IKAWA PROFILE LIBRARY

Note

Exhaust profiles (red line) are compatible across all IKAWA Pro roasters.

Inlet Profiles (yellow line) do not translate across different batch sizes.

Give us a shout with any feedback, or to share a profile of your own – support@ikawacoffee.com

Roast any of the profiles below with your IKAWA Sample Roaster.
They have been created by roasters, barista champions, farmers, researchers and others all over the world.

Featured Profiles

IKAWA Profile Library

User Favourites

SQUARE MILE – GUGG – SAMPLE ROAST

This profile runs for 6:05 with an end temperature of 212˚C. Jamie Isetts of Square Mile manually stops the roast at 0:50 past first crack. 

Stop the roast by simply pressing the Go button on the roaster. 

CHRIS KORNMAN

Chris developed this profile specifically for high density coffees like their Crown Jewel; Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Dumerso, but it works well with other high density coffees too.

Read more and check out the Low Density profile here.

Rob Hoos (updated Sept 2023)

(designed for  IKAWA ProV3 & IKAWA Pro50)

Rob created this profile more recently, a number of years on from his original profile. It’s an excellent roast and flexible as well.

In his words “I have also planned this profile so I am reaching the maximum inlet temperature at about the same time as the minimum airflow volume. This is similar to how I often roast on a drum roaster (though not intentionally). I generally begin decreasing my power input as the first crack is on the horizon so I can enter it slowly enough to hit an appropriate development time without drifting too dark in roast colour. From then on, the power steadily decreases until the roast’s end.”

Read more here.

IKAWA Pro App Profiles

IKAWA SAMPLE ROAST 1

A great go-to profile for Central and South American coffees. A steady heat application over 6 minutes creates an even development on most coffees, revealing sweetness and acidity but not interfering with the clarity of the cup. 

IKAWA GEISHA UK BREWERS CUP

The roast that our technician, Lorenzo D’apolito, used to roast his UK Brewer’s Cup coffee, which helped him place 4th overall in 2018. The geisha that Lorenzo used was a natural process from Finca Auromar in Panama.

IKAWA GEISHA UK BREWERS CUP INLET

The inlet temperature sensor version of the roast that our technician, Lorenzo D’apolito, used to roast his UK Brewer’s Cup coffee, which helped him place 4th overall in 2018. The geisha that Lorenzo used was a natural process from Finca Auromar in Panama.

**Note: Inlet Profiles for 50g roasters do not translate exactly to a 100g roaster.**

THE TIM WILLIAMS PROFILE

The classic. Tim William’s created this early in our history for coffees from East Africa and helped us show off the capabilities of the IKAWA Sample Roaster. Since then, this profile has gone out on each version of the IKAWA PRO App and been iterated on around the world!

Espresso & WBC

BEN PUT – WBC 2017 ROAST

Ben placed 4th in the world using this profile for his espresso. He used an experimental washed geisha from 90+ in Panama that had notes of orange blossom, grapefruit, cane sugar and date.

ANDRÉ EIERMANN WBC 2017

Not only did André roast his coffee on stage at WBC 2017, he was 2nd after round 1 of the competition. He used a washed geisha from Honduras in his routine which had notes of peach, yellow plum, bergamont and orange.

KYLE RAMAGE – WBC 2017 NATURAL

Kyle placed 6th in the world and used this profile for his milk beverage course, using a natural process of his geisha coffee.

SCA LECTURE: GEOFF WOODLEY

“Designed to be both honest and respectful to the coffee and simultaneously  sweet, easy to work with and delicious with milk. It has a significant amount of development, I like espresso to be distinctly different than filter coffee. I also keep in mind that 80-90% of espresso based drinks sold in a cafe are mixed with milk or milk alternatives. It’s lower in acidity, higher in body and still truthful to the green coffee.”

SCA LECTURE: BEN PUT

“One thing that roasting on the IKAWA has highlighted for me is that you roast to your grinder. I approached this profile to know that I was extracting a certain percentage with my grinder and my brew ratio. I started with some profiles I have used in the past for Colombian sample and then started to play with length of roast, adjusting Maillard time and development.”

