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Hello fellow roasters, wanted to see if anyone had any experience with an issue we're having regularly on our 10K machine.

PROBLEM: Drum gap has to be adjusted 1-3 times over the course of a roast, otherwise beans get dropped through the gap (too wide) OR get jammed in the gap (too small), causing the drum to stall out. Audible grinding sound as the gap closes over time+heat, at which point we have to adjust the gap to continue roasting.

BATCH SIZE: We typically roast only full 10kg batches on this machine. In the past we've done 5kg batches but our current approach to eliminating variables on each machine (as well as the ongoing demand for fulfillment) has us roasting full batches.

SETTINGS: Our base settings for airflow (17/20/23 Hz), gas (2,200 Pa start, down to 1,200 Pa most roasts) and drum (57 Hz) are more or less identical to our initial seasoning/setup roasts with Mill City from 16 months ago. We typically warm up the machine at 1,200 Pa to 440 ET (allow about 30-45 minutes) and then allow 5-10 minutes at 2,200-2,400 (our drum gap is set at this point) before charging the drum.

COFFEES: We have about 16 different coffees we roast regularly, different screen sizes, with the smaller ones from Ethiopia or our decaf coffees creating the most havoc. However, all coffees exhibit the same issue with regard to the drum gap.

OBSERVATIONS: Monitoring IT seems to be one variable involved in this, obviously the drum is expanding with heat gain after the initial charge (IT can vary from 500F-750F over the roast curve). We have played around with gas pressure and airflow. If we start with our high air setting and leave all other settings the same, we can roast a full batch without adjustment (however there are obvious implications for having no airflow adjustments during a batch). The airflow is allowing the heat to remain more consistent on the drum/IT during roast. Alternatively, we have tried shifting our air L/M/H standards upward; however the higher settings can allow a few beans to get sucked out during the roast as well, so this isn't a complete solution.

We have maintained the grease on the front and rear drum bearings, so that is unlikely to be a culprit. The drum itself does appear to have a small amount of visible imperfection (undulation) during rotation, which causes uneven rubbing/grinding sounds when the gap closes too much (it has a rhythmic/pulsing effect to the contact with the front wall). We addressed this on a video call with Aziz about 9 months ago and he assured us it wasn't a concern or was at least within margin of error as far as the actual drum is concerned.

One thought we had was that the machine, being currently level, could benefit from adjusting the feet to tilt slightly back. The logic here is that perhaps the drum is causing too much of the bean mass to be forced forward, leaving too much unbalanced weight at the front. However, that still leads me to think there is some other issue since un-levelling a machine is probably not a long term solution.

Any thoughts would help, going to troubleshoot this a bit longer then probably setup another call to support.

Hello Everyone, roasting a new natural yirg on my MCR-1. Trying to get this coffee dialed in and I have limited experience with roasting natural coffees. I roasted this coffee 5 times now and this most recent roast I increased the maillard phase by 2 minutes compared to my last profile. From what I understand, spending more time in the maillard phase for naturals brings out more fruity notes and develops the sugars on the outside of the bean. The issue I am having with this current profile is I seem to be hitting FC really late (BT at 403-406F) and I end up getting no development at the end of the roast in fear of getting it too dark. Although cupping the coffee today, it would serve well to develop it more, very little body in this cup of coffee, tastes very light. I see two options at this point, I can either continue to run the roast further into development or can hit this roast with more heat during the Maillard phase to help it crack earlier on.

Compared to washed coffees I have roasted, where they are roasted hotter and faster and 406F is a decent medium roast level, has anyone ran into this same dilemma? Where stretching out the maillard phase causes for a late FC and a need for a higher final BT on naturals as compared to roasting a washed coffee hot and fast.

Have a look at my profile, I welcome any and all input to roasting natural coffees. Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I had an issue today with my MCR-3 roaster. I increased drum speed from 42 rpm to 53 rpm to see how it would affect one of my roasts, and when I turned on the cooling arms towards the end of the roast I heard an electrical arcing sound and all the display lights started to flash and the machine turned off completely. I was able to turn the roaster back on and I adjusted the drum speed back to 42 rpm and everything seems to be functioning properly now. Does anyone know what could have caused this?

Greetings,

I have a question about the ROR readings I'm getting on my MCR-500. I see so many other roast profiles on this exact machine with similar charge temps and gas/air/drum settings which are usually showing initial ROR readings between 30 - 45 degrees/min. The highest ROR reading I seem to have on any roast is 26 degrees.

My events, phase times, finish temps, and even cuppings are seemingly normal and ideal, I'm just curious as to why my ROR readings are so much lower than those on just about every profile I'm seeing. I'm usually using initial gas settings of 1.7-2.1 kPa or 60%-70% of my max gas... should I be using higher gas settings to achieve a higher ROR, or should I be content with what seem to be normal events/finish temps/results, etc.?

I'm attaching a profile which shows my typical ROR progression, with a link to that roast here: https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/982768162618010324

Thank you!

