Strong Nutty Taste?

[salvadormg]

Hello,
This is my first post, i am totally obsessed with chocolate, yesterday for my birthday my GF bought me my first cocoa beans, i was so excited, i roasted some right away, but when i grind them and taste it, it tastes and smells like burnt nuts, it smells so so so nutty, and a little burnt, i changed the temperature down and the same again! and down again THE SAME!! what am i doing wrong? is it the beans? or am i roasting wrong or to hot? im only roasting handfuls of them, nothing major, at between 250c down to 100c and nothing works? Roast 1 250c, roast 2 150c roast 3 100c! And for about 15 to 30 mins

Any suggestions? can find nothing on google about it, i need help, im nearly out of beans and havent even made anything yet


P.S i am using Raw Columbian "Santander"...

[Brad]

Hi.

In my experience, 250 is WAY too high. Cocoa beans are not like coffee beans, and require gentle attention.

My suggestion would be to set your roast temperature at 150c and vary your time.

Time will vary depending on the amount of beans you have in your oven, and the acidity of the bean.

Smell, will at first be your key indicator. The beans will start out with a nice "brownie baking" smell, then transform to a "vinegary, acidic" smell, and then back to the brownie baking smell. Once you get back to the brownie smell, you are for the most part done. The beans may or may not have a nutty smell, and definitely should not smell burnt.

Our roasts take anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour and 10 minutes depending on the acidity of the beans.

Hope this helps.

Brad.

[Alchemist]

Could be also you have poor beans. Roasting bad beans well will not give you good beans. Just something to think about. But as Brad says, 250 C is too hot generally. If you are doing a drum roast, with 5 lbs of beans, you can get away with that kind of temperature for 5 minutes or so, but if you are doing that in an oven, you are burning the outsides most likely.