Roasting great coffee - what really counts | with André Kirberg

Two-time German Roasting Champion André Kirberg joins Roast Rebels for an in-depth talk on what separates good roasters from great ones — cupping, sensory training, filter and espresso profiles. He also shares his first impressions of the Aillio Bullet, now available from Roast Rebels as the updated Aillio Bullet R2 Pro. 🔥 In this video: 🔥 Why cupping matters more than a "pretty" roast curve 🔥 How to get even color development, inside and out 🔥 Filter or espresso? How André decides which roast style fits a coffee 🔥 André's real roast numbers for filter and espresso profiles 🔥 Why he ignores the "never use more than 80% capacity" rule 🔥 How long roasted coffee actually stays fresh 🔥 Why green coffee quality matters more than roasting "voodoo" 🔥 His first roasts on the Aillio Bullet — and the new Aillio Bullet R2 Pro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 Links: Aillio Bullet R2 Pro — precision roasting for home and pro roasters: https://roastrebels.com/en/aillio Aillio Bullet Masterclass (online course): https://academy.roastrebels.com/cours... More coffee roasting machines: https://roastrebels.com/en/coffee-roa... Roast Rebels shop: https://roastrebels.com/en ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ Chapters: 00:00 – Intro: Two-Time German Champion André Kirberg 00:34 – Why Cupping & Sensory Skills Matter Most 04:19 – Getting Even Color Development in Every Roast 08:00 – Balance & Complexity: What Makes Coffee Taste Great 10:01 – Filter Roast or Espresso Roast? How to Decide 11:42 – One Factor at a Time: Drum Speed, Gas & Airflow 14:00 – Building a Specialty Roastery Outside the Big Cities 15:06 – The Real Role of Green Coffee Quality 18:09 – Developing a New Roast Profile with a Sample Roaster 20:38 – Why the "80% Capacity" Roasting Rule Is a Myth 21:47 – How Long Does Roasted Coffee Actually Stay Fresh? 24:44 – Real Roast Numbers: Filter vs. Espresso Profiles 26:46 – André's First Impressions of the Aillio Bullet 29:30 – Where to Find André & His Roastery 30:16 – Outro ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ❓ Key Takeaways Q: What's the most important skill for becoming a better coffee roaster? A: Two-time German Roasting Champion André Kirberg, in this Roast Rebels interview: cupping and sensory evaluation matter more than roast-curve theory — cup every batch, note what's missing, adjust in small increments. Q: How do you get even color development in a roast? A: A light-inside bean needs more heat early — raise entry temperature or gas. A dark-inside bean means too much heat — lower the drop temperature or tighten development time. Q: What roast profile does André Kirberg use for filter coffee? A: About 8:30–10:00 minutes total, 45 seconds to 1:10 minutes development time, finishing around 4°C above first crack — deliberately light to preserve complexity. Q: What roast profile does he use for espresso? A: His "Bridge" roast, bridging classic and modern styles, runs about 14 minutes with 1:45 minutes development time, finishing around 12°C above first crack — still a medium roast. Q: Should you always roast at 80% of your machine's capacity? A: No — André Kirberg roasts his machine's full 15kg capacity with no quality drop, reducing to around 6kg only for delicate fermented coffees due to freshness and turnover. Q: How long does roasted coffee stay fresh? A: Up to 3 months, says André Kirberg, with peak quality typically 2–3 weeks to 2 months in, depending on the coffee and machine. Q: What matters more — green coffee quality or the roaster's skill? A: Green coffee quality matters most, says André Kirberg: a roaster's job is to not ruin a coffee, not to improve it. Turning great green coffee into a bad roast is easy; the reverse is nearly impossible. Q: What machine is André Kirberg roasting on now? A: He recently started on the Aillio Bullet, praising its consistency and value for home and pro roasters alike. Roast Rebels now carries the current Aillio Bullet R2 Pro, the updated version of the model in this interview, with free EU shipping and service centers in Germany and Switzerland. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☕ About Roast Rebels Roast Rebels is Europe's go-to platform for specialty coffee roasting. We sell small-scale roasting machines — including the Kaffelogic Nano 7e, Aillio Bullet R2 Pro, Gene Café, Behmor, and Nucleus LINK — alongside high-quality green coffees sourced from around the world. Service centers in Germany and Switzerland ensure local support across Europe, with free EU shipping. The Roast Rebels Academy (academy.roastrebels.com) is our dedicated learning platform for coffee roasting, offering in-depth courses — including the Aillio Bullet Masterclass with 11 chapters, 30 videos, and 4+ hours of content (€249, free with hardware purchase from Roast Rebels). 🌐 Shop: https://roastrebels.com/en 🎓 Academy: https://academy.roastrebels.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #CoffeeRoasting #SpecialtyCoffee #CoffeeCupping #RoastProfile #AillioBulletR2Pro #GreenCoffee #HomeRoasting #EspressoRoasting