Can omni roasts really serve their intended purpose? Or do they just serve the roaster? 🤔

@"MWJB"#p71518 I don’t see many roasters doing other than omni where I live. What’s it like for you?

Is that because it's not really a thing?

@"JimmyP"#p71519 Off the top of my head, Square Mile (currently drinking their Kenya Kainamui), Blossom, Workshop, Roundhill do 'filter' roasts, though filter roasts seem to have largely got darker in recent years. Kiss the Hippo also do their 'Bright & Vibrant' range…which sometimes lack brightness/vibrancy. Omni roasting, to my perception, is roasting the coffee darker than ideal for filter, so folks can get a reasonable result at shorter espresso ratios. That said, I'm quite happy with filter/light roasts at longer ratios as espresso, I don't need short, gloopy shots if it's at the expense of a roastier bean.

Other than changing how dark they roast what else changes. Which beans should never be used in an espresso machine….. Other than broad, black, baked etc!

thats the roasters interpretation, go under and its disgusting, like wise you can scorch and it still be under done. best of roasting the bean to its full potential and brew it how you want, most the beans i get are filter roast, through an espresso machine

> @"JimmyP"#p71517 Can omni roasts really serve their intended purpose? Or do they just serve the roaster? They serve the roaster, allowing them a broader customer base.

> @"Adrianmsmith"#p71526 Which beans should never be used in an espresso machine….. Any nominally roasted bean can go into an espresso machine, light/med/dark, depending on your preference. Light filter roasts are more likely to have very high perceived acidity at typical espresso ratios and concentrations (1:2, 1:3 etc.). But pull them longer & weaker and they can be tamed, say 1:4 to 1:6? They won't really stand up to milk & a lot of folk don't feel like it's 'real' espresso at that kind of concentration & lack of mouthfeel. Darker roasts stand up better to short ratios and this helps lift the perceived acidity, which would be flat/generic if say brewed as drip. Note when I talk about increased perceived acidity, I'm talking about something relevant to espresso at normal extraction levels, I'm not attributing it to low extractions.

What does an 'omni' roast actually mean? Whilst lighter roasts excel with pour over, they can be a challenge when brewing espresso. So does that mean omni roasting takes the roast profile past the optimum for a lighter roast in order to tame the acidic notes when using same beans for espresso? Personally, I am not convinced. I prefer to buy beans that are optimally roasted for pour over which means a lighter roast. If I want zero acidity in the cup espresso-wise, I'd opt for a roast profile optimised for that. That doesn't mean you can't brew espresso with lighter roasts but you have to make compromises chief of which is body. In order to tame acidity when pulling shots from lighter roasts, you invariably need to pull longer - 1:2.5 or higher. That way, the acidic notes are muted but that doesn't mean they go away entirely but you won't have a lot of mouth feel/body in the cup. If your machine allows you to alter espresso brew temp, you can set the temp higher than would normally be used for darker roasts. Higher temps help pull more solubles from the beans. In short, you can good shots from lighter roasts and in that I include Kenyan beans which are highly acidic. Another elephant in the corner is development which is much more of an issue when roasting light. Under development means poor roasting and under developed beans are not going to provide good espresso no matter how good your technique is. Always a good idea when looking at lighter roasts is to crack open a bean or two and see how even the colouring is inside.

> @"Systemic"#p71535 Under development means poor roasting and under developed beans are not going to provide good espresso no matter how good your technique is. Under developed roasted beans aren't going to great for filter though either, usually lacking in sweetness/acidity and with savoury/umami notes.

Omni roasts

Cuprajake

do you have colour meter? or eyballing the colour

Cuprajake

@selmerfudd

Presume you missed this

Was asking if you have a colour meter to check roast levels?

shaun__

i think it is just an industry buzzword.

DavecUK

StellarGreg If the Roasters that you use provide a reliable and truthful 1 to 5 for Roast Level, then you are LUCKY!

This seems to be a very contentious issue, and many Roasters are refusing to put any guide of Roast Level on their packet.

