Light roasts vs. dark roasts | Coffee basics and science explained

this is a sponsored video about trade coffee and this is one of trade's partner roasters showing us what coffee roasting really does to the bean and to our cups devotees may know that i only recently became a coffee obsessive and with the zeal of a convert i will now tell you what i wish i had known a lot sooner roast level is not an indicator of strength i think a lot of us noobs have an idea that light roasts are for light weights dark roasts are the real business yeah walk on home boy get some hairs on your chest and maybe you'll be ready for the dark stuff this attitude is nonsense roasting the bean to higher temperatures does not make coffee more intense or stimulating or anything it just makes the coffee different roasting is like any other kind of cooking the more an ingredient is cooked the more you're tasting the work of the chef the less it's cooked the more you're tasting the work of the farmer in this case there's no competition because the farmer and the chef are married this is leticia hutchins this is harry hutchins he's the main roaster here at alma coffee just north of atlanta leticia's family farm in honduras provides the beans my dad is a fourth generation coffee farmer from honduras he was born and raised in coffee farms and so i'm a fifth generation coffee farmer and then some of our certifications down at the farm we are usda certified organic down there um con manos de mujeres which means with women hands it was a certification we got to show that we treat women equally and give them the same opportunities and pay them fairly which in machismo driven cultures that's not always the case so we're really proud to be able to have that designation down in honduras yeah leticia is legit and she's the kind of person that you connect with when you buy coffee through trade you just go to drinktrade.com and take the quiz if you know nothing about what you like that's cool just say so but i know that i'm liking lighter roasts lately for reasons we will get to and then trade brews up a match for you with a roaster like alma you want whole bean pre-ground decaf caffeinated whatever they will match you with the right producer and then your coffee will arrive right at your door the first hundred of you can of course get a big discount on your first bag from trade with my link and code in the description check it out 50 off your first bag leticia is shipping out some orders for trade today in those signature red bags which are compostable by the way plant-based trade of course only partners with roasters that make you know good tasting coffee but trade also works really hard to make sure they only match you with roasters who source their beans responsibly and what does that mean coffee is one of these crops that is particularly prone to inequitable international trade it is primarily grown in less developed countries and exported to much richer ones the farmers often have very little leverage with which to demand fair prices for their product it's not even sustainable for them to feed their kids put food on the table and that's really where the issue is we personally know farmers that have had to cut down their farms burn their trees they're forced to go into other job opportunities raising cattle or sometimes even illegal activity unfortunately in some of these countries so along with that as well other middlemen will sometimes mix old crop with new crops so you or you know bad crop with good crop and you end up with this average soup because you can't trace green beans no she's not talking about like green beans green beans she's talking about these green coffee beans from her family's own farm so she knows exactly what she's working with or rather what her husband harry is working with he's the roaster here at alma different varieties different origins different terroirs the environment that the coffee has grown will yield different flavors and that's what's really fun about coffee and what's fun about trade is you get to try coffee from all over these are this is the green coffee these are there's two of these seeds per coffee cherry and it is green because all they've done to it so far is remove it from the fruit and dry it that's it now green coffee is a thing you can grind that up and brew it you get something that tastes a lot more like herbal tea than it does like coffee to get that coffee taste you really gotta roast it at least a little and because harry and leticia are young and cool they have opted for a very untraditional very tech automated roasting system about six inch flame that heats up the air and brings that air through the coffee roaster right here there's actually a distribution plate that will expand the heat of the hot air and drive it through the bean pile i really like this roaster for the consistency because it is air roasted uh versus uh with with a drum i feel like i have a lot more precision indeed check the graph that harry has programmed in the x-axis is time the y-axis is temperature he can draw a line and the machine will execute it reliably hey look they named the roast after me now don't think for a second that the machine is doing all the work harry did a lot of r and d to come up with these curves that he uses and the process requires his constant very close attention this first phase of roasting is called drying it's exactly what it sounds like and it takes a couple of minutes so i'm actually going to pull some out for you smells very similar to straw or hay yep that's a good description kind of gross honestly being around coffee roasting is not like being around like cake baking it's not all romantic wonderful smells coffee throws off some pretty weird volatile compounds as it heats up it also of course throws off water and as you drive that water away you are able to achieve temperatures on and in the bean where you can get the mayard reaction that's the same browning reaction that gets you a delicious crust on bread for example and the temperatures here are typical baking temperatures this is how the coffee looks at about 340 fahrenheit 170c five minutes in this is where we're going to start going a little after where the mayard phase has started would it taste like coffee yet i definitely would not be drinking this one yet it's going to be very what we call underdevelop it'll probably just smell it's probably taste and smell like popcorn here we are at like 380 fahrenheit and after this something dramatic happens after about seven minutes the remaining water is drawn into the very center of the beam that moisture will build up so much pressure inside the middle of the beam that will escape and and do what we call first crack literally cracked open with this roasting machine that happens at like 395 fahrenheit and now it's coffee the remaining roast phase is called development this one harry is going to take to like a medium roast he is dropping it at 425 fahrenheit about 10 minutes in just like a steak or anything that you're cooking it is still being roasted or cooked once it's dropped we want to stop that immediately that's exactly what's happening here a fan draws ambient air through the beans as they stir around you can brew that now but it would still taste a little popcorny it's still off gassing that's what the little valve on these bags is for is to let the gas out just like a fine wine you want to let it let it air out a little bit it's the same thing with coffee we like to give it about 24 to 48 hours to kind of breathe to really get those amazing flavors to come out so now what if harry had kept going to maybe 450 fahrenheit there's a first crack is there a second you take the coffee even longer even darker there will be a second crack and those would be definitely a very very dark dark roast there yeah and that's the real intense stuff right the real tough guy coffee actually no not at all so the difference between light all the way to dark is really how much acidity bitterness and sweetness you're going to be experiencing in in that coffee the lighter the roast the more acidic the coffee so no surprise that's a hit with me it's because we haven't roast out any of those organic chemicals or any of those characteristics that will give it that acidity lighter roasts also preserve more of the polyphenols the antioxidants in coffee they're probably quite good for you the acids the phenols they're all breaking down with heat as you take the roast even darker um you're gonna introduce a lot more bitter flavor so you're gonna go from say a milk chocolate kind of taste profile to say the dark chocolate and then start introducing some almost smoky almost uh woody or even earthy flavors as you take the coffee even darker and if you care about such things the caffeine starts to break down at much higher temperatures as well says science there have been studies on this there's links in the descriptions very dark roasts can have a lot less caffeine the more important thing is dark roasts can taste really good but they taste like the roast whereas a light roast tastes like the bean when you're buying really special stuff like the coffees trade will find for you i think it's worth being open to a lighter roast for that reason alone but hey it's you're a cup of joe so be honest with trade when you take the quiz and they will send you something that you're really gonna love and you can be pretty confident that it's been ethically sourced all the roasters have to sign a pledge about that and here is my pledge to you the first hundred of you who follow my link in the description will get fifty percent fifty percent off your first bag with trade you just use my code regucia 50 and you get free shipping too let trade connect you to awesome roasters like alma trade is a great platform that's nationwide it's it's going to allow us to get to a new audience and for people to discover our coffee that we have planted we've harvested imported exported and roasted right here in our roasteries you're the best leticia and you're the best for watching thank you remember do you and me both a favor by using my link and code in the description to get half off and remember that great coffee roasts come in many colors none of which are just for tough guys

