage of "seeing a mountain is not a mountain". At this time, the roaster has been free to adjust the presentation of coffee flavor, and can bake their favorite coffee.

The more you go deep into it, the more you study it, the more you feel that you spend all over the world. Behind every cup of coffee, there is a beautiful treasure house worth exploring. We begin to appreciate every cup of coffee, even if there is a slight deficiency or even a lack of roasting, we can also appreciate the bright side of it. And get the nutrients of progress from it. I think this may be "seeing a mountain is not a mountain". Along the way, in addition to their own continuous learning, leading us forward is the sense of beauty and taste. Think carefully about your baking road, isn't it? Skilled furnace operation and baking theory, sensory ability, etc., are like building bricks in high-rise buildings. Taste and beauty affect the final result of high-rise buildings. Let go of prejudices to taste, maybe it is of great help to the practice of baking skills, one coffee, one world, maybe it means.