Huky Forum
HUKY 500 (T, J, SOLID, PERF) => Roasting => Topic started by: hankua on August 19, 2015, 05:20:51 AM
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Scott Rao's post on Cropster regarding rate of rise issues/defects after the onset of first crack using commercial drum roasters.
https://www.cropster.com/en/news/news-detail/news/detail/News/the-flick/
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That is a fascinating article. (I agree with Marshall Hance's comment that it would have been more enlightening if the before and after profiles had the same smoothing factors. Rao is certainly sticking to his guns about the absolute nature of the descending ROR, and given how many posts read in various places from people dismissing the flick as irrelevant to their success, he does make a good rebuttal.
Has anyone here with a perforated drum/slow motor had success yet with losing the flick while maintaining the 20+% roast development?
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That is a fascinating article. (I agree with Marshall Hance's comment that it would have been more enlightening if the before and after profiles had the same smoothing factors. Rao is certainly sticking to his guns about the absolute nature of the descending ROR, and given how many posts read in various places from people dismissing the flick as irrelevant to their success, he does make a good rebuttal.
Has anyone here with a perforated drum/slow motor had success yet with losing the flick while maintaining the 20+% roast development?
I have had some success with my perforated drum/slow motor. What I've found is that I my ET needs to be rather high compared to my BT, since my BT seems to plateau around 25-30F below my ET. For example, if I want to drop with a BT of ~415, my ET needs to be ~445. To help reduce the possibility of scorching my beans, I've been turning my fan up to 70 on my variac at the onset of 1C, and my burner will be ~0.5-0.75 in order to keep my ET constant (Or just very slowly increasing to my desired ET). I've also been closing the drum at the onset of 1C, which seems to help keep the temperature constant since I'm raising my fan speed to 70.
Here are a few recent roasts I've had.
Honduras:
(http://i.imgur.com/T1qOLmA.png)
Kona:
(http://i.imgur.com/a04y16g.png)
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Can you show the ROR/Delta BT so we can see it?
Do you know how to do that?
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I know you've recently explained it a few times. I'll look up how to do it on the forums and post some new graphs later tonight.
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So is "the flick" more common with the perforated drum?
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I know you've recently explained it a few times. I'll look up how to do it on the forums and post some new graphs later tonight.
Excellent.
Tools > Extras.
There is a picture in this thread
https://www.hukyforum.com/index.php/topic,420.msg4144/topicseen.html#new
So is "the flick" more common with the perforated drum?
I can't imagine why it would be.
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So is "the flick" more common with the perforated drum?
No. The roasting approach between the perforated drum and solid drum are just different. As long as you understand how the drum you're using works with the various variables (Fan speed, open/closed for perforated, and heat), you shouldn't get the flick.
If you use the same approach of ET vs BT with the perforated drum as you would with the solid drum (i.e. aiming to have the BT temp come up to basically exactly the ET temp), you will create a flick since you'll need to add extra energy at the end of the roast to bring the temperature up. I made this mistake my first few roasts and had a nasty flick until I started compensating for this behavior. The approach I'm taking now with my perforated drum (Which I'm still experimenting with - I'd love to hear how others approach the roasting process) is to have my ET be 25-30F above my desired BT, which allows me to avoid any flick at the end of the roast.
My roasting style so far is extremely simple. I keep the fan speed at 52 until 1C, which at that point I bump it up to 70-75. I've also been keeping the heat at 2.0-2.25 until my ET gets close to the desired temperature. Then I gradually bump it down to 0.5-0.75 when I hit my target temperature just to keep it steady. I also close the vent at 1C. I'm still experimenting since I'm still fairly new to the Huky, but I like the simplicity of this approach and the graphs it consistently produces. The beans taste great too :)
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Here's my "flick"
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Here's my "flick"
The RoR curve looks really good as such, except that you are dangerously close to stalling the roast at the end. But it seems you're getting there. (I would try going into 1C with a bit more energy, giving a more even decline.) Learning how to achieve/place the values of the curve takes a lot of practice and I still feel like practicing after 9 months with the Huky.
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Here's my graphs with the deltas enabled (Smooth Deltas=20). I'm not really sure if these are good or not though...
Can someone help me read these?
