RoastPATH Forums

Major release highlights

• Introduction of Paths
• Path Intelligence is here
• Major moves for Greens & Coffees
• Local Save for Everyone
• Everything Else

Introduction of Paths:

With the latest release, we're introducing a new file type called a Path and your RoastPATH account now has a second collection of roast curves to separate your roast profiles from your Paths.

At a glance, Profiles and Paths look very similar. Both can still be used as a roast reference underlay in the RoastPATH Roasting App. However your Profiles are detailed records of your roast history tied back to your coffees and greens. Paths are lighter-weight templates that can now be organized in their own library where their only purpose is to serve as a reference Path to follow in a future roast.

Learn more about Paths and read our FAQ at roastpath.com

Path Intelligence is here:

Path Intelligence is now live and INCLUDED all paid RoastPATH plans. Users on a free plan have limited access but can try it out on our RoastPATH Demo.

Major move for Greens and Coffees:

In preparation for future updates around operations, all adding or editing of greens, coffees, and roast profiles has moved to your RoastPATH Portal and is no longer available in the Roasting App. We know this is a bummer if you're used to doing this work in the app but this will help us prepare for bringing in operational tools you've been asking for like multi-phase inventory tracking and production planning. To make up for it, we've improved your experience on the Portal to include the following:

• New Profiles, Coffees, and Greens list views with cleaner layouts and enhanced readability.
• Built-in sorting and filtering tools to help you quickly find what you need.
• Faster profile list loading and instant search performance.
• Deep Linking: Fully integrated deep link support between the web portal and the app. Jump directly to the Roasting App from your Portal and find the Roast Reference automatically set for you.

Local Save for Everyone: You can now download your roast profiles to your local hard drive as an .rpath file. Free users and Small Roastery plan users who have time limits on cloud access for profile history will be able to develop their own off-line storage system for templates to use later.

Roast Review Enhancements: Cleaned up layout for the Roast Review screen, with added actions:

• Open in App via deep link (from web Roast Review to app)
• Convert to PATH for your Path Library
• Download .rpath
• Print
• Delete

Simplified Profile Save Dialog in the Roasting App

• New streamlined save dialog makes editing and saving a profile faster and easier.

Roast Reference Support

• Now supports opening .rpath and .alog files directly from your desktop or file system.
• Double-clicking one of these files will launch RoastPATH and set it as the active Roast Reference.

New beta features Quality Control section with editable fields. These fields are viewable from within your roast review and we'll be building out reporting and data-downloads on a future relase.

• Bean Density
• Bean Color
• Ground Color
• Greens Moisture
• Post-Roast Weight
• Weight Loss

I roasted Ceiba Honey from Forest coffee recently and although it tastes great in the cup in its whole bean form it smells like corn tortilla. I am trying to figure out if this is a bean issue or roast issue. I'm leaning more towards roast issue but all of my roasts I did that day with similar roasting schedule (gas/air) turned out fine. Below is the link the coffee. It is a little different in the processing method so I am not sure if that could be the case.

https://coffeegreenbeans.com/products/ceiba-honey-ecom

0:00 400° Charge
1:19 212° Turning Point
5:23 304° Green > Yellow
9:50 375° First Crack
11:24 388° Drop

My event markers have disappeared on both my versions of RoastPath. I can't seem to figure out how to turn them back on. Is there something I am missing?

Hey everyone,

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the ideal way to store coffee beans. Personally, I keep my coffee in a dark environment at a constant 18°C with air conditioning.

Since I live in a dry area, I also use a smart humidity pump to balance the moisture levels and prevent the beans from drying out too much. I’ve also come across something I’m curious about:

Has anyone heard about the practice of periodically rotating or turning coffee bags during storage? The idea is that if you don’t, moisture might accumulate at the bottom of the bag, potentially increasing water activity.

Do you have any tips, insights, or practices that have worked well for you?

Thanks

Hello everyone,

I’ve been working on an anaerobic processed lot, and I’ve tried roasting it with several profiles. The issue I’m running into is that it only seems to work well with a light roast profile. Previously, I took your advice (thank you for that!) that a light roast finishing around 375°F would be suitable. However, my main struggle is with the first crack: Sometimes I don’t hear the first crack at all. Other times, I think I might be hitting it, but I’m not entirely sure. Because of that, I end up placing my “assumed” first crack marker.

My core question is about this specific challenge:

Has anyone else faced this issue with anaerobic lots?

Is not hearing the first crack actually a problem in itself?

In your experience, at what temperature does first crack usually begin in most roasts?

Any insights would be really helpful. I’d love to hear your thoughts and learn from your experiences.

Thanks in advance!

Just a suggestion but would like to see something like a roast queue added to the app! Specifically, a section where we can enter our planned roast queue for the day with columns for batch size and packed bag size/quantity so it can be printed out for a production team to reference. I feel this will also improve the utility of the Greens section and inventory tracking.

