Taste Target
Single-origin DR Zorzal cacao beans—deep chocolate, cherry preserves, macadamia and pine-nut impressions, and a smooth, clean finish. Organic and direct trade.
Roasting Notes
This is a versatile bean. Don't be afraid to experiment. It takes well to a variety of roast techniques and levels.
Profile Drum Roasting: The roast profile for my evaluation was 14:50/17:05/22:05 @ 257 F. Roasts taken to 245-250 will have fewer caramel notes but may lack chocolate notes and really are not to my tastes. 250-255 F brings out the chocolate. 260-265 really allows this bean to sing. There is fruit enough to carry through whatever you do.
I personally like this bean roasted a touch heavier than many. In general, try giving this bean an extra 2-3 minutes roasting at a slightly hotter (10-15 F) temperature than you normally would for many beans and see what you think. I wait until I hear a few beans popping, and still give it a 2-3 minutes.
Behmor: P1 for 18-19 minutes with 2 lb will be just fine. Go by the aroma. When it turns sharper near the end of the count down, you are done. If it isn't there yet, add a bit more time waiting for the turn of aroma. 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 P4 (75% 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: You will need an IR thermometer. Roast 2 lb of beans. Preheat your over to 325 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 260 + ~15 = 275 and continue to roast, stirring every 5 minutes until approximately 260 F. Again, there will be variation but the beauty of this method is having turned the oven down it is difficult to over roast. The important part here is to get good momentum going in a hot oven and then basically coasting to finish. You may not get much chocolate or brownie aroma with this one.