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First roasts on the Bullet R1 V2
DrHenley
Top  #1 Print Post
Posted on 12/01/2022 9:07 AM
I decided to use some problematic Ethiopian beans for my first two roasts - one using the beginner recipe in the manual, and the other using a shared roast profile on Roast.World. The beans were bought at an Ethiopian shop in Arlington, VA and the region was not specifed. On my homemade drum roaster it took a lot of finagling and many failed roasts to get the roast to being drinkable. I do not like dark roasted coffee (anything into second crack and beyond), and I think these beans are really meant to be dark roasted.

Since the beans are not very good for light roast (very grassy), I modified the end of the roast on the beginner recipe to go a little darker, but I didn't quite get it dark enough. They are drinkable however.
On the downloaded roast profile, the temperatures were WAY WAY off. I haven't tried brewing it yet, but for these beans it's way to light, even though I tried goosing it near the end.

I was roasting outside, and before I try again I need to set up my indoor roasting station. I will be using a powerful range hood vented through the top of a window. Power outlet there is not grounded (two pronged) right now so I need to fix that.
Also, on my laptop, the vertical resolution is too limited to see the bottom 1/4 of the screen in RoasTime which was annoying. I'll be using a desktop at the indoor roast station.

As a former developer, I have to question the decision by the developers to not allow scrolling in the RoasTime program. Short of setting my screen scaling below 80% (which makes the text too small to read) there was no way to see the bottom of the RoasTime screen.

Besides the screen resolution issue, I hit another snag - the Linux computer didn't connect to the Bullet. I tried contacting Aillio, and Sweet Maria's and I learned the hard way that you can't just call Technical Support when you need it.

After much flailing about I finally got the connectivity issue fixed. (it's one of those Linux secret handshake things that requires a good bit of effort and even more luck in figuring out). Honestly I don't think the average Joe would have ever figured it out on their own. I have something like 45 years of experience with Unix and Linux, and it took me a while.
Edited by DrHenley on 12/01/2022 9:20 AM
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
allenb
Top  #2 Print Post
Posted on 12/01/2022 12:15 PM
As I'm sure you've heard, there are lots of coffee this year from Africa and elsewhere that are sub-par compared to last year and especially before last year. I'm hoping the weather and political factors that caused this will not be negatively affecting next years harvests but keep our fingers crossed!

Glad to hear you figured out the handshake connection issue with your linux system and your bullet. How do you like your bullet roaster?
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
DrHenley
Top  #3 Print Post
Posted on 12/01/2022 3:10 PM

Quote

allenb wrote:

As I'm sure you've heard, there are lots of coffee this year from Africa and elsewhere that are sub-par compared to last year and especially before last year. I'm hoping the weather and political factors that caused this will not be negatively affecting next years harvests but keep our fingers crossed!

Glad to hear you figured out the handshake connection issue with your linux system and your bullet. How do you like your bullet roaster?


I started having problems with inconsistent beans about a year and a half ago. From multiple sources.
I had a long talk recently with Catherine Marshall at Coffee Bean Corral about the quality problems. I sat in her office and we went through ten pounds of Mexican La Laja Honey process and picked out the bad beans. She didn't realize how bad the problem was until then.
She said there were a number of factors causing the quality problems. Besides weather problems and fertilizer shortages, migrant workers who worked in the coffee farms were not able to cross national borders due to COVID and so coffee farms in many countries were short of manpower and consequently, sorting wasn't done properly.

I stopped roasting on the Bullet until I get it installed inside.
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
DrHenley
Top  #4 Print Post
Posted on 12/03/2022 8:51 AM
Ran into a few hiccups on setting up the indoor station, and weather was good for roasting outdoors yesterday so I hauled out the Bullet again and made a great batch of Yirgacheffe (washed). These beans were from the same Ethiopian shop as the last unspecified Ethiopian beans that were problematic, but the temp and time on the recipe I used were spot on, and the recipe worked beautifully.

Yirgacheffe Washed (Full City)
350g
Preheat 428°F
P7 F2 D9
245°F P6 F3
325°F P5
380°F P4
395°F F4
402°F FC begins
417.7°F end roast @9:40
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
DrHenley
Top  #5 Print Post
Posted on 12/08/2022 9:57 AM
Got everything set up indoors now.
My first "production" batch:
Kenya Kiandu AA
City+
i.imgur.com/uLBaqvV.png
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
allenb
Top  #6 Print Post
Posted on 12/08/2022 3:46 PM
It appears that environment temp starts to rise from room ambient right at bean charge which I'm assuming means no warmup?
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
DrHenley
Top  #7 Print Post
Posted on 12/08/2022 10:04 PM

Quote

allenb wrote:

It appears that environment temp starts to rise from room ambient right at bean charge which I'm assuming means no warmup?


Not sure where you are seeing that. The drum was preheated to 240°C.
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
DrHenley
Top  #8 Print Post
Posted on 12/08/2022 10:15 PM
Oh, you mean the ITBS temp (blue line). That's because when the beans are charged it's measuring the surface temperature of the beans by infrared (before charging it's measuring the drum temp).

The beans are not preheated but begin at ambient temperature when they are charged. The bean probe (lilac colored line) shows the drop in temp, I guess because it has residual heat in the probe itself and it takes a minute for the beans to cool it down.