Also, linking a batch within the queue to an RP should be optional but not necessary as the scope of this feature is mainly for production planning.

We are having a hard time to make a Green Beans Inventory with automatic plus and minus. Is there anyone know how to do that here? please help me. thank you

Hey, curious if anybody else noticed something like this.

Suddenly yesterday Roastpath stopped displaying my roast numbers in the app like it had been. Before each roast it would say "RP-*number" before the profile name, for example "RP-6452 Ricardo Leguizamo". This suddenly stopped yesterday mid roast day. At the same time, it stopped displaying events unless I'm looking at the web portal. The option to display events is greyed out but checked on my app. Any solutions?

Hi,

I've noticed when I save a roast, RoastPath no longer adds the RP number in front of the roast. This is somewhat of a problem when looking for a previous roast reference while I'm in the app. So I can no longer easily find a reference from a few days ago unless I look at the timestamp. I'm wondering if we could get that feature back or have an addition to the filter button where I can find my roasts easier?

Thanks

Came back to RoastPath after a year off hoping the frequent drop outs on the MCR-3 manual would be fixed, but seems the problem still exits. Has anyone found a solution to this? I'm using a huge sampling interval of 3 and still experiencing disruptions like others have discussed. I'd rather using RoastPath than most other softwares, but if I can't accurately track data there's no point.

Hoping for some good solutions and thanks for the hard work on a great software!

Playing around in the new Paths feature and looking forward to running some tests for the next roast session. I'm curious as to what historical data it pulls from to generate these profiles. Specifically, is it an aggregate of all RoastPath Profiles? Speaking for myself, I have some profiles of some roasts that I'm not a fan of but haven't gotten around to deleting. Does that skew the predictive profile generated from PI?

Hey MC folks,

Curious if there is a future where forum participation would be included in the Free version. I would think that would allow more collaboration and provide a place for folks that are learning to interact with fellow roasters and yourselves to get feedback on MCR machines vs. venturing out in the world wide web. Just a thought, as the current participation and feedback is from only a few folks. Maybe add a MC Serial Number (SN) block where registrants add their MCR SN in the members account details which unlocks all forum features. That could make it an added perk to owning a MCR.

Hi All,

I have a 1KG MCR machine and have been trying to roast my wife a basic, nuttier roast - and man - have I been flailing. My last one tasted "ok" to some, but to me it was the standard convenience store, ashy low dimensional coffee. I would like to tease out the nuttiness, but am too much of a newbie to know what adjustments to make. Does anyone have a solid profile for a 1kg machine or able to direct me to some literature that helps tell someone ways to pivot to achieve different things? I am shooting in the dark (and missing)!

Many thanks!

Mike

I was talking with Rob Hoos the other day and we started discussing roasting strategies and preferences and one of the things he does is roast with static (and high, 100% on his machine) airflow. He just published a booklet on experiments regarding airflow for those interested you can find it in his website.

I think most of us follow a low-med-high airflow progression during roast, I recall a Derek de la Paz video on roasting a Pacamara using Static Airflow but it isn't too widespread.

Also part of our conversations, and to be honest I haven't actually tested this myself, is that I think that MCR machines have very powerful fans. Like if I were to bump my airflow to 100% I've always figured, but never tested, that I'd just be sucking beans out of the drum and diluting down the heat with, relatively, cold air coming from the room. FWIW, and I know this is extremely configuration dependent, currently using 26 Hz as low, 30 Hz as Medium and 34 Hz as high on my setup.

Thoughts on this?

Curious what everyone's warmup process and between batch protocol looks like?

Hey MC folks,

I have noticed if you go back to edit greens at any time and try to save again the bag size changes and you have to go back and correct it every time before it will let you save. This specific instance was when I initially put 10 in the "Bag Size" field and used the lbs drop down. I saved it and then needed to go back and edit something. Upon editing the page had defaulted the drop down to kgs and placed the number shown in the screenshot. I am fairly certain it does this every time when you go back in to edit a green. Just passing along the information for a potential solution down the line.

Hey all,

I have noticed on some of my most recent roasts my RoR flatlines towards the end of Maillard phase and then continues its decline. I am wondering what exactly this does to overall coffee development and is there something I should change? I attached a picture of a recent roast and added my gas and fan setting adjustments.

400 Charge

1 minute soak

Fan = 50 (Low)

2.2kpA = Gas

75 (dial) = Drum

@ 300 Fan = 54 (Medium)

@ 355 Gas = 1.8kpA

@ 365 Fan = 58 (High)

@ 370 Gas = 1.2kpA

45 sec after 1st Crack Gas = .8kpA

1 minute after 1st Crack Gas = .5kpA

14.6% development

Bean Density: .68g/ml

Bean Moisture: 11.9%

Will you guys be creating a version Of roast path for iPads anytime soon?

