RoastPATH Forums

Hey everyone!

We just installed our new (used) 2019 MCR-15. I am stepping up from a 3kg US Roaster Corp and before that a 1kg mill city.

My question relates to batch size, drop in temperature, and gas setting.

Yesterday and today i have been roasting test batches on the roaster to get a feel for it. As I roasted Batches between 2.4 - 8kg it seemed i was not getting the heat needed to get through the middle of a full 15kg batch. Today I did a Full 15kg and my assumption seems to be correct. Below is the roastpath profile.

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/7470794210119050123

Any suggestions on how to get my RoR line higher? I adjusted my charge temp and gas settings but that didn't change much. Roasts are turning out great but I want to start watching this closer and managing the end of my roasts.

Charge size: 5.4 lbs

Charge Temp: 400 F

Here is an example: https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/5741379544700170323

Note about the example, the notes include a more accurate reflection of the gas settings and not the lower graph.

I also find it difficult to sync the sensor temperatures for ET and BT. If I don't apply an override, the BT will be 100 F below the ET. Below are the override settings.

BT: 133%

ET: 93%

Incoming Air: 100%

Also, is there a way to update my warm up temp and the temp that is synced with the machine alarm. Current those settings are 435 for the top end of warmup and 350 for the alarm. I'd like to set the alarm to 400, my charge temp. Thanks for your help!

Does anyone have a profile for a washed Arabica from Thailand they would be willing to share? I have a friend coming over with some Friday.

Thanks

So far the only way I've figured out to print a roast profile with notes is to make the profile public and click the View option which opens it in a web browser in which I can then print.

Are there plans to have some type of common roast report for private roasts?

Hi Mill City Team,

Are you able to add the following to RP's green coffee input fields?

Process: Wet-Hulled
Decaffeination: Swiss Water (I got the impression that Swiss Water and Water Process were two different things. If not, feel free to point that out!)

Unless, is there another name for Wet-hulled in the drop down?

Thanks!

Ender
Barbell Coffee Co.

Is there a spot I'm not seeing to adjust colors and or opacity of the reference / background profile in RP? If this feature does not exist, I'd love to add it to upcoming feature requests. I'm used to artisan and have my background profile opacity set very light. While roasting the other day I found it difficult to track active profile vs background profiles.

I was roasting this past weekend and I noticed immediately something was off with my roast. I live in Southern California so the weather is pretty consistent year round, so I haven’t encountered any issues roasting on my 3kg out of my detached 20x20 garage over the past several months. Fast forward to this past Saturday, the weather was slightly cooler during the day when I typically roast and it was really windy - and I usually roast with the garage entry door cracked/open (not the large door). The roasts tended to runs a little hotter than normal. The overlap percentages lined up pretty well with only a 1% or so difference in the yellowing/Millard phase and development phase.

Any words of wisdom for planning and reacting to these variations as they are sure to occur again. I also took a mental note to never roast when it’s windy out.

NOTE: we cupped the roasts and they tasted good but were a little more developed than our target profile calls for.

Thanks!

When attempting to enter greens, it always asks for a Roastpath id and I have not been able to find this information.

for example, today roasted the espresso blend from Mill City..

Hi all,

I've been having a challenge getting my roast time down. After attending class last week and taking some insight back with me, I am still stumped. I increased both drum speed and air speed and I'm still getting roast times in the 17 -19 minute range.

Are there settings I can change? My max pressure is 3.1kPa and I'm on propane.

When I increased the fan speed, I was getting a good number of beans leaving the drum into the exhaust. Yesterday I adjusted the drum gap and still had the same problem. I was at 4mm and moved it to 3mm and that didn't work, so I just made an adjustment to 2.5 mm. I haven't tried that gap setting, yet.

Regardless, even if we solve the beans leaving the drum, I'm still left with long roast times. Speeding up the drum seemed to help the look of the exterior of the beans at during the initial minutes of the roast. What RPM should I be targeting with a full batch on the MCR-6? After checking my drum speed again, it looks like the Hz measurement corresponds with RPMs, i.e., 60 Hz equals 60 RPM.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

My charge temp was 465.

https://portal.roastpath.com/roasts/share/1393204490400030223

https://portal.roastpath.com/roasts/share/3965867252220010223

I’ve noticed the Urnex Roaster Spraz has been out of stock for several months. Is there a preferred alternative I can purchase or make myself that’ll sufficiently clean my roaster?