Honduras:
(http://i.imgur.com/wqMxZ4f.png)
Kona:
(http://i.imgur.com/bFP9fTz.png)
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I've re-read the article a few times now. My flick seems pretty horrible on the Kona, but not so bad on the Honduras roast. I'll definitely leave the DeltaBT on for now to start analyzing that data.
Susan - I'm not sure why my ET doesn't drop like yours does during my drop. My fan is at 52, and burner is 2.25. Do I need to turn the burner down or change my fan speed? What are you doing at the start of the roast through the turning point?
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I'm charging 350 grams and at a charge temp (BT) over 400. (quite a bit higher than yours)
The grate is open. Fan at about 50%. Gas at 1.5 kPa for the first 5 minutes of warmup or so and then lower until it feels stable (BT, ET, MET all sort of straight lining). Drum is turning all during warmup.
When I charge, I crank the gas to 3.5 kPa
Then at about 300F I start dropping the gas (you can see that on the profile) in fairly steady increments.
And at 1C I close the grate.
I haven't yet figured out what I'm going to change next.
Although Bjorn suggests it, I'm loathe to add any more gas; I am more inclined to keep manipulating where in the curve I lower it and perhaps lengthening slightly the intervals to spread the slow down of ROR a bit more.
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I think you hit on something key I'm doing wrong. I don't let my charge temp stabilize before dropping the beans in. I'm just heating the Huky until I hit a BT of 300. I'm probably doing some more roasts tonight, so I'll experiment with stabilizing the temps first.
So much to learn. I love it :)
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Keep me posted.
Here's a profile I did a long time ago of just the warmup
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My experience with "the flick" has been dependent upon the coffee. I find that some coffees I can avoid it all together without much caution once first crack kicks in, but other coffees it's feels like an impossibility. There are so many variables about a coffee to consider: how it's processed, where it came from, what elevation did it grow at, what variety is it, how old is it, etc. All are things that I imagine making it's contribution to "the flick." I believe in the possibility that one can avoid the flick with most, if not, all coffees. I'm too inexperienced to know how to manage it, and also don't feel I can agree or disagree with Rao's commandments.
This Ethiopia Hambela has been quite cooperative through most roasts, but this Ethiopia Agaro Nano Challa always puts up a fight by smacking me in the face with "the flick." This Kenyan is just like the Agaro Nano Challa. In fact, they usually team up against me. I have tried several different things in effort to avoid "the flick," but haven't found anything that works reliably for me.
Note: All roasts below are 454g / 1lb
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@kenneroast, on your profile you have that top line called, is it ET-BT or is that your MET? That's where I see a flick but what is it measuring? I'm colorblind so I struggle identifying the lines. In the legend the color for both MET and ET-BT looks the same to me.
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I did a few roasts tonight. Verdict: DeltaBT is extremely helpful to view during a roasting session, and I need to roast some more to get more control over it.
My roasts seem more controlled this time now that I'm doing a slower warm-up with the pipe plugged in (I previously warmed the Huky up without the J on the unit... that was a mistake), but I still had a flick at the end of them. It's definitely better though.
I'll get some more roasts under my belt first and we'll see if I can get more control over the ROR.
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@kenneroast, on your profile you have that top line called, is it ET-BT or is that your MET? That's where I see a flick but what is it measuring? I'm colorblind so I struggle identifying the lines. In the legend the color for both MET and ET-BT looks the same to me.
The top black line is my MET / DT (Drum Temperature). Ignore the ET-BT reading. I forgot it was on the graph, and I should probably remove it.
Here's a key for each line that you'll see on the graph:
Starting from top and working your way down (ignore the solid line at ~437F):
- MET - Black
- ET - Red
- BT - Dark Blue
- BT Delta / (RoR (Rate of Raise) - Blue
- ET Delta (RoR) - Orange
The flick that I'm referring to happens with the BT Delta line (#4).
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OK got it, thanks. And you can also see the hint of the coming flick in your ET Delta.
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This is becoming a really interesting thread. This far in my roasting "career" :), I have paid little or no attention to the ET value, except for checking that the roaster is properly pre-heated. I will take a look at my previous profiles to try to see if the flick in the delta-ET curve in some way coincides with the point where I usually turn the gas down and sometimes add even more fan/air. If so, it would be really useful, as it would take away that "I guess now is the time to turn down..." and I could read it out from the TC data.