James

Hello RoastPATH Community!
We're thrilled to share the latest update to our app, packed with new features and fixes to make your roasting experience even better. Windows users will receive the update from the Microsoft Store and macOS users can find a download to the update here
https://portal.roastpath.com/download
Here's a summary of the updates and features in this release:
Underlay Shift
What is Underlay Shift? Underlay Shift allows you to adjust and fine-tune your roast profiles by shifting the underlay of your graphs. This can be done quickly on the fly by entering a positive or negative number resulting in shifting the underlay forward or backward in time, or visually by opening the shift view and using the arrow buttons to move the underlay to the desired location.

Subscriptions

• Addressed issues with starting roasts, logging in with an expired free subscription, and user access.

Roast Replay

• Unable to set Fan/Drum to values of 10 or less: Safety threshold changed to 0.5 for flexibility.
• Resolved Roast Replay button error when using Base Digital Config.
• Fixed errors with Roast Replay button in Manual Roaster mode or when using Base Digital Config.
• Addressed issues related to using Replay with a non-compatible reference.

Notebook

• Switched auto notes to look at rounded values instead of truncated values for better change detection.
• Manual machine notes setting range adjusted to 0-100.

Coffees

• Users are prompted to save edits before exiting.
• Fixed issue where new coffee nickname was invisible

Greens

• Users are prompted to save edits before exiting.
• Fixed the issue of the variety picker being surrounded by white space.

Roast Review

• Added a preheat event for a more detailed review.
• Addressed issues related to unsaved changes prompting the user to save.

Live Roast

• Fixed issues with event display, duplicate creation, and deletion.

Readings Frequency

• Bug Fix: Readings frequency has been pushed down to the bridge timer.
• Readings frequency can now be set with one decimal place.
• Implemented a maximum value for readings frequency.

Logout

• Cleared all dialog messages upon logout.

We appreciate your valuable feedback and collaboration in making our app the best it can be. Please continue to share your thoughts and enjoy an even more improved roasting experience with these updates!
Happy Roasting!

Hi, I recently started roasting on a MCR 6kg. I came from a fluid bed roaster so I have lots to learn. During my last roasting day I noticed large drops in IT (over 60 F) which in turn dropped my ET and thus my RoR, with over a minute to recover. Around minute 5 on this roast, also happens on the reference roast. My gas, air, and drum speed where all kept the same through this drop. Also why does the ET RoR suddenly stop recording? Thanks for any ideas!

We are enjoying using the re-roast function in RoastPath. But I am wondering if when you are following commands in the Notebook if you can change the Time to Bean Temperature? It seems it would make more sense as we would want to make changes to gas pressure, etc. depending on the BT rather than the time in the roast.

Hi, I have been working with the software for a year or so and I still haven’t figured out the difference between “Coffees” and “Greens” in RoastPATH. Is “Coffees” for when you are creating blends?

Thanks in advance.

I hope this message finds you well. My name is Peter, and I'm writing to you from Malaysia. I would like to find out how long time you think one 0 experienced new learner to master coffee roasting for commercial sales. (if allocate 2 hours to learn to roast everyday diligently).
Your guidance will be immensely valuable as I embark on this journey. Thank you for your time.

Any thoughts?

Hey There! New to roasting on my MCR-1. This was some Yirgacheffe that actually ended up tasting good IMO. I know we want a relatively smooth declining ROR. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see some twin peak action like this? Too much energy going into FC?

Hey everyone - A few users are reporting an error message in the RoastPATH app noting their subscription is expired even when it is not. This typically happens when a user remains logged in over long periods of time and the app doesn’t get a chance to call back to the server to check subscription details.

The fix: Log out, restart the app, and log back in to refresh your subscription details.

We’ll work on a permanent fix for this so you don’t see this error. Thanks for your patience.

Hi everyone,

I have been roasting on my MCR 1kg for some time now and after I took the roasting 101 class I have since been using PID as my charge temperature. I usually charge most of my coffees at 425F on PID but my BT and ET are reading significantly higher (40 degrees or more) than my PID and I have always have some degree of tipping on my coffee. Is there a way to bring these temperatures closer to my PID temperature? When I watched a roast alongs online the PID and BT are usually 10-20 degrees different.

Hi

I think if there is some sort of hotkey or button for taking samples during the roast

sometimes I need to take a sample from the tryer and I had to write down the temperature and the time on a paper

it will be great if you include this in the upcoming update to take many sample points at the same chart

Hi,

If you place your cursor on the Roast Reference chart, anywhere between the Y-axis and the 0 (zero) minute mark, a black vertical line appears and you can see a temperature reading where the cursor is.

Can this option be extended to cover the complete Bean Temperature (BT) curve on the Roast Reference chart?

For example, if the roast is currently at the 3 minute mark, I would like to place the cursor on the 5 minute mark and observe what the BT was during the previous roast.

It is already available on the screen that shows the Drum, Air and Gas settings.

Thank you.

