RoastPATH Forums

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!

Hey RoastPATH Community! I've been experiencing dropouts every few seconds. Happens on both BT and ET. Usually both at the same time, occasionally one or the other. no connection or Always get an error message. Says either no connection or the data requests are too frequent. Also getting spikes and dips on both always at the same time.

I don't know if it's my panel or my app. Any experiences or suggestions would be awesome!

Working to dial in my fan speeds on 3KG, what I detected as my low settings with the lighter (34) is leaving chaff coming out the front at beginning of roast, obviously too low a low right?

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

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

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

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!

Hello!

My first attempt at Hibernate, and only second week working with Mill City 3KG roaster. Would someone mind taking a look at this profile and see if it is getting close to where I should be?

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/1886836402923171123

Thank you!

Hi RoastPATH Fam,

I'm looking to update my inventory management to something more robust than a spreadsheet. More specifically, I'm looking for something to assist on the backend of my online store.

As I'm sure you can all relate, I've got some coffees that I'm going to offer as:

• Single Origin (in multiple sizes)
• Component of a sample set
• Component of a blend

As products get sold, I'd like my store (and greens inventory) to reflect the changes accordingly.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

(I'm switching over from Squarespace commerce to Shopify as Shopify seems to have more robust backend options / features).

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.

We are new to commercial roasting and to RoastPath. We wanted to introduce ourselves and say hello from the Arkansas/Mississippi Delta. We're right on the MS River, a few hundred miles down the river from Mill City. We're excited to be a part of the coffee community!

-Mike and Amy Green

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

Dear MCR,

I am relocating to O'ahu in the next 45 days and I wanted to ask if you have any advice for safely moving my 3KG roaster. I plan to load it in one of my moving pods with all my other coffee equipment. Any suggestions for a successful move? It'll move from California to Honolulu.

Mahalo for your advice and/or any suggestions!

Richard

Hey All,

I'm working on developing a profile for a Brazilian and my last three batches cupped pretty flat and uninteresting (profiles linked below). For these roasts I was focusing on Final Temp, and Phase Percentages to better understand this bean (and my roaster). I neglected my ROR curve. I'm assuming my fairly flat ROR is the reason these cupped so poorly. Is there anything else I'm overlooking or should be mindful of?

Thanks!

Andy

Brazil Test 6

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/7348030331718161023

Brazil Test 7:

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/1828605432819161023

Brazil Test 8:

https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/620693253620161023

Hi All,

What would you say is the more accurate charge temp? The BT readout in RoastPath or the Temp Control readout on the control panel? The reason I ask is the BT is lower than TC and sometimes the TC will be a steady number while the BT will climb slightly. So I’m just trying to figure out which number I should aim for when writing a recipe and going for consistency. Also BT is what RoastPath shows for the charge temp in the notes section.

Thanks!

Ender

How do you replace the front bearing on the 1kg roaster?

Looking for help or advice on how to roast full batches on my MCR-3D. When roasting a batch of coffee with 2.75 kilos of green I get great results. BUT when I go up to 2.9-3 kilos of green I tend to get uneven roasts, visible differences in the color of the beans. It "seems" that as the coffee expands the movement becomes limited. Everything seems to be fine up to finishing first crack. This is where things visibly start to show and I feel like I loose control of the batch.

Here is my last attempt https://portal.roastpath.com/publicroasts/index/5219415431212210723

Hi Everyone!

My name is Andy Halseth and I wanted to virtually introduce myself. I started roasting coffee for my church back in April on a Fresh Roast and things have been growing since then. I took the Roasting 101 class in July and took delivery of a MCR-2D in August. We got it up and running in the middle of September, so I'm still getting the hang of a drum roaster, larger batch sizes and everything that goes along with that.

I'm excited to learn more from all of you wonderful people so that I can better serve my community (currently a coffee desert) and bring great coffee to great people.

(I wasn't sure what category to put an "introduction" post, so I put it here. Please feel free to move this wherever it needs to go)

I've trolled the forums a bit with no luck. Is there a way to reduce the time scale when reviewing roasts in the web browser? In the roast chart display there are options to change max temp, but nothing for time.

It would appear the default is 15:00, but if the roast goes longer, it will expand, as I found out on a test/warmup roast I recorded. I have several roasts that are between 7:30 and 9:00, so when reviewing I'm left with a long 6ish minutes of blank/empty graph. It's more of an issue seeing some of the details, as the graphs are already quite small. Thanks!

Curious if it's possible, and also curious if this is a feature you'd consider adding.

Our development and testing teams have been busy speaking with beta testers, getting feedback, recording bugs, and making great progress on improving your experience with RoastPATH.

This release is largely bug fixes and feature usability improvements. Some of you may recognize a few items from the list below, though most of these issues only affected individuals or small user groups.

Fuel and Drum Note Handling

• Fixed an issue where fuel events could not be marked as complete if the note status was skipped.
• Resolved the issue of fuel and drum notes not being inserted during a manual roast.

Replay and Adjustment Functionality

• Corrected the behavior where a skipped adjustment would still occur 5 seconds after being ghosted.
• Addressed the issue of recording multiple notes in sequence for the same setting adjustment when adjustment only happened once.

