Thank you so much Tom for this!

Tom provided some good advice.

I personally go by smell.

I start by roasting a small amount at 170c until they begin to smell burnt. That point in time is my max threshold.

Then I start again with another batch at the same temperature. The beans start smelling chocolatey, then the smell gets acidic (vinegary), and then the acidity slowly tapers off and a nice mellow chocolate smell begins to become prominent. I tend to track the time and stop the roast somewhere between the decline of the acidity, and the point in time where I have recorded them as burnt.

The longer they are in the oven, I find the fewer delicate fruity/floral notes remain. Personally i try and retain some of the fruitiness.

Cheers

Brad

This is how i do it and it works very well. Pre heat oven to 170 degC with a high edge baking tin inside. Pour beans into tin so the beans sit in a layer about two beans thick (i have a tray that takes 800g to 1kg so this is the roast scale i work on and hence the times i mention will be based on this batch size). After 5 min at 170 degC, turn oven down to 150 degC and stir the beans every 5 min. After 15 min at 150 degC i taste the beans every five minutes from that point when i stir them until i think they are done. The way i do this is to select two beans one big, one small and shell them, then pop them in my mouth with about half a teaspoonfull of sugar. Chew this to a paste in your mouth and it will give you a rough approximation of what your choc will taste like at that roasting time. As for specific times for those origins well that depends on your taste, a lot of people like a light roasted Madagascar, but i like a darker roast and this can translate to an extra ten min roasting. As a guide though the lightest roast i have done was with some Samoan beans and this was only 20 min at the 150 degC stage and longest was 45 min at the 150 degC stage for a batch of Aussie beans. Generally you will find that bitterness will increase as you roast and astringency will decrease, some can get bitter very quickly like the Samoan which is why the roast was so short. So it is about balancing these two parameters with that of the choc flavour formation, everyone has a different opinion. Good luck, you should be fine.

So I run a small business making chocolate bars, and I have some samples of some beans that I was just hoping someone could give me a starting roast profile for so I can get it as close to the correct taste as possible as I only have enough sample beans for 1 batch each .

The origins are as follows:

Arriba Nacional from Camino, Verde Ecuador

Trinitario from Gran Couva, Trinindad

and lastly a variety from Sambirano, Madigascar

All are very high quality beans and I am very excited to taste the end product. I have not dealt with these types of beans yet and am looking forward to the responses I get on this subject!

Also, I will be roasting in my home oven for now until I get a proper roaster, just so you know all of the details.

Thank you so much!

updated by @steven-shipler: 04/11/25 09:27:36