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 211,698

Rating: 4.8559566 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: cRSS0VBV99c

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/XP_Studios]

I'm a bit of a coffee nerd myself, I get beans from a local roaster and I've home roasted some green beans before. Excited to learn more about the system in technical Ragusean fashion!

I prefer medium to dark roasts, because the flavor is more nutty and smoky, and if roasted well can still have some origin characteristics, plus I'm half-Cuban, and my first experience with coffee was dark roast Bustelo lol

Also if you have any coffee questions you can put them here and I might be able to answer them

[u/jomanhan9]

I'm seeing lots of pushback in the comments section on the fully sponsored video. I'm not really sure how to feel about it, I enjoyed the video but also kinda felt like I was watching an advertisement. What do you guys think?

[u/tonyantonio]

I needed some new coffee anyways, I used the promo code lol

[u/SpoonResistance]

Coffee people, I have a question: So I bought some medium roast coffee beans at the store and used their grinder, set to dead medium. Took it home and brewed some in my French press. Tasted on the acidic side, which I don't really like. Is there anything I can do with this current bag of grounds to make coffee that isn't as sour? Also, next time I buy coffee, should I do a finer grind or should I do a darker roast to get overall less sour tastes? This is assuming I'm only tweaking one variable at a time, for science reasons.

[u/BeerLaoDrinker]

That video seemed like a full on advertisement to me. It had a minimal amount of education, but mostly it was just a commercial.