Text Note Management

• Solved the problem where text notes from an underlayed profile were saved to a notebook for a new profile, causing potential clutter.
• Implemented an option to ignore decimal values and only record new fan notes when the 1s place value changes.

Manual Machine Configurations

• Enhanced the ability to add new notes of all types during a roast in manual machine configurations.
• Fixed the issue where trying to add a fan note while roasting on a manual machine caused the app to freeze.

Connection and Refresh Button

• Resolved the issue in version 1.7.1412 where hitting the connection refresh button did not appear to reattempt the connection.

User Interface and Display

• Fixed the problem where certain toggles and event markers remained unchecked or checked incorrectly.
• Corrected the display of BT, ET, and IT on the timer, ensuring alignment with checkbox adjustments.

App Errors and Crashes

• Addressed an unexpected error message when trying to delete a roast profile.
• Fixed the issue where inputting letters in batch size caused the app to freeze and crash.
• Resolved a bug that led to the automatic re-marking of a turning point after attempting to undo it.

Profile and Coffee Management

• Corrected the problem where both previously selected profiles and re-roast profiles were underlayed simultaneously.
• Fixed the duplication of the coffees list after editing an existing coffee.
• Ensured that clicking any favorite profiles toggles the Roast Event dropdown as expected.

Roast Review and Replay

• Addressed inconsistencies in Roast Review and Roast Replay settings related to DT (Drum Temperature) line and underlay display settings.
• Fixed the issue where Replay setting Target Fuel or Fan Hz to 0 during a roast.
• Corrected the unexpected behavior related to editing and saving Coffee in the app.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed the prefilling of unspecified coffee instead of the selected coffee.
• Resolved the issue where manually disabling ignition caused both ignition alerts to appear at the same time.
• Fixed the problem where the reference profile's DT line was displayed but the DT setting was off.

Having a problem today when trying to load a roast reference, we can select a profile but it does not load. We have tried multiple computer from W10 & W11 with the same results. We have even tried to uninstall and reinstall.

Hey everyone. I am new to RoastPATH and I can't seem to get it to recognize my Phidget. I'm using a Mac and Vint Hub Phidget HUB0001_0 with S/N: 685316. I have no trouble using this Phidget with Artisan, but RoastPATH says that I have no Phidget connected. Any advice?

Hi - it's been a while since we roasted and we finally got back to it this weekend. I was happy to see the "automatic charge" option. I thought it would detect when we charged the next batch, but it didn't. Is that what it's supposed to do? We've got a 2kg digital from 2021, if that matters.

Thanks,

-jamie

I saw a windows thread with a similar topic, but this still seems broken in the MacOS version. I've tried a couple different releases but still can't get the underlay to work.

When I select a reference profile on the roast reference panel it looks like it's trying to update the underlays, but then goes back to having no settings, and no graph appears. Is this a know issue?

I was hoping to switch over to a mac for our next roast-- or is the mac version just not up to feature parity with the windows version?

Thanks

What profile do you use for sample roasting for evaluation for purchase? I'm working off of LP as opposed to natural gas and trying to determine ideal charge temp and soak (if any). Batch size is 400g.

Thanks, Rich

Is anybody else having an issue with the amount of times the program will mark a gas or air change? I'll make a change and it will mark it on my profile 8 times at multiple different times, ending up with a lot of clutter that's harder to read later.

I roast on a Mill City roaster and have enjoyed the art and science of roasting for the past 6 years. I really appreciate the community here that Steve, and his team, have built for us. I couldn't find a brew ratio app that I liked so I built one for how I wanted to use it. It's free and hopefully can be helpful to some of you as you try new brew methods for yourself or need a quick way to calculate your coffee to water ratio when folks show up at your house and want some of your sweet coffee.

Apple Store:
https://apps.apple.com/sa/app/coffee-ratio-calculator/id6443783115

Google Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.riverroastcoffee....r&hl=en_US

It's not letting me post a screenshot image of the app here..

Thanks,
-Andy

does anyone have a profile suggestion for costa rican beans

It appears there is no automatic update option for RoastPATH. I noticed today that my version is 1.7.1515.2453

I opened the Microsoft Store but I can only see my installed version and not the current version. How can I find what the current version release is?

Is there a way to update the version within the app? If not, do I need to uninstall the app and then install again from the Microsoft Store? If I do this will it hold my previous settings and profiles?

Thanks,

-Andy

Hello MCR,

I am thinking of purchasing new thermocouples for my 3kg 2020 model. The goal is to get a more accurate and consistent reading as compared to the current thermocouples that was logging a 100 degree difference between the PID and BT prior to cleaning them (I removed each and lightly sanded, and I removed a little debris from the inside of the BT thermocouple). Consistency has been way better since but was also thinking it wouldn't hurt if I just replaced them with these: https://millcityroasters.com/shop/roaster-parts-accessories/data-lo...mocouples/

Questions:

- Given my model, which should I purchase for each location? (BT, DT and ET)?

- Is this a "do it yourself" job or will I need tech support?

- In your experience, will there be a noticeable difference in temp logging moving forward as compared to my current thermocouples?

As always, thanks for your fantastic support! Happy Fathers Day!