Hi All,

I was just wondering what others have found to work well for the the online and ecommerce side of their business or what you all recommend? What I'm using now is working, but it's not the most efficient, and to make it efficient, it means pretty steep monthly fees from my web/ecommerce provider...the biggest advantage is real-time shipping rates. The two biggest things I'm looking for input on has to do with payment processing and shipping.

For payment processing, most sites (based on what I've found so far) charge a monthly fee for the website, then a fee per transaction, plus whatever your payment processor charges (like with Squarespace for your site and Square as your payment processor).

Also, how do you all handle shipping? Who do you use? Do you have it integrated in your website (like does your website have a shipping plugin offering realtime shipping?) or do you use something different? I have to manually figure out costs based on size and zones and then create shipping "profiles." It's super time consuming and not 100% accurate.

Thanks all.

Keep on roastin'

Ender

Can anyone recommend a bag sealer for gusseted bags?

I have noticed my fuel has been zig zagging up and down. Does anyone know what’s causing this? This is a brand new roaster just installed a few months ago.

Hi All,

So we hand label all of our bags...12oz flat/box bottom bags with pull zip seal. The label is 4"x5"...and it's a less than efficient process (not to mention making sure there are no bubbles etc.). Has anyone found or can anyone recommend a manual label applicator that works with coffee bags? There's plenty out there for bottles, but I'm having a hard time finding anything for coffee bags. I can find automated machines, but we're not there yet.

If you don't have a manual label machine, what do you all do or recommend to either speed up the process or get a good result most of the time?

Thanks all!

Ender

General question about storing roasted coffee. Are there any suggestions about storing roasted coffee before bagging it, or should it be bagged right away? Some of the roasted beans will be sold by the bag while others will be used directly in the shop for brewing. I know it needs to let off gases, so any suggestions of storage are appreciated.

Thank you

Any suggestions on packaging and label companies, especially one(s) that has a decent MOQ? I know about these but wanted to cast a wider net.

• https://www.roastar.com/
• https://mtpak.coffee/
• https://www.tricorbraunflex.com/

Would also love your thoughts on bags that are printed vs using stickers for the logo and label (from a startup perspective). I'm starting where I'm comfortable and able to afford but was curious about bag presentation when just entering the market.

I've also noticed some roasters moving toward 10oz vs 12oz bags?

Thanks!

I figured it is now time for a post for help/input as I am deep in analysis paralysis mode and wasting too much coffee dialing in profiles.

Recently I roasted a washed Colombian twice for profiling and cupped the next day. I knew from sample roasting that I didn't want to spend too much time in development phase, which means I need a healthy 18-20 degF/min ROR at FC of 375degF to get to my target of 403degF in ~2min.

This was my second roast for this coffee and I was very pleased with the cupping:

RoastPATH - Review

The kicker is that I left the hopper open the entire roast. I figured I should make sure I can repeat that profile since I likely had different convection dynamics (maybe less air going through the drum since the hopper to fan is the path of least resistance).

Here are my next 3 attempts to repeat the roast. You can see the type of firing I had to do to even get close, including bumping the temp mid-roast which I hate to do. I should mention that I have been attempting lower preheats so that I can use less soaking and come in with high heat to step down through the roast, in theory...Typical preheats for these roasts 1800Pa/410degF drum temp/18-22hz on fan. All batches are 6.0lbs and I have been using a drum speed of 58Hz. When I started with this roaster, I tried 54Hz drum speed but picked up a little smokiness/roastiness...this could have been due to fan speed at the time as well though.

RoastPATH - Review

RoastPATH - Review

RoastPATH - Review

These roasts have not been cupped yet and may be OK, but this post is about machine control. I am still having trouble wrapping my head around the proper way to control 6# batches. I tend to think I need to go back to a higher preheat with a longer soak but intuitively I am having trouble making sense of why this is the case. It seems I should get there by firing hard out of the gate.

This roast profile from Bryant is the type of control I would like to have and will give it a shot with this washed Colombian, but why does it make sense that he can soak for so long and then not have to fire hard throughout the roast? Is it because we drive out moisture with latent heat and then need less energy once our bean is drier? Bryant profile:RoastPATH - Review

Any advice or input is appreciated.

Thanks,

Alex LeBlanc

I begin using RP on my MCR1 1K roaster. I am hooked to the Phidget for some reason the BT on the graph and clock are in the green and IT in the Blue. But clearly the curve on the graph showing BT is in blue. So the Turning point is not going to be correct at all. it shows the TP when I turn the gas on after the one minute mark from the start of the roast. I tried switching the wires on the phidged and when I did this I lost connection on the Roast Path app. so switched them back and the BT and IT are both still wrong. Anyone else have this issue or have a solution. Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi,

Why is the charge temp recorded in RP lower/different than the charge temp that I set my roaster to? For example, I'll preheat and set my charge temp to 425, but when I actually charge the machine, RP will show a charge temp of about 390.

