Tom Owen-Sweet Maria's

Hi Ron - thanks for sharing the coffee! In short, I am incredibly
impressed. The roasts really appear to be professional drum roast
quality without any sign of scorching or tipping, and on the City +
and Full City you really nailed the degree of roast on the head. The
cup quality was excellent on these two. Again, I am impressed. This
is better than a lot of small-batch roasters produce. What I imagine,
(and I am not a bbq person) is that it takes some mastery of the
machine paired with some experience with the coffee. The darker roast
blend would be, I guess, a faster roast and it cups as espresso with
a lot of tang to the roast taste but a little more
smokey-carbony-pungent than I would have expected. There is a big
difference between the lighter ground coffee and the suface color, so
thats why I think it was a little fast and might benefit from some
more roast time ... specifically to back off on the heat a lot after
1st crack and really ease the coffee slowly into 2nd crack. This
tends to preserve more sweetness in the cup. Once again, this is
another indication that this drum paired with a good bbq gives the
roastmaster a lot of choices in the outcome, whether that be faster
or slower roast techniques, and that level of control is something no
other home roaster machine can offer!

If for any reason you want to use my comments as an endorsement,
please do! I think whatever you have learned to produce these great
City and Full City roasts in terms of monitoring temperature, and
judging smell, sight, sound of the roast, you should try to share in
a tip sheet too. I am going to try the dark roast as brewed coffee
tomorrow am and see of there is more sweetness etc this way...

Tom
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