SCA LECTURE: JEN APODACA

“I wanted a really bright, bright acidity and most of that comes from the fact that I wanted more of a long shot espresso. I enjoy playing with the airflow. I decreased the fan speed at yellowing which increases heat transfer, then made it rise towards the end of the roast for smoke abatement. I kept the same amount of post-crack development as the sample roast to make sure the acidity popped.”

GENERAL PROFILES

CARAVELA SAMPLE ROAST

Caravela use this roast profile as the base for all their washed South and Central American speciality coffees. If you’re looking to dial in to a specific coffee, the team at Caravela recommend stopping the roast at 17% DTR (development time ratio)

COFFEE MIND (MORTEN MÜNCHOW)

CoffeeMind’s Morten Münchow designed this profile to be his ‘standard’. It’s his reference profile for any new coffee. His approach is then to try various experiments based on how that roast went, either darker or lighter. His roasting approach is very science based, and you can learn more here.  

ATLAS UNIVERSAL SAMPLE ROAST

Drew from Atlas Coffee Importers (USA) has created a “universal” sample roasting profile, intended for sample roasting in concert with SCA cupping analysis. The outcome follows controlled trials across a range of coffees, times, temperatures and airflow. This profile has been created to deliver an outcome suitable for cupping analysis, with distinct and dependable results roast after roast.

19 GRAMS BERLIN – ANTHONY PIPER

This profile is Anthony’s go-to sample roast used with coffees, based on an environmental curve of a production roaster. He notes the ‘rate of rise’ transitions to a negative reading before first crack and remains negative to avoid crashing. Rather than altering the profile, Anthony adjusts his batch weight depending on screen size.

ALEXANDRU NICULAE – SAMPLE/ FILTER ROAST

Alexandru Niculae is co-owner of Bob Coffee in Romania, and the 2016 World Coffee Roasting Champion. He developed this profile using coffees that were in the range of 9-10.5% humidity with densities between 800-900gL.

He notes that this profile is designed to be both a sample roast, and a great filter brew. It’s lightly roasted, but balanced, sweet and very clean. Alexandru tested more than 30 variations of this profile! It begins with a high charge, and then a 1:20 gentle soak. This is followed by a ramp up in temperature to optimise the heat transfer to the centre of the seed.

To ensure a sweet and bright cup, free of roast flavour, the profile goes into First Crack very gently. For a natural processed coffee, he says you can increase the end temperature to 205-206 C.

SUSTAINABLE HARVEST STANDARD SAMPLE ROAST

Sustainable Harvest in Portland, USA uses this profile as the starting point for all their sample roasting. They state that it provides good development and expression of character for almost every coffee. It’s a fantastic profile that we have used on a number of different coffees. Be sure to also try the low density and high density coffee profiles available in our blog featuring Yimara.

HIGH ALTITUDE – CHRISTOPHER FERAN

Christopher Feran developed this sample roast while buying coffee in Jimma, Ethiopia. Being 1800masl requires adjustments to a profile made at sea level. Here he increased the airflow, decreased the temperature in the roasting environment slightly, and reduced his end temperature slightly. If you are using at higher elevations, he recommends increasing the airflow 1-2% more throughout the roast, and possibly even decreasing the end temperature 1 or 2°F as well.

PATRIK ROLF WBrC 2019

Patrik’s brew was the highest scoring cup at the 2019 WBrC. He roasted it backstage on his IKAWA 6 hours before brewing. This long, slow roast is more of a production roast than a sample roast, one that he meticulously tweaked for a long time to highlight very specific flavours in his coffee.

SCA JAPAN 2019 PROFILE

Created by Cafe Imports Japan’s Takahiro Tsujimoto, this profile is used as an all round QC roast. Taka says “In Japan we typically prefer more developed coffee, so this roast is a perfect starting point to assess the merits of a coffee”.

IKAWA’S WOC | BURUNDI

We have this beautiful Burundi Coffee from Collaborative Coffee Sourcing / Long Miles in Burundi and use this profile for it at WOC.

