How do you use ARTISAN (if you do and if you are a home roaster)

[SusanJoM]

My question is aimed at people like myself who roast for themselves, not for people who are roasting for sale or other distribution.

Artisan was probably the most valuable tool in my arsenal when I started learning how to control the HUKY.  I saved and examined every profile not to compare to taste, but to learn how each change of heat or air affected the shape of the roast. 

Now that I have learned how to roast beans the way I want them, I have discovered that choosing a good bean is the most important factor, and that within fairly loose parameters, a general profile works all the time.

So....I watch the Artisan screen like a hawk and make adjustments as I think necessary.  Then once I drop the roast I just delete the profile.  It has no use to me after that anymore. 

I couldn't live without it since I now have no other access to the temperatures in the various parts of my HUKY, and I still hold it in the highest regard, but it's function as my guide has changed completely since a year or two ago when I first got the HUKY.

So....how is Artisan most useful to you?  Remember, the answer to this question is only relevant here if you are just roasting for yourself, which assumes you probably don't buy more than 5-10 # of the same bean at most and are under no obligation to provide the same roast over and over.

[edtbjon]

I do use Artisan for each and every, including my warmup roasts. I've also saved just about each and everyone of these logs. For most of the first year with my Huky, this was indeed for learning and improving on my roasting. These days I mostly check the last roast with a particular bean and either replicate that roast or to make an adjustment if I had not hit the "sweet spot".
The way I roast nowadays, I normally adjust the heat 2 times and the fan 2 times. This scheme was "boiled down" from doing several adjustments during the roast. I guess that I could do equal roasts with just e.g a Center meter and a timer. But the BT (and ET) and the timer is in the Artisan window and my 11 year old laptop still works (with Linux), so I don't really need to do anything else at the moment.
I'm usually quite satisfied with my roasts, but I still want to learn the "finer aspects" of roasting, like fine-tuning the roasts. This is also why I still save every roast log. (They are basically just small text files anyhow, taking up very little hard disk space.)

[SusanJoM]

Since no one except Bjorn has had anything to say on this subject, I am going to lock the thread and post my question at HB.  I am doing this so as not to get crucified for crossposting (by HB), so you are still more than welcome to respond, but it will have to be at HB.