Edit: I checked my latest roast profiles/logs and it seems like on my config (solid drum/72rpm/IR heater), there is no such "warning", i.e. the delta-ET starts to rise before the delta-BT. If that just happens to Kenneth or if that is normal behaviour of a perforated drum I don't know, but if I had that "pre-flick" I'd certainly make use of it.
Anyhow, this (probably) only applies to the Huky, as we have a very effective roaster (heater), but with a relatively very low thermal mass. If this same phenomena would occur on e.g. a North TJ-067 (which weighs in at some 200+ # and other larger drum roasters, someone would have figured this out a long time ago.
The way I plan my roasts today is to avoid that flick. I've done that more or less ever since I felt that I had some control of the roaster (instead of the roaster controlling or playing tricks on me... :) ). My learning strategy have been to follow Mr. Rao's advice, as these "commandments" seems sound to me. If I'm able to roast according to those commandments, I should also be able to apply other roasting strategies, if I'd like to try that.
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Kenneroast, can you post what your gas and fan and grate settings were in those two roasts?
And, what the charge weight was?
Please ?
As to Scott Rao's rightness or wrongness, it seems to me that learning how to control the roaster to comply with his observations is as good a lesson plan as any. If we can make the roaster do his tricks we can probably move on and get it to do the tricks we prefer for our own tastes. It's an exercise which is probably worth pursuing. Kinda like all that stuff we learned in school just to teach us to think.
I have no idea whether eliminating the flick will improve the taste of my roasts. I do think that figuring out how to do it reliably would be a benchmark for me, maybe a final exam for passing HUKY novice 101.... ;D
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Kenneroast, can you post what your gas and fan and grate settings were in those two roasts?
And, what the charge weight was?
Please ?
Added the charge weight to my original post (454g).
I didn't write down all of the settings I used for these roasts, but I can ballpark the plan I followed based on what I had written on my whiteboard. Roasts were almost consecutively from what I posted, but I had maybe one or two between them. I made subtle adjustments to hone in particular parts of the curve I was hoping to improve.
Here's a rough layout:
| Event | Env Temp | Bean Temp | Heat | Air | Direct Flame |
| Charge | 460F | | 1.5kPa | 40V | Open |
| Turning Point | | ~210F to 230F | 3.75kPa | | |
| Dry End | | ~300F | 3kPa | 50V | |
| | 320F | 2.5kPa | | Open |
| | 340F | 2kPa | | |
| | 360F | 1.5kPa | | |
| Pre-First Crack | | 380F | 1.25kPa | | Close |
I haven't really been writing down much information about how I manage first crack. Most of the time, I'm quite trigger happy on the controls and things move at a speed I'm overwhelmed by. Notes end up suffering from it.
Here are some other notes to go with the outline above:
- For the profiles I posted earlier in this thread, I was cranking up the heat when BT was around 235-240F while it descended. The idea was to see if I could get a sharper curve at the Turning Point.
- I seem to get a later first crack with the settings above. There have been roasts where I'm more aggressive with heat between 300F and 350F, and first crack comes sooner than I'm ready for. I don't understand the science behind it, and I haven't spent much time reproducing this scenario.
- This depends on the bean I'm roasting, but usually at 380F, I'm anticipating first crack within 5-15 degrees. I've had beans not start first crack until ~400F. A pretty wide window to work with. :(
- Between 390F-395F, if I haven't hit first crack yet, two things I sometimes: bump the airflow to ~60-70V for 10-20 seconds, or I just settle on an increase in airflow on a set setting.
- I have not yet determined the amount of heat to apply once first crack hits, but I tend to drop the heat down to ~1kPa, and sometimes below 1Kpa. I believe that part of the reason I get a dip on the RoR line is because I take away too much heat and don't properly manage the descend. For some beans this seems to be ok, but for others it definitely is not ok.
- You'll see in the profiles that the times started to speed up (specifically the mid phase). It's partially because I started roasting earlier in the day when it was cooler, and I also was late on some adjustments a couple times. As the day started to warm up, timing was off. Roasts were moving faster than I wanted.
