When my first commercial roaster arrived, I fell for it on sight. It was a 12kg Has Garanti, and the drum was wrapped in beaten copper that shimmered whenever the light caught it. I christened it the Copper Whopper Stopper. It had a certain ring to it.

The romance lasted about as long as it took to roast a few batches. Something was off. The coffee tasted flat and a little woody, and every origin seemed to blur into the next. The problem, I worked out, was heat. The burners couldn't deliver enough of it, fast enough. Instead of roasting the beans, I was slowly stewing them.

Enter Arthur, my local gas fitter. He removed the regulator from the back of the roaster, and suddenly I had heat on demand. That's strictly a job for a licensed professional, not an enthusiastic roaster with a shifter. The difference in the cup was immediate. Origins tasted like themselves again. Better still, I could roast bigger batches without shortchanging the beans.

Back then, there was no roasting manual on the shelf. I read everything Tom at Sweet Maria's posted on his blog, quizzed my coffee broker Scott Bennett, and asked anyone who'd stand still long enough. Mostly, though, I leaned on what I already knew. I was a cook before I was a roaster, and roasting coffee is cooking. It isn't a beverage until it's extracted.

Any cook knows what happens when the pan isn't hot enough: the meat stews instead of searing. Coffee is no different. It needs enough heat to keep the roast moving. Without it, the roast stalls and the beans bake. With it, you can steer. Years later, Scott Rao's books put careful words and numbers to what I'd learned at the roaster. Every roast since has been built on that lesson.

Here's how the steering works.

Drying. Green coffee arrives holding around 10–12% moisture. The first few minutes drive that water out. It's a quiet stage, but everything later depends on it. Rush it and the outside scorches while the centre stays damp.

Browning. Once the beans turn yellow and the roastery smells like baking bread, the Maillard reaction is under way. Sugars and amino acids combine to build nutty, caramel and chocolate notes. I give this stage room. Rushed browning makes a thin cup.

Development. First crack sounds like popcorn in the next room, and from here things move fast. I aim to spend roughly a fifth to a quarter of the roast in development. That's long enough for sweetness, but not so long that the origin fades.

Through all three stages I watch the rate of rise, which is how quickly the bean temperature is climbing. It should ease down steadily from start to finish. A curve that stalls, or surges late, shows up in the cup as baked or smoky flavours. That, more than any single temperature, is what I'm chasing.

My house style sits in what I call the golden middle. The coffee is developed enough to be sweet and full-bodied, but light enough that an East Timor still tastes like East Timor. Most of our coffees are roasted to work in both espresso and filter.

Which brings me to the award. When I was named event champion at the 2010/11 CSR Golden Bean Awards, I wasn't in the room. I was sitting in a Kmart car park, having just bought my son Edward a new boogie board. With a young family, the trip to the event wasn't going to happen.

Dave Makin rang my mobile with the news. Now, Dave and I had been talking about him teaching a latte art class, and he'd never returned my call. So, not realising I was on an open mic in front of the whole room, I told him he was a very naughty boy for not calling me back. The laughter down the line told me everything. Not my most polished industry moment, but I'll take it.

The Copper Whopper Stopper and I learned a lot together. Every bag that leaves our Robe roastery still carries those lessons. I hope you can taste them.

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