Greeting

I wonder why MCR-10 took a lot of time to roast 8 KG with full power 3 pa

It took yellowing more than 6 Min and the FC 12 Min

I'm not saying the coffee was bad it was one of the best Columbian coffees I have ever made even in my sample roaster which is Aillio R1 it took me 9 min from start to finish I know there is a huge difference between Gas and electricity but 30% delta it is huge.

when I tried the same setup for 10 KG it took me 16 Min and it was so bad I threw it away

any suggestions

It wouldn't work on our primary laptop, then worked for 1 roast on the second laptop, and then disconnected from there as well.

It looks like we may have received an update to Roast Path which may have caused the issue?

Hi RoastPath team!

just wanted to take a minute to throw out 2 things that can potentially be changed.

- Roast path seems to only log whole numbers on aiflow changes. ex: 17 HTZ or 18 HTZ but not 17.5 HTZ. Is the physical airflow impact negligible enough to not allow the detailed air setting to be tracked? Roast Replay also doesn't recognize the half way airflow point.

- Saved profiles. I've noticed recently my profile batch size has been rounded up rather than saving the detailed batch size I've entered. Ex: 11.65 lbs is showing as 11.99 lbs and so on. Is there a way to correct this?

Thank you!

If you are up for a bit of coffee science, I've got a request.

We've been thinking a lot about how mid-phase development time affects post first crack development.

It might seem obvious, but a lot of Roasteers -not a typo- ...seem to overlook the fact that coffee heats from the outside to the inside. The entire idea behind development time ratios is to allow the time necessary for heat to penetrate into the interior of the seed for more complete development.

We'll be doing a sequence of roasts next week with the same green/yellow transition, first crack, development time and finish temp while extending the mid-phase by 1 minute.

That's something like first crack at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00. and 11:00 with 1:40 development to 10 degrees Fahrenheit beyond first crack.

I'm asking you to roast at least 3 iterations, measure whole bean and ground roast color, cup each one and finally report your findings and share your roast profiles in this forum.

If you don't have a Lightells CM100 or CM200, mail me 200 gram samples and we'll measure for you.

If this pans out, we should be able to come up with a super cool and super useful predictive model for post first crack development.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, let me know here or call me at 612-886-2089

Steve

Hi All,

Is this something that's fine to do, or should it be avoided given green coffee sensitivity and the dust left behind in the cooling tray?

Thanks!

Andy

Hi everyone! Still getting the hang of our Mill City Roaster, but loving it! I'm working on a Natural Brazil from Cafe Imports, and getting an uneven roast no matter what I try.

6.6 lb batches, I have upped my drum speed to 75, and have been adjusting the fan speed trying to find the optimum. Profile and bean pic attached. Any hints to even out the roast a bit?

Thanks!

I've been trying to de-Activate Coffees. When I try to uncheck the box for "Active" and hit save it say the percent must be greater than 0. In order for me to deactivate I have to switch it to pre roast blend and select 50% of the same green.

I've only noticed this for the last week.

Desktop. iMac. Google Chrome. All most recent updates.

Thanks,

Meg

Post roast entering in some new greens into roast path, I had an issue with the "coffees" page. It wont let us de-activate coffees that we no longer have. I uncheck the box that says "active" an go to save, then I am presented with an error message at the top of the page saying "value must be greater than zero" but there aren't any numerical values to enter on that page.

I even tried re-activating that particular "green" before trying to remove the 'coffee" from our roastpath lineup, still no luck!

not a huge deal, just wanted to make somone aware!

Cheers all!

I received an especially good question from a customer last week about his destoner:

"I’ve caught a stone last week and a stick a while back in my batch of coffee after using the destoner. See picture of last weeks stone found. I’m really nervous using this machine. The coffees I buy don’t have a tonne of stones. I bought this destoner to catch the one or two that may be present in a bag. Please advise."

I responded:

All destoners work on differential density. They only remove stuff heavier than coffee seeds.

Your picture shows a cement chip, not a stone. Cement chips come from drying patios. They are the same size, color and density as coffee seeds. They often slip past optical sorters and destoners and pass through grinders harmlessly.

Similarly, no destoner will pick up wood slivers or twigs small enough to act like coffee seeds. They'll have to be removed manually. I've never encountered a twig, but I'm guessing anything that wasn't caught in the destoner would pass through a grinder harmlessly.

I understand your concerns, but this isn't anything to be concerned about. If it's a source of anxiety, run the seeds through twice. Beyond that, letting your wholesale customers know that you are running all of your roasted coffee through a destoner for their protection serves a valuable prophylactic purpose. All it takes is one goofy ticked off counter kid to ruin everybody's day by tossing a stone into the grinder.

You'll still end up paying for a new set of burrs, but the fact of the destoner makes it less likely you'll lose the account.

Free advice.

Just a reminder that we've compiled a fairly large amount of actionable coffee roasting info on the Education section of the website.

Coffee Articles – Mill City Roasters

Lauren and Bryant's stuff is terrific as always, but if you're in need of a sure-fire cure for insomnia, my stuff is especially long winded and arcane.

If you're new to this, hammer back a double shot of espresso and dive in:

Roast Sensory Cues: A Detailed Analysis – Mill City Roasters

Green Coffee Buying Basics – Mill City Roasters

Steve