The bean probe must have too much thermal capacity, taking way too long to register a change in bean temperature, because it is not accurate at all. In my DIY roaster, I used a ThermoPro meat thermometer, and it was spot on, with FC about exactly the same temperature reading as I get from the ITBS on the bullet.
Edited by DrHenley on 12/08/2022 10:23 PM
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AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
DrHenley
Top  #9 Print Post
Posted on 12/09/2022 10:16 PM
Let's not even talk about the second batch of Kiandu...thumbdown

On the third batch, I got the curve closer to what I was shooting for, and pushed it up close to Full City.
FC was very close to where I wanted it, a few seconds before 8 minutes. Just before FC began things got kind of wonky (look at the I-ROR and the B-ROR). But the temp ended up where I wanted it within the desired time frame.
Smells good...smells intoxicating in fact, like a good Kenyan should. I'll know more in the morning after it has a little time to develop.

If it turns out like I hope, I may use this as my 1 pound starting profile for a number of other coffees, including a couple I've been holding off on, because, well because honestly I didn't know what to do with them. I'll probably go in and edit the trigger points to only trigger on temperature instead of time to allow for smaller and faster roasting beans.

i.imgur.com/NS8yciL.png
Edited by DrHenley on 12/09/2022 10:28 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
allenb
Top  #10 Print Post
Posted on 12/10/2022 7:51 AM

Quote

DrHenley wrote:

Oh, you mean the ITBS temp (blue line). That's because when the beans are charged it's measuring the surface temperature of the beans by infrared (before charging it's measuring the drum temp).



I'm not understanding yet. It may help if you can explain the abbreviation ITBS. Is one of the sensors supposed to measure drum temp and one of them bean temp? If both are IR sensors and both aim to a point inside the drum, you would think prior to beans charge, they would both be reading drum temp and would not have one of them reading room temp.

Also, in post #5, can you explain the alpha numerics P4, P5, P6, D9, F2, F3, F4. Are they profile setpoints?
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
renatoa
Top  #11 Print Post
Posted on 12/10/2022 11:33 AM
P are power levels 1...9, F are fan levels 1...12
There are also 9 drum speeds.
They could use a decimal scale, imo... for all settings. 0 to 100% sounds more familiar for many of us.
 
DrHenley
Top  #12 Print Post
Posted on 12/10/2022 12:08 PM

Quote


I'm not understanding yet. It may help if you can explain the abbreviation ITBS. Is one of the sensors supposed to measure drum temp and one of them bean temp? If both are IR sensors and both aim to a point inside the drum, you would think prior to beans charge, they would both be reading drum temp and would not have one of them reading room temp.

Also, in post #5, can you explain the alpha numerics P4, P5, P6, D9, F2, F3, F4. Are they profile setpoints?


OK sure. I am new at this computerized roasting, so I was making too many assumptions, sorry.

And it's IBTS, not ITBS, sorry (blame it on my dyslexia) I think it means Infrared Bean Temperature Sensor. It measures drum temperature during preheat and bean surface temperature during the roast. It is insensitive to air temperature, which is why it starts at ambient temperature when you charge the beans into the drum. The beans start at ambient temperature.

"Bean Temp" is from an old fashioned temperature probe in the drum. It measures air temperature when charging, and supposedly measures a combination of air temperature and bean temperature during the roast, but it is way lower than the infrared temperature (which I don't understand), so really all it tells you is a trend. I don't know whether it is a calibration issue, or whether it is just lagging behind the infrared temperature due to thermal mass. I think maybe the probe is simply too short.

The IBTS sensor, I believe, accurately measures bean surface temperature. It seems to track very well with the temperatures I was getting using a ThermoPro meat probe in my DIY roaster. Because I was using a thin walled perforated drum with gas heat, preheating was impractical and unnecessary. So the temperature readings during my roasts started at ambient temperature just like the IBTS temperature does. FC is at almost exactly the same temperature. I don't know why Aillio can't put a conventional probe in there that is accurate. It just doesn't make sense to me.

P0-P9 is for power (heat) setting
D1-D9 is for drum speed
F1-F9 is for fan speed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
allenb
Top  #13 Print Post
Posted on 12/10/2022 1:39 PM

Quote

And it's IBTS, not ITBS, sorry (blame it on my dyslexia) I think it means Infrared Bean Temperature Sensor. It measures drum temperature during preheat and bean surface temperature during the roast. It is insensitive to air temperature, which is why it starts at ambient temperature when you charge the beans into the drum. The beans start at ambient temperature.


Ok, I think I understand. The IBTS IR sensor is sensing beans. I had assumed that the first seconds of the plotting would have been prior to beans being charged to the roaster which would have obviously shown the drum temp without beans but I'm going to assume there is no part of the recording plot without beans?
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
DrHenley
Top  #14 Print Post
Posted on 12/10/2022 1:51 PM

Quote

allenb wrote:

Quote

And it's IBTS, not ITBS, sorry (blame it on my dyslexia) I think it means Infrared Bean Temperature Sensor. It measures drum temperature during preheat and bean surface temperature during the roast. It is insensitive to air temperature, which is why it starts at ambient temperature when you charge the beans into the drum. The beans start at ambient temperature.


Ok, I think I understand. The IBTS IR sensor is sensing beans. I had assumed that the first seconds of the plotting would have been prior to beans being charged to the roaster which would have obviously shown the drum temp without beans but I'm going to assume there is no part of the recording plot without beans?

The graph automatically starts over when you charge the beans. I don't know if this is configurable or not.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AeroPress, Capresso On The Go single cup drip, Moka Pot
DIY Gas Fired perforated drum using TermoPro meat probe as bean probe (very accurate), Aillio Bullet R1 V2
A morning without coffee is like a marriage without a honeymoon.
 
allenb
Top  #15 Print Post
Posted on 12/11/2022 6:58 AM
Got it, thanks for the clarification.
1/2 lb and 1 lb drum, Siemens Sirocco fluidbed, presspot, chemex, cajun biggin brewer from the backwoods of Louisiana
 
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