RoastPATH Forums

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

I've been noticing more lately, in the last month I'd say, that I'm losing the connection to the roaster/probes periodically through the roast process. Sometimes it will show the red gear on BT sometimes on the ET, sometimes on both. It will last for a couple seconds and come back. I notice when this happens the connection notification under the roaster name also shows no connection. While I'm running a laptop on wifi I've got full signal in these moments.

Thank you,

Jason

I have been roasting from the MCR3kg digital for over 9 months, during the first 4 months we didn't have any issues with the roaster. After three months of commercial roasting we faced one issue. When the machine is pre heating suddenly the gas turns off and machine automatically tries to ignite back on but the machine is not letting the gas pass through. I checked the gas cylinder it has gas. to solve this I usually unplug the regulator and plug back or sometimes it get fixed when I turn off roaster and turn on back on. This issue isn't very consistent It doesn't occur all the time some days it happens and for weeks roaster might just work fine. Just want to get bottom of this if anyone have any idea what's happening.

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

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

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!
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I am wondering if there is a list of public roasts that i can view to take some notes. I have only been able to find a few specifically under the MCR youtube roast along videos. But I am curious if there is a way to find a list without having to go through the youtube video links

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?

Can anyone recommend a bag sealer for gusseted bags?

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

I would want to go back and edit a profile I have already saved. Is this possible in the current version?

Hi is there any way that i can make Green to yellow setup automatic on specific degree

Thanks

Hi any update on the Fully off board automation capable via RoastPATH machine control when it will be available

Thanks

I wanted to see if you guys had any insight to the best sized boxes for shipping 5lbs bags of coffee. I have been using a 20x10x10 and I am able to fit 5 bags of coffee in that sized box. I wanted input on a bigger sized box that that would not be over kill. I find I am most often having to ship an odd number like 7 bags to a customer and then I have to split and it is more on shipping. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

Good day

I have completed all the steps to get started except for the downloading of the app-struggling to be able to download it onto my mac. I have all the windows applications on my mac.

If anyone knows how to do it please do help.

Many thanks

When I select the reference roast after clicking on the blank space, I'm not able to switch to different profile. I don't see any buttons guiding on roast path either.

Just getting started with Roast Path and was wondering if it is possible to load profiles from artisan as master paths to follow. Or do I just need to set time and temp targets from those profiles and go from there?

This iPad iOS version is 10.3.3 and I'd like to use the app...can someone provide instructions on how to get the app? ..I have an existing account

When I click on "REVIEW" to look at a previous roast profile, the graph comes up with only the "EVENTS" graphed. I need to go in and click all the options to get them on the graph (BT, RoR, ET and IT) for each time I open a different profile. Is there a way to adjust the settings so that it will always open the profile showing all data on the graph?

I gave a glance at prior FAQs and did not see a mac version of the initial connect process. I feel as though I must be missing the startup to connect to Macintosh.

Jim Enright

East Delaware River Roasting LLC

Jim@iRoast.net

So I've noticed that our gas keeps turning off automatically around 10 or 11 minutes into the roast. I'm guessing, based on some reading, that it's because some roasters automatically turn off the gas when a certain temperature is reached. I'm just not sure how to reset this, or fix this on our roaster. I wasn't the one to set it up in our shop, so if anyone has any answers, that'd be great!

I am roasting on a 2k-digital and have had a hard time getting the RoR higher than 20/min . I have tried different combinations of air, charge temp, gas, and drum speed and can't seem to get it to go higher. I am hitting first crack between 13-15 min on average but would prefer around 10 min. Any Suggestions?

I have seen in the past in some older Mill City vids you guys would have a clip board making notes of some kind when roasting. I know that 33 books makes one specifically for roasting but it looks overly complicated. As I have been learning our new roaster, I have also been keeping notes manually, but they are not super organized and when I come back to them, I am often scratching my head to remember what is what. :-) Does anyone have a go to printout for roast alongs?

I have an opportunity to work with our local brewery to can coffee. Does anyone have experience with this that I could pick your brain on what you did and how it worked out. The biggest thing I am unsure on is a Ratio or coffee to water.

Hi! Our RoastPATH software has been having some trouble for the past couple of weeks. It has been crashing frequently (I believe due to the overload of information), leaving us unable to roast. We have tried turning off some functions in RoastPATH to lessen the load on the software, but unfortunately this information is important for our roasting process. If anyone has any suggestions on how to keep RoastPATH from crashing, that would be most helpful.