Also note: For these roasts posted, I haven't tasted them, and won't be able to. All of those coffees were given to my mom and uncle. They're not overly picky about their coffee, and the most feedback I'll receive from them is: "this tastes really goooood!," or they'll find some other kind way to express they're not fond of it.
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Thanks.
I am reminded of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey".
Someday one of us will nail it.
And that will be exciting :-))))
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Well, Hank seems to nail it, judging from his graphs, but they are (in my mind) a bit too coarse, at least the RoR curve.
Finding that nice decending curve is easy if you are planning for going into 2C. But I personally almost never go there, but tend to stop in the 210-215C (410-422F) range. That gives me a very short time for the development stage in which I have to try to drag out the roast without stalling it. So, from this nights session (Nynäshamn, Sweden, Europe...) with 400g loads of beans, I usually got into 1Cs with 50-60% air and 40-50% gas. As I already knew about "the flick", I had planned for a decrease in heat, which normally is to halve it after 50-60 seconds. When I approach the finish of 1C I usually halve the heat once again (landing at say 10%, just above keeping the heater alive... and maybe I increase the air to 80% or so. At this point there are only seconds left before my dumping point and I'm just hoping for the delta-BT not to go negative...)
I was on my way to say "I grew up with...", but at least I learnt how to see and differentiate different roasting grades from the illustrated guide over at SweetMarias. :) That was the best way for me to learn roasting on a Gene Cafe roaster. (It's still a very good reference...) As we all are using the same TCs, I guess it's safe to say that we are some 5C/10F below the given temps for anything from 1Cs and above.
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I just started out with Artisan; this chart is set with 3 sec. sampling vs 6 sec. on the previous one; I guess there is a small flick at the end. I'm still seeing an offset between the TMD-56 meter display and Artisan. One of my goals is the BT should always be ticking up if possible.
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I just starting out with Artisan; this chart is set with 3 sec. sampling vs 6 sec. on the previous one. I guess there is a small flick at the end. I'm still seeing an offset between the meter display and Artisan. One of my goals is the BT should always be ticking up if possible.
Hank, I have my sampling rate set at 1 second; you can get it much tighter.
What is your smoothing set at? (Tools > Extras)
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curves-1 deltas-2
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Interesting. I'll have to see how that looks. Mine are 20 and 20
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Here is the same profile with smoothing set to 1 and 2 (first) and 20 and 20 (second). I guess my smoothing has been covering up a multitude of errors. On the other hand, it sure is a lot easier to read. Hmmm....
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I copied your setup last time, but just put a newer hand me down laptop in service, and the smoothing setting were probably default. Also got a pop up warning regarding less than 3sec sampling.
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Hankua,
Marko (the creator of Artisan) has a blog post that has some good information on temp readings in general and provides some recommendations like not setting the sampling interval too low (he recommends 5 seconds, though a little faster is nice if you can do it). Basically go as low as you can on sampling interval while still maintaining readable live graphs:
http://artisan-roasterscope.blogspot.com/2014/01/sampling-interval-smoothing-and-rate-of.html
Enabling Oversampling is recommended by him I know (Config > Oversampling). However, I believe oversampling is disabled when you set the sampling interval less than 3 seconds, even if it's enabled in the Artisan menu (I believe he mentions this in another blog post, though maybe newer versions don't do this).
I have my sampling interval set to 3 seconds, with oversampling enabled. I found that going less than that with my setup made the temp graphs - especially deltas/RoR - very choppy and at times almost unreadable during the live monitoring (when it really counts). Depending on your meter and temp probe types, you might want a little higher or lower sampling interval.
You can up the "Smooth Curves" and "Smooth Deltas" (under Tools > Extras), and that might help a bit, but Marko also recommends upping these settings as a "last resort" (and as minimally as possible).
NOTE:
From a post I read somewhere, the "Smooth Deltas" setting actually only affects the RoR graphs after the roast has completed (after you have clicked Stop). This appears to be true from my testing as well. However, the "Smooth Curves" does appear to make the live delta/RoR readings a little bit smoother (as well as BT/ET), so best to up that if the deltas/RoRs are hard to read during the live monitoring and you can't smooth the readings at the probe/meter level (if they are choppy).
