I bought my Ikawa Home roaster a few months ago. I was drawn to the simple design, and to the controllability. When a profile is developed, you can repeat this time after time. I have roasted on Diedrich 3 kg roaster, Giesen 6 kg roaster, Probat sample roaster (which I still have), repeating roasts on these roasters was not always easy when the weather, air-temperature, winter, summer is messing with you.
Developing profiles on the Ikawa home roaster is not a walk in the park when used to the drum-roaster approach. So it took some time to find the dymamics in the Ikawa, and how the coffee responded to adjustments. In the beginning I tried some āknownā profiles from this forum as a start, but I did not get the results I wanted. I usually ended up with flat overroasted coffee. I love coffee from Ethiopia, especially the floral washed types, so that is where I started. I like my coffee juicy, transparent, floral, fruity and clean. I want to drink my coffee the days after roasting, I dont store coffee for weeks to bring out the best of it. My everyday life needs coffee to taste good from the day after roasting. But how to produce this on an Ikawa? On this forum it is not written much about washed floral coffees, but I found many profiles for natural coffees.
What I have found, is that 1st crack is much less agressive on the Ikawa, compared to the Probat sample roaster and other drum roasters. It may be because its harder to hear 1st crack on the Ikawa. I also end the roasts earlier in the 1st crack than before, now it is 30-60 seconds into 1st crack. I have sneaked in a thin thermocouple-wire thorough the top lid to confirm that the bean-temperature is increasing through the dev-phase, although the Ikawa profile is decreasing in temperature. I have developed 2 profiles for 2 different Ethiopians. The roasts looks very similar. The profiles has a little temperatur-difference, but the biggest difference is in the fan-settings. The Konga profile was more flat until i adjusted the fan. The fan is almost too high on the Konga, the beans moves a bit fast, but it brings the coffee to a lighter roast-degree that I needed. The Bensa Asefa coffee were more heat-resistant than the Konga. The fan is really a great tool for adjusting a profile. More fan = lighter roast. Throug the drying stage it might take out more moisture, a thing to have in mind.
Here is my two roasts that create juicy, floral coffee. The bean-size is 14+/15. The coffees are both sourced by Sweetmarias.com. They produce good acidic and floral coffee, they are both very light roasts. So if you want your coffee city+ and darker it might not be for you. I might tweak the profiles further if I want something adjusted, you never know. Its so easy to do small adjustments on the Ikawa, I know that the Ikawa is in the future for me;-)
'Ethiopia Yirga Cheffe Konga ā freshly roasted by @ikawahome, hereās the recipe https://share.ikawa.support/profile_home/?CAESECg4aaCjG0iqn0lR5fTaxH0aHEV0aGlvcGlhIFlpcmdhIENoZWZmZSBLb25nYSAiBQgAEPQDIgYIpgIQuwkiBgjLCBCQESIGCJMQEKgTIgYIphUQnBMiBgilGBCNEyoFCAAQywEqBgilGBCzATABOgYIkyMQxwFCJgocZ0Z0cGpVY2RDUlhvS2RVaFVDeGJhMjZEYUk0MhIAGgAiACgA
āEthiopia Bensa Asefa Qonqanaā freshly roasted by @ikawahome, hereās the recipe https://share.ikawa.support/profile_home/?CAESECWhKVr67kEuqKcqlWqyResaHEV0aGlvcGlhIEJlbnNhIEFzZWZhIFFvbnFhbmEiBQgAEPQDIgYIpgIQuwkiBgjLCBCQESIGCJMQEK8TIgYIphUQphMiBgiFGRCfEyoFCAAQwAEqBgiFGRCeATABOgYI8yMQxwFCJgocZ0Z0cGpVY2RDUlhvS2RVaFVDeGJhMjZEYUk0MhIAGgAiACgA
I hope these roasts might work for other washed Ethiopians. I will use these profiles for testing new Ethiopian washed coffees, and tweak the profiles from there.
But one negative thing about Ikawa must be said. I think when you spend this much money on a roaster, the Ikawa team should give us a better software/app. Why they left out the possibilty to mark out drying stage, 1st crack and more, beats me.