Others give a guide which is deliberately “Personal to their Opinions” about this Contentious topic! As is the case with A Spanish Roasters that I tried, whose “5” corresponded not with “Full City”, or “French”, or “Italian”, but whose “5” corresponded with the maximum that they would consider roasting at - around “2” or “3” for anybody else…

I have suggested to many roasters, both ones I have trained and others about a fairly easy method to deal with this. However it seems to have been universally ignored as it’s either too much trouble, or perhaps they simply don’t “get it”.

When you get your coffee there is a box and in that box is the coffee, and usually a bit of advertising bumf, free gift, taster pack whatever. My solution be to add a business card with a 10 point coloured block scale light to very dark brown, each block numbered.

As the card will be printed professionally to a proper pantone spec, it’s then an easy job to keep one by the roasters, match the colour level and describe the coffee roast level (based on external colour) by a number. You at home have a card and when purchasing you can look at your card and see what roast level visually that number refers to (without the differences in computer screen renditions).

e.g. hopefully enough to get the idea.

JimmyP

DavecUK Surely it’s more complex than this? I know roasters and they have presented me with filter and espresso roasts from the same bean that look identical on the outside. My understanding is that surface colour is only 80% of the equation 🤔

MWJB

JimmyP This is why they have colour meters to measure the colour of the ground bean & confirm evenness.

I rarely see light filter roasts, not saying you can’t make a drink from med/dark beans as filter, but most roasts for espresso will not be optimal for filter. I recall one year Square Mile released a UK Barista/Brewer’s Cup pack, I think it was when John Gordon won the UKBC. The espresso beans were totally generic as brewed coffee.

DavecUK

JimmyP Surely it’s more complex than this? I know roasters and they have presented me with filter and espresso roasts from the same bean that look identical on the outside. My understanding is that surface colour is only 80% of the equation 🤔

They can grind the bean and check…but even 80% is better than nothing isn’t it?

JimmyP

MWJB You rarely see light filter roasts?!!

MWJB

JimmyP I see them advertised & described as that by the roaster, but frequently they are more like ⅖, occasionally ⅗ (medium). Filter roasts, in general, seem a fair bit darker than they were say 10 years ago.

JimmyP

MWJB Maybe shop elsewhere? I’m buying from roasters that are roasting light 🤔

StellarGreg

Hi DavecUK.
I like your idea of a business card printed with colour samples - but I’d like to see them larger than shown…
Also, and this may be just due to “colour profiles” on monitors, but the “9” shown does not seem to correspond to the darkest Roast that some people like. For example a traditional “Italian Roast”. Even I’ve learnt that I don’t want the beans THAT dark, but to do a MEANINGFUL spectrum, BOTH ends of the Spectrum must correspond to the Maximum and Minimum levels actually preferred and drunk by people!

The Roasters DO get it. They just don’t want to ALLOW their customers to have this information. That’s simply because this information threatens to damage their profit margin, since a customer may “go elsewhere” if they don’t SEE what they want.

How many packets of Coffee Beans SHOW beans of one colour on the outside, only when you open the sealed metal foil packet, you find beans of a totally different colour inside! Ditto with Internet sales, where the beans SHOWN don’t correspond with what you’re actually SOLD! Or ditto with that “alternative word” they put on packets “Intensity”!
Intensity of WHAT? It could be the intensity of almost any characteristic of the bean!
But if a Roast Level was given, then it would be less ambiguous what it was intensity OF…
Roast Level would make it more difficult for them to get away with those “Commercial Lies”! (sorry - presentation)

The Coffee industry is in total DISINFORMATION mode at the moment, and this is not helped by the “Specialty” part of the market pretending that their coffee taste is automatically “the best”, and pretending that they are even in a majority of Coffee Drinkers Worldwide… (which they are not!)

I agree with you also that “They can grind the bean and check…but even 80% is better than nothing isn’t it?”

Yes depending on Roasting temperature and profile the end result may be significantly different, but to deny us ANY truthful information about Roast Level, is FRAUD, LIES and THEFT!

I’m sorry - well actually I’m not sorry to say this, just regretful - but it will have to be FORCED on Roasters! They’re not going to do it voluntarilly! There will be excuse after excuse after excuse….

LMSC

JimmyP I’m buying from roasters that are roasting light 🤔

Happy to give them a go, if you don’t mind sharing those roasters. Thx. 😊

JimmyP

LMSC Curve are wonderful 🙂👍

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