Side notes:
I have a TC4 meter. I have currently settled on an 85% "filter" setting for the temp probes. This makes the temp readings much less jittery (though does make the temp readings lag slightly more).
The temp probes that came with my Huky do seem a bit over-sensitive. Not sure if all Hukys have come with the same probes.
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Enabling Oversampling is recommended by him I know (Config > Oversampling). However, I believe oversampling is disabled when you set the sampling interval less than 3 seconds, even if it's enabled in the Artisan menu (I believe he mentions this in another blog post, though maybe newer versions don't do this).
Oh good, maybe you can explain to me what "oversampling" is?
I've had sampling set to 1 since I first set Artisan up with Moshe's help (SAS at H-B) and it has seemed to work just fine, but I have no idea what "oversampling" is or how it would change things
Susan
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I believe this should be a good simplified explanation of oversampling:
Within a sampling interval, Artisan can receive multiple readings from a meter...
With oversampling enabled, Artisan will record as many of those readings as possible, then at the end of each sampling interval, it will "average" all the readings in that interval (or might technically run some type of equation against them?), and record/graph that as the temp. This can help substantially with smoothing out the graph, reduce "jitter" from errant or sporadic readings, and make the graph more readable in general.
With oversampling off, when the end of the sampling interval is reached, Artisan just takes the newest reading received from the meter. If that reading is way off (which can be more common with high-sensitivity probes) you might see a lot more "jitter" in the ET/BT/etc. readings, which in turn could make your delta/RoR curves even worse.
Hopefully that makes sense! :)
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Here's some Artisan basics, as I've come to understand them, for fixing "jitter" (my definition of "jitter" would be too much variation in the temp readings, making the Artisan live graph hard to read/follow):
Too much jitter (making graph unhelpful):
1) If you can, buy temp probes that are not overly-sensitive, but sensitive enough to give you helpful readings (look for ones that minimize grounding issues too)
2) If you don't want to/can't spend money on new temp probes, if possible adjust settings on your meter to smooth out readings from the probes (pretty sure both the TC4 and Phidget can do this, not sure on others)
3) If you can't do the above (and/or need to do fine adjustments), try turning on oversampling, and possibly also slightly increasing the sampling interval
4) If you think you're in the ballpark on the sampling interval, but want to smooth out readings just a bit more, increase the "Smooth Curves" setting slightly.
5) If, after a roast is done being recorded, you want to make your RoR curves look "prettier" (and hide some brief spikes) you can increase the "Smooth Deltas" number. You can actually increase this after a roast is done and watch how it affects the delta curves behind the window.
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The explanation of oversampling made sense to me but since using a 1 second interval seems to work just fine with the Phidget I think I'll stick with it.
The T/Cs that came from Mr. Li and the Phidget and Artisan all seem to communicate flawlessly, and tell me what I need to know about my roasts. What I do see now, however, is that communicating with people who might have installed different T/Cs or whose Artisan settings are different from mine becomes problematic. What we are seeing on the graphs becomes more and more unclear.
Ain't it always the way?: the more you learn the less you know :-[
Edited:
So I just went again to the link JavaBuzz posted at the beginning of this thread and read it for the umpteenth time. My eyes glaze over at various places, but this paragraph stands out:
The sampling module of Artisan takes readings according to the user specified sampling interval without applying any smoothing. If oversampling (introduced in Artisan v0.7.4) is active, two readings are taken per interval and the average is computed and taken as reading, replacing the two raw readings, which are dropped. The drawing module applies live smoothing on the values recorded by the sampling mode according to the amount specified by the user during recording and static smoothing after roasting and for displaying the background graphs. Therefore, a time lag might be observed during roasting that is eliminated afterwards. The smoothed curves are only computed for display purposes in Artisan. Artisan always stores and loads the raw values gathered by the sampling module
Seems to me that what it says is that if you are wanting to see your temps in real roasting time that the lowest possible interval is your best bet; for the purposes of reading a graph after the fact, perhaps increasing the interval and adding oversampling would make more sense.
Thanks JavaBuzz for reminding me that Marko really is the best teacher of all.
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This thread has definitely got off-topic now (and I'm partly to blame), but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless. Maybe we should move some of this to a separate forum post?
If you are able to...