MERCANTA UK

One sample roasting theory is to roast all coffees the same, and evaluate the quality from the same roast – here’s a profile to try developed by Stephen Cornford of Mercanta UK

CENTRAL AMERICA

Josh Tarlo Panama Gesha

Josh created this profile for the Washed Gesha category as part of the official roast profiles of the 2020 Best of Panama. He says “the hockey stick (shape) gives me the most vibrancy of the coffee character across the most common screen sizes of traditional lots, gesha and pacamara varietals.” All of his profiles for the competition can be found here. 

ADAM SHAW

Good start point for most Central American washed Arabica coffees, based on SCA sample roast conventions.
Read more here

ROB HOOS

This profile is designed to match the key stages in the roast – drying, browning, first crack and development, allowing you to translate insight here to your production roast.
More from Rob Hoos here

AFRICA

Algrano’s Standard for Ethiopia

This profile was developed by Algrano to roast high-density East African coffees in the 50g IKAWA. It can be used to sample roast Fully Washed, Natural and Anaerobic coffees. It uses a lot of energy from the beginning to produce a medium roast. The main objective is to achieve a good development time to assess multiple coffees side by side without noise from different roasts.

Run this profile up to around 5’30” for Fully Washed coffees (40-45 seconds development) and prolong it by 5-10 seconds for Naturals (50 seconds development). This was made for the 50g roasting machine. Read more about how they use this profile in this blog here.

DALE HARRIS KENYA MWENDIA

We were happy to support former World Barista Champion Dale Harris with his interactive discovery installation ‘Flavour Pathways’. It explored the complexities of flavour and how we taste coffee, and was based off his WBC winning presentation. He enlisted to assistance of a few labs to analyse the compounds in the roasted and brewed coffees, and how they were absorbed by the mouth and nose. Serious science! The analysis was all done on IKAWA roasted coffee, which used this profile. Read more on Flavour Pathways here.

RAW MATERIALS

As part of Raw Material’s ‘Rwandan Tasting Set’ experience, they have developed a roast profile to best accentuate the qualities of both the washed and natural process coffees in the collection. RM recommend this profile is perfect for cupping 1 – 1:10 minutes past crack, usually 12.5 – 13% DTR.

IKAWA – SAMPLE ROAST 2

A fast profile suitable for high density beans. This profile is great for any washed East African coffees, including Ethiopia

CARAVAN COFFEE ROASTERS – DENSE NATURAL/HONEY

An inlet profile for dense natural and honey processed coffees. Caravan recommends manually ending the roast at 0:55-1:05 after first crack.

**Note: Inlet Profiles for 50g roasters do not translate exactly to a 100g roaster.**

CARAVAN COFFEE ROASTERS – AFRICA WASHED

An inlet profile specifically for very dense, high quality acidity, washed processed coffees. Caravan recommends manually stopping the roast at 1:10-1:20 after first crack.

**Note: Inlet Profiles for 50g roasters do not translate exactly to a 100g roaster.**

REDEMPTION COFFEE ROASTERS – EAST AFRICA

This 6 minute profile starts with a low drop temperature of 134˚C and ends with a temperature of 207˚C

CALENDAR COFFEE – EAST AFRICA

A quick 5 minute roast, with a 150˚C drop temperature and an end temperature of 201˚C

TIM WILLIAMS

Tim shared this profile back in 2015 and it’s been a great start point for so many different profiles. It was designed for 50g of washed Kenya.
Tim is over in Melbourne now running Bureaux Collective who represent IKAWA For Professionals in Australia.

TUMI FERRER

Tumi from Te og Kaffi used this profile at World Brewers Cup 2016 for a washed Hunkute Ethiopian coffee which you can read about here.
We know of other ‘champions’ who’ve roasted on IKAWA at competitions, but don’t have many of the profiles!

LONG MILES COFFEE

This profile is to accompany the samples in Long Miles’ first Burundi auction with Alliance of Coffee Excellence.

Try it for high density East African coffees.

SOUTH AMERICA

IKAWA’S WOC | COLOMBIA

Sample Roast profile designed for 50g of high altitude washed Colombian coffee from Huila – it’s a great all-rounder that you can iterate from. 

