2nd Roast - feedback appreciated

[brew]

Looks to me like you need to work on controlling the heat.  It's getting away from you which is why the roast is so short.

What was the gas setting at charge?
And what was your intention when raising the fan there mid-roast?

1.5 at charge.
At TP i changed to 3.5
I was raising the fan because I was trying to slow down a bit. I guess I should of slowed down a lot on the gas instead?
I am having a bit of "gadget fixation" with too many knobs and dials I feel like I need to change.

[brew]

Thanks Hankua - it may take me awhile to get my head around it as well

[SusanJoM]

1.5 at charge.
At TP i changed to 3.5
I was raising the fan because I was trying to slow down a bit. I guess I should of slowed down a lot on the gas instead?
I am having a bit of "gadget fixation" with too many knobs and dials I feel like I need to change.

Try going to 3.5 or even 3.75 just at Charge instead of waiting until TP.  Then hold until EOD and start decreasing your gas sometime after that.   You want the temperature to keep rising but at a slower pace as the roast continues, so you don't want/need to add gas if you give it a good head start.

[rodraguirre]

I was raising the fan because I was trying to slow down a bit.

I'm not sure how this works with the perforated, but with the solid, and I'm being very specific about my setup (solid drum with direct flame burner), until I'm about 55V in the Variac, raising airflow increases the beans temp (both ET and BT). Higher than that, it starts cooling down.

That can also be verified when I'm warming up the roaster, I usually have gas around .5KPa and playing with airflow with that fixed gas setting helps me identifying the sweet spot (that is: at which setting do I start cooling temps instead of introducing convective heat).

There are interesting posts about user edtbjon with a lot more details on this same topic. Might be interesting to you.

[brew]

1.5 at charge.
At TP i changed to 3.5
I was raising the fan because I was trying to slow down a bit. I guess I should of slowed down a lot on the gas instead?
I am having a bit of "gadget fixation" with too many knobs and dials I feel like I need to change.

Try going to 3.5 or even 3.75 just at Charge instead of waiting until TP.  Then hold until EOD and start decreasing your gas sometime after that.   You want the temperature to keep rising but at a slower pace as the roast continues, so you don't want/need to add gas if you give it a good head start.

EoD=End of Drying phase correct?

[SusanJoM]

EoD=End of Drying phase correct?

Yeah, right, generally considered to be around 300F.   I have mine set for 302 I think.

Here's an example of the way I step down the heat

[brew]

Thanks for everyone's advice and input.  I think I did a lot better not fiddling with airflow much.


My buttons aren't giving the right value so disregard that.

[Daave]

Thanks for everyone's advice and input.  I think I did a lot better not fiddling with airflow much.


My buttons aren't giving the right value so disregard that.

Hello fellow perforated Huky user.

Tip #1 - Get a variac! Even if you aren't changing your fan speed much (Which is exactly how you should be roasting now, so good job!), you'll be able to easily reproduce your roast settings on each roast. Consistency is one of the most important factors right now as you learn the machine.

The approach your taking is spot on, and this roast looks much better. It's good that it lasted a bit longer than your last roast. Only going off your graph, my main suggestion would be to slow down your ET temp. Maybe target 400 at around 5 minutes into the roast. That should allow 1C to hit 30-60 seconds later.

I also typically don't go that long after 1C ends, but that might work well for the beans you're using.


Out of curiosity, about how much airflow are you using in this roast?

[brew]

Yeah...I probably should get a variac but this solid state controller is "fairly" linear.  The only trouble I have is translating what others are doing via variac.  I set my min and max settings based on Rao's suggestion.  Once I knew the min/max I incremented 1/8ths to max so I have 9 settings..  So this roast was at 2 on my fan setting.  Not at minimum but not much higher either.  Thanks for the tips...who knows, I may end up getting a variac but I kind of doubt it.

[Daave]

Oh, I didn't realize you had some sort of controller. I assumed you were using the damper. What model is it? It's probably just fine compared to a variac. As you said, you just have to learn how to use it with your roaster.

Anyways, glad you're having fun and making some good roasts

[brew]

I got this one.  I have seen  another person here use the same one on this forum.  I'm not sure how great it is but I can control the fan with it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000F9B712?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00