r/roasting

Hey,

I'm dialing in ~100g micro-batches of Indian specialty coffee (Baarbara Estate Honey-Sundried Arabica) on a Gene Cafe CBR-101.

After running into contact scorching and facing high-temp charges, I switched to a stepped drying soak:

Preheat: 160°C (4 min)

Drying Soak (0:00–4:00): Held at 150°C–160°C

Ramp (4:00–11:00): Stepped through Maillard up to ~235°C

Result: The soak 100% eliminated scorching (bean faces are clean with zero charring or tipping), but created a new issue:

Charge / Output: 103.0g in \to 94.8g out (7.96% weight loss)

Drop Time: 11:00

Issue: I dropped at minute 11 based on surface browning, but never heard First Crack at all. At under 8% loss, the core is clearly underdeveloped (tight center creases, heavy surface wrinkling). The gentle soak pushed the timeline back, and the blower motor (~65–70 dB) plus honey mucilage masked any early clicks.

Questions for experienced Gene Cafe roasters:

Soak Timeline: When using a 3–4 minute soak at 150°C–160°C on small loads, what minute mark does First Crack typically hit for you? Should I be expecting it past 11:30–12:30?

Non-Auditory Cues: On small, quiet honey batches where snaps are muffled, what visual or exhaust markers (chaff blow-off surge, smoke smell/density, face smoothing) do you use to verify First Crack is rolling?

Batch Size: Is roasting 100g simply fighting machine physics too hard? Am I much better off standardizing at 150g–200g for proper bed tumbling, or is 100g reliable once dialled in?

Any suggestions or profile tweaks would be greatly appreciated!

I am in the habit of buying a diversity of one pound bags of green coffee from Sweet Maria's. I roast 100 grams for 2-3 brews, then move on to the next single origin 1 lb bag. This leaves me with a lot of excellent unroasted green coffee. I store it in vacuum sealed mason jars in a cool room and protected from light, but it acumulates. Friends usually don't have the palate or interest to sufficiently appreciate the bean quality when I gift it. It would be great if someone in my region (Sacramento) had a similar habit and we could trade leftover new crop green coffee. Sigh.

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