-Set a 1s sampling interval
-Set "smooth curves" and "smooth deltas" to 0 (at least temporarily to see the true output from the probes and meter)
...and the graphs still look somewhat tolerable (especially delta/RoR), I'd say go for it. :)
If they look aweful and totally unhelpful, you probably want to adjust the sampling interval at least 1s higher (and turn on oversampling if over 3s). Rinse and repeat if still look bad.
If you want, you can readjust smooth curves slightly up to make the graphs even a bit better.
Susan (and all), the Phidget has a USB-native interface, and that is probably at least partly why it can better handle the higher sampling interval of 1s. Also, it might internally do better sampling/averaging itself of probe readings.
The TC4 (and many other temp meters) use a USB-to-serial converter chip to convert the signal sent to the computer. I think that this is a bottleneck with the TC4 meter. If I lower the sampling interval to 1s, I can watch the delta curves get dropped to 0F every few readings because something in my system/setup (probably the TC4) can't keep up with the speed (though the BT/ET curves look fine, I think because "Smooth Spikes" is enabled). If I raise the sampling interval to 2s, I stop seeing the drops, but I decided to go to 3s so Artisan would use oversampling and give a slightly better looking reading. I am still tweaking my own settings slightly here and there, but that is where I'm at currently.
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If people are interested, I think I might try to put a document together on "basics of adjusting Artisan for your roasting setup". Then I could post it here (and maybe HB) as well.
I'm sure there would be differing opinion on how best to do this, but I think it would be helpful at least as a guideline, and could always update it with tips and pointers from people.
The Artisan menus can definitely be confusing, and I don't even know for sure exactly what some of the settings do after hours of researching the subject. :)
If people are interested, let me know.
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I have a couple of questions about the Extras Page.
What does "Delta Span" mean?
What does "Window" mean -- t here next to Smooth Spikes and Smooth2
and
What does Path Effects mean?
As you can see I have stuff in those boxes, but I'm not sure what what I have in there does or how changing it will impact my graphs and I'm always a bit scared to change things without a better idea of what I am messing with.
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Those are all settings I'm not sure of myself. I just leave them at defaults too. :)
Smooth2 is another type of smoothing (similar to Smooth Spikes). From what I recall, I think Marko had a blog post where he said most people will probably want to stick with the defaukt of only Smooth Spikes checked. I think it was a lot more CPU intensive and he hadn't tested it as much (might have been written by someone else)?
My best guess on Window is its a sensitivity setting for Smooth Spikes and/or Smooth2. Just guessing though.
I think Delta Span might be how far back in time delta readings look when averaging the current RoR reporting, but I could very well be wrong here too. When you adjust it on a saved profile, it moves the delta curves left or right.
Pretty sure Path Effects is a basic visual setting, but no clue what it does. :)
If anyone else has thoughts, I would be interested to hear them.
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If people are interested, I think I might try to put a document together on "basics of adjusting Artisan for your roasting setup". Then I could post it here (and maybe HB) as well.
I'm sure there would be differing opinion on how best to do this, but I think it would be helpful at least as a guideline, and could always update it with tips and pointers from people.
The Artisan menus can definitely be confusing, and I don't even know for sure exactly what some of the settings do after hours of researching the subject. :)
If people are interested, let me know.
That would be awesome! :)
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My first flickless roast....Whoopee
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Looks great!
Do you wanna tell something more about it? :)
Look's like you kept the fan at 50%. Or did you just forget to record those adjustments?
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Don't forget: I am using the perforated drum and slow motor.
My settings won't do you any good.
But....the only thing that isn't registered is that the gas actually went OFF when BT reached 405.
I left the grate open and the fan at 50% for the entire roast.
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That is one pretty profile. Have you tasted it yet?
My first flickless roast....Whoopee
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A half dozen roasts ago I started using Hank's recommendation for starting out with the stove low then raising it up high at the turning point and then lowering it incrementally on the way to first crack. This is the best one so far, but I still haven't eliminated the flick. One minute before first crack I lowered the heat to 1.0kPa and once first crack had been popping for about 30 seconds I increased the heat to 2.0kPa for 30 seconds in my attempt to remove that dip in the RoR. It works a little bit but not enough so I'm ready to abandon that strategy and move on to... ? I've got 2 ideas- first, raise the heat longer or stronger or earlier during first crack, or go in to first crack with more momentum and dropping the heat faster, more abruptly. Suggestions are welcome.
