I blend green beans prior to roasting. In particular, my usual espresso blend is either Malabar Gold or something like:
3 parts Brazil
2 parts Monsooned Malabar or Aged Sumatra (or a mix of the two)
1 part Robusta (Kaapi Royale or Monsooned)
As you can see, that's a real mixed bag, but the roast comes out quite evenly in the end. Since you asked, I roast in a Whirley-Pop on a cast iron heat distributor. I preheat, dump in the beans, get to first crack around 8-9 minutes, get to second crack around 12-13 minutes, and dump/cool the beans just as 2nd crack is starting to roll. Inevitably, I have to remove a few dramatically under-roasted beans, but I have to do the same when I roast Malabar Gold. I think some Indian component has a few individual beans that just don't roast right.
Steve Schurman
Whirley-Pop
Rocky
Europiccola/Santos/Chambord
There has been a lot of talk about blends lately. I don't want to assume so
I have a couple of questions for you blenders:
1) Do you blend green beans then roast at the same time?
2) Or mix roasted beans right before brewing?
Blending green seems much more difficult to accomplish. So if you do, how do
you go about it?
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