I've been noticing with Mill City Published Profiles for 20k that less than 2kpa of gas is applied at the beginning of the roast, and in turn Maillard phase can last up to 5 minutes before FC starts. Can you speak a bit on your roasting philosophy regarding not pushing heat during the drying phase and extending that long. Have you noticed issues with shorter Maillard phases?

We have released version 2.1.1421 of RoastPATH for both Windows and Mac, focusing on quality-of-life improvements and expanded support.

What's New:

• Coffee Dropdown now supports type-to-search, making it quicker to locate coffees in your list.
• Mac USM Reconnection Fix - Resolved an issue where users need to restart the app to reconnect devices. Reconnection should now occur automatically.
• General bug and UI fixes to improve stability and usability.

This version will be available in the Microsoft Store soon, but in the meantime you can download it directly at:

https://portal.roastpath.com/download

Hi -

I'm on the entry plan. Is it possible to export my roast (time, temp, ror) in Excel.

I record my roasts as I go and then go back and check them. Instead of going through the chart manually to record any additional inputs I missed during the roast, I would simply like to be able to export the details.

This seems really basic for any software. Is there a button I'm not aware of that accomplishes this?

Jeff

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new to me 2018 MCR-1. My first roasts on the machine I noticed a 30 degree difference from the BT and PID reading. When roasting my numbers were all over the place and I feel those batches were not executed right. I upgraded and recently swapped over the older 5mm thickness ET probe and BT probe to 3mm probes (have not swapped the PID) and I have noticed the PID temperature still has a variance of 30-50 degrees between the BT and ET. When the roaster is idle at room temperature readings are almost identical with the new probes while the PID seems off a few degrees. I know there is a lag with the PID since it's a thicker probe (5mm). I am wondering what is normal and should I even care what the PID is reading. I just ordered a new probe for the PID and will swap that out but in the meantime should I focus my charge temp to the PID reading or BT?

Hey all,

I have been chasing my tail since jumping head first into roasting on the new to me 2018 MCR-1. I had a large learning curve on airflow where a lot of my first batches were super low and every cup had a very acrid aftertaste. Forward to now my airflow has been fixed (at least I hope) but I continue to have momentum issues into 1st crack and development. I have made my most recent roast public and provided a link (below). My gas schedule and fan settings are in the notes. My main question is am I lowering my gas too early (prior to 1st crack) or do I need a different charge temp and higher gas settings at the beginning. My goal for this roast was 390 drop or 10-15% development time. I seen I was crawling in development so decided to drop in order to not bake whatever little I ended up developing. Of note, most all of my roasts since I have began this journey have had issues here but I have been trying to take care of them one by one vs massive changes to everything. Thanks for the input in advance!

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/827021582921070625

I'm guessing this is a question that most of y'all haven't had to deal with since by the time coffee arrives to most consuming countries it has been milled for a while but I'm supposed to pick up next week a couple tons of a washed borbon and a ton of a natural borbon that are until today in either parchment or dried cherry. They'll be milled and sorted the day before I pick them up.

How long would you wait to actually roast them? I've heard conflicting information and opinions with some of the "wait" people focusing on water activity (which I have no way to personally measure, just humidity measurements)

Any thoughts?

Aloha MCR ohana!

We recently increased our charge size from 5.4 lb to 5.10 lb on our 2020 MCR3KG. The roasts are cupping good but things are noticeably different as compared to our usual charge size (5.4 lb, 80% of capacity). Moreover, the behavior in the drum is different too: drying is taking longer. Ideally we need to up the charge temp to get through drying faster but we wanted to ask if anyone has a formula or approach they like to use when scaling batch sizes up/down.

Our usual profile we aim for is 4.5| 4.5 | 2 with some variation depending on the weather that day.

We charge at 1.8kPA and scale down through the roast eventually getting to 0 toward the end of development.

Mahalo for your help!

Seeing the BT going up a few degrees, than down a degree than up a few degrees and so on. Same when cooling off, it will go down then back up very quick.

You can see it in the attached pic

Hi all,

Is there a way to pay for a full year of roastpath, my bank keeps blocking that charge as fraudulent and I have to manually email them each month to authorize that particular charge. It's the only charge that my bank ever blocks so it's very strange.

Yesterday, I don't know if this is related to the issue or not as it seems to have expired yesterday, in the middle of a roast RoastPath stopped working for me at all. I was on ReRoast mode and it worked for a minute or two and then the ROR went to the negative high hundreds (-199 or so, can't remember exactly what it was) and stayed there during the entire roast. I was cracking with -199 ROR 😅

Anyways I'd like to just pay for the full year to avoid this monthly nonsense with the bank. But yeah, FYI, for whatever reason your charges are getting flagged as fraudulent so might want to look into that. I buy stuff with that card all the time and it only happens with RoastPath.