Context: I will start my precharge by going up about 10 degrees in my preheat temp/435, drop the temp back down to 425, load the beans in the hopper when the temp starts to drop back down to 425, then charge right at about 427/425. Then RP will record the charge temp at 390ish. Screen shot attached.

Thanks for the help!

Ender
Barbell Coffee Co.

Is there any way in Roast Path to get a "Total Weight Roasted" count for a specific time period?

I realize that I can go and add up all my roasts separately, but was not sure if there is a shortcut.

Thanks!

PK

This past year, I've found myself using a few different fan settings during soak (1kg). What I've seen from other roasters online is that some will use their low air setting, some will begin with an even lower air setting, and a few will kill the fan entirely during soak. Recently, I find myself leaning toward a low to no air approach during the soak. When cupping, I find less astringency and a higher quality acidity in these coffees. Anyone else experience this?

My thinking is that leaving the fan on during soak could bring cooler air into the drum which:

1. Cools the drum quicker than it otherwise would without added airflow and

2. Makes it more difficult for the seeds to take on heat from the drum, stunting early momentum in the roast

On the flip, I realize that some airflow during soak could pull residual heat through the drum and, subsequently, the beans, creating early momentum. And so I suppose my question is how much air is too much air during soak? Or would it be beneficial to cut airflow altogether at this time?

If you perform a soak, what are your airflow settings?

This would be helpful not only for roasting, but accounting for loss as well.

Dave emailed re. preheat temps last night and we get asked about this a lot. This is his question and my take on preheating:

Cold weather finally rolled in here in NJ and this will be my first winter roasting on a 2KG digital.

I’m a bit lacking on the gas pressure in my facility so I compensate with some higher PH temps. The past few days I’ve been roasting in cold weather with a 460 PH. The coffee cupped great and I haven’t noticed any scorching — honestly cupped a bit better than my typical ~430 PH.

I was curious about the highest possible PH temp suggested when roasting a full batch on this machine.

You have discovered that your very thick and double walled drum allows very much elevated preheat. The upper limit is only heat defect relative to the size, moisture content, and density of the seed you are working with. Batch size is a thing too.
460-465F drum temp (not bean temp) is about the limit for me. YMMV.

Steve

When I click the RoastPath icon the normal red RoastPath screen opens but after a few seconds the app closes. Am I the only one experiencing this? Any advice? I have version 1.6.1725.0

Thanks

We kicked off this month in the roastery with another great group of roasters who traveled from across the country to attend Roasting 101. We enjoyed good coffee, questions, and conversation with everyone. Thanks for coming out!

-Lauren

We had a great group of students join us in the roastery last week for our hands-on Roasting 101 Class. Our talented graphic designer, Mya, took some photos during the class. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Thanks for a great class, everyone!
-

Go easy. This is my 4th roast ever haha

60% Brazil Carmo de Minas 40% Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

I am looking at putting together my espresso roast and I wanted it to be mild, mellow, cocoa and some sweet and fruity flavors.

Roast Notes: 3kg batch on 6kg Roaster. Came in with a 375 Charge, 2.5KPA and low air flow. Dropped at 10:42 at 405

Cupping Notes: (24hours post roast) Cocoa and citric acidity with subtle hints of kiwi.

Thoughts? Anything I can do better?

Still very new to roasting!

I have a 6kg and was wondering what the smallest batch size you would recommend running through it? (Side not I am not interested for "Sample" size roasting as I know it can affect a lot of variables that do not benefit the coffee or the roaster)

Also will I need to adjust Fuel to it?

Hey everyone!

I am weeks away from opening my cafe and roastery here in Minnesota and I am super excited!

We are seasoning the roaster tomorrow (6kg) and really looking forward to digging deep into the roasting world. I'd love to connect with anyone and everyone who is willing to share knowledge, tips and tricks.

Looking forward to this new adventure!

Roasting on an MCR 500g. In the literature it says that among other things, drum temperature and drum pressure is logged and communicated via USB.

Working with RoastPATH (Mac version) I don't see options to show DT and I don't see options for displaying drum pressure either. Pressure isn't that important to me but DT missing is a bit strange so I thought I'd check here.

Thanks,

Kris