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That is one pretty profile. Have you tasted it yet?
My first flickless roast....Whoopee
Nope. Gotta hold out for a few days. It did smell wonderful when I degassed it this morning, though. I'm quite hopeful :-))
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There is a very interesting post at H-B today where EndlessCycles has done two side by side roasts, one with and one without a flick.
His graphs and profiles are interesting, and the takeaway from the post seemed to me to be distilled in these two sentences
Keep in mind that he [Scott Rao] was describing what happens when roasters let ROR flick up and stay up for a while, and then reduce overall development time to keep from finishing too hot. ....
It does give me some confidence in thinking that it is worthwhile to try to keep my roasts from accelerating once first crack is dying down, even for a roast that will otherwise hit all my targets.
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I did two roasts today based on SusanJoM's profile of steadily decreasing gas beginning at 315 F. Her curve showed no flick. Both of mine, however, definitely had one. She has a perforated drum while mine is solid so there's that. I've done roasts without the flick so I can't figure it out. When I saw a hint of rise in the ET temp during FC I cut the gas to zero and tried increasing the fan but the BT temp jumped anyway. Maybe I need to cut the gas earlier but head into FC with more heat.
(http://i.imgur.com/3vtjwK6.png)
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I cut the gas to zero and tried increasing the fan
If you're willing to try it again, try it without increasing the fan.
I'd guess that that's what drove your BT up.
Susan
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If you're willing to try it again, try it without increasing the fan.
I'd guess that that's what drove your BT up.
Susan
I will on Monday. It'll be different beans which throws another variable in the mix.
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As Susan and others have pointed out before... The Huky behaves very different when comparing setups. (Perforated drum in Susans case and Solid for e.g. me and thusband.)
We can duplicate e.g. the BT profile, but need different strategies to get there.
Personally I try to use a bit more fan all through the roast, bumping the fan up to at least 50% (Variac) when entering 1C and then some 45-60sec into 1C I cut down the heat to 20-30%. I then try to counteract that flick with even more fan (and I usually cut the heat down to say 10% too). At this stage of the roast it's a delicate balancing act, cut the heat a little bit too much and the roast will stall. Keep a bit too much heat and there will be a very pronounced flick.
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Thanks, edtbjon, I'll give that a try. On my second roast I did bump the fan up to 75% (Variac) throughout the roast and the flick was less than the first roast although still pronounced. I'll try cutting heat sooner.
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Is it possible to get into the second cracks without a Flick?
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Just hang in there and work on controlling your roaster. I'm still having some difficulties with this particular stage. And yes, rvtech, going into 2C without a flick is very doable. I'd even say it's a bit easier, as I can go into 1Cs (First Crack Start) with a bit more energy as I'm intending to take the roast a bit further. Going into 1Cs with more energy gives more room to gradually lower the heat without stalling the roast.
Another part of "the problem" is that, as we're discussing Scott Rao's way of roasting and his commandments, trying to have at least 20% development time. Trying to create say a light City roast with 20% dev. time without neither flicking nor stalling is indeed a challenge. (I've managed that a couple of times, producing super sweet juicy roasts, but I guess some of the nice acidic flavours evaporates from the long dev.time... Next challenge... :) )
To finish off about controlling the roaster. More or less the first two months with the Huky gave me nothing more than frustration and compost beans. (I came from a pushbutton GeneCafe, which produced decent roasts.) Then either me and/or the roaster got broken in and things fell into place.
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Makes sense.....I have yet to even be able to get a second crack. I get nervous and drop before I get there. This "Flick" thread has altered the entire roast for me. ::)
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I wouldn't worry about the flick unless one had excellent control of the Huky. Learning how to control the ROR during the RD phase is challenging enough. Too fast and one blows thru development, too slow and it can stall. If your roasting light, ROR needs to be a very slow rise, FC+ with @3:00 RD uses a different strategy. The drying times for light roasts generally is longer, whereas espresso roasts can have a shorter one and longer ramp and development.
Roasting to Vienna is pretty challenging, we could have a separate thread on that. I'm still struggling with roasting dark without tasting horrible.