Bolivia - Heirloom #1 2023 - Direct Trade

Profile Drum Roasting:   There is a finesse here and you should not quite take that to mean delicate.  Really, words are not the best medium for conveying how to roast.  The profile I used for this is 16:30/19:30/23:30 @ 251 F or in slope notation, 8.3/6.7/4.8 @ 251 F.  What you should pull out of this is that you should not come in hot and heavy but steady and in control so you can slow it down as it requires.  3 minutes in the development phase to bring out the chocolate without turning the nut notes too bitter.  After that, you want to turn the roast down quite a bit.  A classic default profile is often 10/8/6.  This is 8.3/6.7/4.8 meaning you are finishing this roast a bit slower and you need to do this too keep the EOR temperature from getting too high.  Much beyond the low 250s and you court bitter nut notes  Slow and steady wins the race.  But I want to caution about just doing 'long and low' as seems to be a thing.  If you do that you run the pretty high risk of not developing the flavors that are there and in that case you could well be left with the dreaded boring chocolate.

Behmor:  Due to the cold start of the the Behmor, you can just set it on the 1 lb setting with 2.5 lb of cocoa and go.  When you begin getting aromatic notes, somewhere around 4 minutes left (14 minutes elapsed of the 18 minute start) drop the power to P3 (50% power) and continue roasting for about another 6-8 minutes, waiting for the aroma to either decrease or get sharp.  This is all of course if you don't have a thermocouple in the beans (Modifying your Behmor) If you have that you can follow the profiles above.

Oven Roasting:  I've been experimenting a lot recently with a less fussy way to oven roast and I find this procedure works pretty well.  It is moderately predictable, repeatable and although not as dynamic and controllable as a drum roaster, does a good job. You will need an IR thermometer.  Roast 2 lb of beans.  Preheat your over to 350 F.  Place your cocoa beans in a single layer on a baking sheet and into the oven. Stir the beans at 5 minutes and check the temperature.  Continue roasting until the surface temperature reads 205-215 F (it may well vary across the beans).  At that point, turn your oven down 10-15 F above your target EOR, in this case 250 + ~10 = 260 and continue to roast, stirring every 5 minutes until approximately 250 F.  Again, there will be variation but the beauty of this method is having turned the oven down it is difficult to over roast.  If you do find your roast is progressing too fast, adjust accordingly, starting at 325 F and/or changing your target to 255 F.  Overall you may well roast 30-40 minutes.  The important part here is to get good momentum going in a hot oven and then basically coasting to finish.