Laura Meunier, Ensambles Café

Laura developed this profile for washed Typica coffees of high altitude in Mexico, and we’ve found it to be a good go-to profile.

Jungjin Kim – NEWS Coffee, Korea

This is the winning profile of the IKAWA Korea Roasting Competition held by our distributors Kijeong Int’l Co.,Ltd. Jungjin Kim is a WBC & WLAC Judge and Authorized SCA Tranier. The roast profile was designed for a natural processed Caturra bean grown at 1700m at Finca La Cabana in Huila, Colombia.

**Note: Inlet Profiles for 50g roasters do not translate exactly to a 100g roaster.**

WINNER CHICKEN DINNER

During the Nordic Roaster Forum, our Sample Roasters were used for a roasting comp on Colombian coffee from Nordic Approach.
This is the winner from Talor Browns’s team, in typical minimalist Scandinavian style!

IKAWA | BRAZIL MOGIANA

This roast profile is outstanding for sample roasting coffees from Brazil, specifically pulped natural coffees. It provides a good insight into the potential of the coffee in a nice and tidy 5 minutes.

BRAZIL MINAS GERAIS – LULI FIGUEIRÊDO

Luli Figueirêdo created this profile as his sample roast when trialing some coffees from fazenda Primavera in Chapada de Minas. He notes that coffees from Brazil can be challenging to roast because there are a number of different regions with varying terroir and resulting coffees. This one he recommends for a variety of varieties from Minas Gerais, including bourbon, catuai, and even geisha. Try it with a DTR between 8% and 15%!

Nordic Roasters Forum 2019 Roast Profiles

IOANNIS LAZOS – BLACK CAT, NORWAY

Our NRF winning profile was a hometown favourite. Black Cat is located in Oslo, Norway. The profile has a very low charge and applies gently increasing airflow and temperature over 5 minutes. Unlike most profiles we see, this one has a 4°C drop over the last 40 seconds.

KRISTOFFER LAYTON – CPH COFFEE LAB, COPENHAGEN

Kris was another (relatively) local entrant, coming from Copenhagen. His profile is short, 4 minutes, and uses a very steeply declining airflow pattern. He starts with 83% airflow and drops that to 63% by the end.

HEATH CATER – SUPREME, NEW ZEALAND

Heath’s profile looks quite similar to Kris’, but extends for an extra 1:05. It uses a steeply declining airflow and reaches colour change quickly. The coffee spends more time in Maillard with this profile and is dropped at a very low temperature, 196°C.

LEE JONGHOON – COFFEE GRAFFITI, KOREA

This profile is 6:30 and finishes at 207°C, a couple degrees higher than those that placed higher in the cupping. It begins with a low charge temperature and a short, quick increase in temperature. The RoR flattens out a little after that, taking it to 1st crack. Unlike Ioannis’, Lee’s RoR increases after 1st crack.

DENNIS AGABA DESOUZA – DESOUZA COFFEE, TANZANIA

Dennis’ profile is very similar in shape to Lee Jonghoon’s roast, but extends an extra 35 seconds at the end. He also adjust the airflow down on the second half of the roast.

TOM FLAWITH – SQUARE MILE, UK

Tom’s profile is similar to Kris’ but 1 minute longer, coming in at 5 minutes total and ending at 202°C. Interestingly, Tom’s airflow drops off significantly for the last 30 seconds. We have noticed that a lower airflow does increase heat transfer, so it would be interesting to see what effect that 30 seconds has.

SMAYAH UWAJENEZA – QUESTION COFFEE, RWANDA

Smayah utilises a higher charge temperature that drops significantly, and essentially restarts at 112°C. It’s a shape that we’ve seen a lot, and produces some amazing cups. Her profile has relatively even airflow and finishes at 212°C at 5:08.

OTHER ORIGINS

IKAWA | JAMAICA BLUE MOUNTAIN

High energy sample roast profile, which we settled on after iterating from a profile for a high altitude Ethiopian coffee.

ROBUSTA

JOHN THOMPSON | ROBUSTA

Sample roast for robusta coffee. John Thompson has extensive experience in coffee, including acting as a Head Judge for Cup of Excellence.