Very useful app, hope it will continue to be updated

Very nice

Many thanks for your work! Would you say the app will be useful to cocoa roasting as well?

@stevenabbott3685

Жыл бұрын

I know nothing of cocoa roasting. I will look it up! The basics of the app will apply to any drum roaster. The details such as water loss or special events equivalent to coffee first crack will be different. It would not be hard to generate a cocoa-specific app, but I need to read the literature first! Steven

@stevenabbott3685

Жыл бұрын

I at last found time to check up on this. If you to chocolatealchemy.com/cocoa-bean-roasting you'll see that they use a coffee drum roaster AND have the same sort of BT curve and you roast to just beyond first crack. The BIG difference is that temperatures are MUCH lower, something like a 150C starting T rather than the 240C that's the default in the app. To allow a bigger range on the slider to set that T I then lose precision for coffee roasting. So I may have to make a separate cocoa version and change the settings and rewrite the next. Thanks for introducing me to another world I'd known nothing about!

Hi! I saw the app at the site and I was very interested in it. But after also watching this video, I was wondering about the use of it. Do you use it before roasting or it is a general algorithm to know where you are going and what to expect from different roasters? Maybe if you have sample roasted a coffee to use this tool to scale up for production?

@stevenabbott3685

7 ай бұрын

I, and others, use it to explore "what if's". For example, I wanted to know if complicated multi-step roasts can be accomplished by 2-step roasts - which I why I added the 2-step output. I also think it helps explode a number of limitations with current roasting setups. So, rather than wave one's hands to talk about roasting, the model lets you see what is and isn't important in a roast. I've learned a lot from it and have realised that "first crack" is a non-event that should be called "last gasp". I wrote an article on this for Barista Hustle and, not surprisingly, it caused some fuss. First crack is supposed to be fundamental, yet the evidence is overwhelming that it's incidental. How to replace it? With a CO2 sensor that signals the onset of "chemistry".

@georgevgenis1494

7 ай бұрын

@@stevenabbott3685 But isn't the CO2 release connected with the first crack? It is very interesting not to connect a very delicate procedure with an event (FC) that it is debatable and not easily distinguishable but then again, development time is still mallard reaction. Αny link for the article at Barista Hustle?

@stevenabbott3685

7 ай бұрын

​@@georgevgenis1494 Plenty of roast don't crack, maybe only 10% of beans crack anyway, and there is no reason for CO2 onset and first crack to be strongly related. So let's switch to the significant signal, when significant chemistry is happening to the beans rather than an indirect signal that is only used because it's simple ... and because people assumed that the crack was significant whereas it's a last gasp.

@GBRoasters

2 ай бұрын

@@stevenabbott3685 Couldn't agree more. That's why you see most roasters smelling coffee vigorously on either side of the first crack to smell the chemical reaction rather merely waiting for the FC and other physical observations.

@stevenabbott3685

2 ай бұрын

@@GBRoasters Thanks for that. It's funny that in all the papers I've read, roasting videos I've watched and all the conversations I've had, no one has mentioned smelling the state of the roast. And that's a criticism of myself. It didn't occur to me to step outside my science box (focussing on CO2/CO chemistry) and wonder whether some sort of "aroma sensor" (other than the skilled human) could detect significant moments in the roast. Thanks for getting me out of my own bad thought habits! Steven

Would be very interesting to combine this APP with the ARTISAN roasting software.

@stevenabbott3685

Жыл бұрын

Yes.By "combine" my priority would be to calibrate the app against a real Artisan chart then to validate it by changing conditions in the app and seeing what happens with the data from Artisan. But there are some complications. First, the app has its flaws which are steadily being fixed. Second, as I mention, the values measured by Artisan don't seem to me to be "real". Those with fancy external air supply roasters have a real IT so the app should work pretty well. But the majority have measured parameters that make little sense to me. The most recent version of the app has the TBT. I'd hidden this in previous versions because I didn't have confidence in it, but some academic reasearch suggests that it's correct. We all have a lot to learn, especially me!

@erharddinges8855

Жыл бұрын

The ultimate ​benefit of any roasting software is to make better tasting coffee. But taste preferences are different and roaster probes and measurements are as well. So from a sensory aspect the main question is, what to change in a roast profile to get wanted or to get rid of unwanted aromas. Yes, I think this would be very interesting: to validate it by changing conditions in the app and seeing what happens with the data from Artisan. And for a real workout the question remains whether the roasting machine is able to do the changes.