Calculating DTR

cosmic_couple22

Great job Graham The guide notes for a beginner roaster are exceptional, a great tool that will definitely help the newbies to grasp what is happening during the roast process. Others will use it as a planning tool and reference point. Now to turn it into a phone app and make a return, today the coffee forum tomorrow the world. Much applause and awards to you (if only I had emoticons still working) Thanks for your effort Chester

Brett_H

This is phenomenal! You guys have unpacked the rubric that is roasting in a concrete sequential manner and made it easily repeatable. Moreover anyone new to roasting will get a brilliant roast-development overview graphically represented in a very readable format. Congratulations!

cosmic_couple22

It's pretty good BrettH, amazing what happens when a good idea is blended with someone that has the skill to bring that idea into fruition. Hope more people grasp how great a tool this actually is. Chester

Lacehim

Have you tried in Open Office? If people don't have MS Office they can easily download Open Office for free. PS. Not that I understand what your all on about. lol. I only have a KKTO struggling along with my 600gm roasts. 🙂

cosmic_couple22

That's the beauty of this, will work with anything. If you know your equipment you can make a roast plan based on basic knowledge of how a particular bean acts, end of dry will be around 155 which you can identify by a colour change, sugars will be caramelising along the way where you will reach FC (audible reference) typically between 185-195 in most instances, so slow or speed up your roast (raise/ lower heat setting) to achieve time values based on the plan. Burp your roast at rolling first crack drop some heat and again use the DTR minute value to reach desired development percentage. To assist this do up an excel spread sheet and record your sensory evaluation of the roast every few minutes which helps teach you repeatable visual indicators supported with a time value, giving you a reference next time you roast the same bean and any adjustments can easily be made to meet your plan. (You may kill a couple batches as you build that log but still gives you references that you know didn't work and can change next time) If you are running a temperature monitor, record temps (excel spread sheet) manually every 30sec to 1min with a sensory note recorded every 3 mins or bean change, again giving you a reference next time you roast the same bean. Once you have a small log of roasts as references you will easily make changes or be more repeatable based on the time values and corresponding sensory skills you have recorded. Your sensory skills will also improve as you recognise all the things you are doing and recording have a direct relationship to each other. A little bit of learning and you will be all over it and take your roasting to another level and be able to plan your roast using the designer and hit all the benchmarks at the time value. Let the force flow through you 🙂 If i'm not making sense I apologise and we can chat about it when you come for a brew. Chester

Dry_bean

Hmmmm, not sure what I'm missing here people! I've been roasting in a corretto using a DMM for almost 10 years with excellent results. Read through this thread and all I can see is another level of complexity, guaranteed to confuse the heck out of newcomers to the hobby/interest. Perhaps I'm simply not getting the point.

cosmic_couple22

Have to disagree with you on this one Dry bean (not sure that's happened before 🙂) It is actually a very simple tool (have you downloaded it?) lot of science and testing out there these days supporting rate of rise prior to FC and roast development time post FC are far more critical than the FC time itself. William Boot did a study of a few top roasters who used sensory skills alone and on testing they were not as repeatable as they thought they were. This tool just gives a base line in a time value of where your roast should be, which you can then quantify that by your sensory skill and or temp monitor. Would think it was very helpful to new roasters as little understanding is needed to get the values which are known to give at worst very reasonable results. The proof is in the cup I know and I am sure that the cup would support our thinking. Chester

Dry_bean

G'Day Chester, We'll agree to disagree on this one. Guess some of us prefer the Heston Blumenthal approach, others like myself prefer the Antonio Carluccio school. I also used data logging software in my early days of roasting, didn't find it particularly useful either, in fact if anything just another complication, nowadays a watch, DMM, and my eyes serve me pretty well. Your right the proof is in the cup, and I'm pretty certain what ends up in my cup supports my viewpoint. Yes, I did download the spread sheet and checked it out, good job well done, I'm sure many will use it. :-)

Intense_Coffee

I have attached a Flash version to this post for those that prefer not to use Excel. Its also a less cluttered interface. Just double click the file and it should start in a browser providing you have Flash installed. Resize the browser as required. Graham

Roast Designer v3.1 (Flash).zip

Lacehim

Ok. thanks for explaining it all. It sounds interested. I've only got back into roasting a few weeks ago but I fly by the seat of my pants when I roast. Consistency! You what? I use a KKTO, with a Turbo Oven. It will roast 600gm to SC in around 22 mins. I don't use a probe, I just put it on full blast, roast until I hear FC, leave it for a minute and either let out some heat or turn it down for a few mins, then back on full. Usually I only roast 300gm, and do 2 different beans because the 600gm just feels like it's not happening right. If this spreadsheet thingy will work with that roasting style then I'll give it ago. 🙂 I usually load it all in and go make coffee, relax, read a book on the kindle near the roaster. Maybe I'm too relaxed, but when I first started out it was stuffing it up, and Anger Management and KK told me to relax, and well it worked. 🙂 I ditched the probe temp thing early on because it was useless. If you moved it even slightly it crapped itself. 🙁 Your probably thinking, OMG that guys roast coffee that way! No way! hahahahhahha.

Intense_Coffee

If its working for you as is Lacehim, then probably no reason to change to be honest. Might be interesting checking if your Dev Time, (btw FC & Drop) are within the 20%-25% range, as you may be hitting the mark anyway just through common sense. I've always used a monitor of some degree because they came fitted, and its possibly easier with drum roasters so always had these measures around. I'm just now doing more with them to see if it makes any difference. Bottom line is I reckon you can make it as easy or complicated as you wish, but enjoying it is key. I spent a morning with a guy who does it for a living, and he charged the roaster (old 10kg HG), to its capacity, then we went off and had a coffee and a chat. He had no monitoring of any kind. After a while we came back and finished it off and dropped the beans. They looked perfect and his coffee is excellent. Much the same about making a "cup of coffee" I tend to think many of the posts over-engineer that on these websites in my opinion. Horses for Courses. Graham

Intense_Coffee

Found a small problem in V3.1 of the Flash Model, so V3.2 attached Graham

ash

Nice tool Graham. I'll give it a go over the next few weeks and see what the coffee is like :-) Looking through all the versions you've made, I like the second version for it's simplicity. It'll be interesting to see how it fits on the screen of my tablet! It kind of reinforces some things that I've been discovering myself with my roasting.

Brett_H

ash wrote:

It kind of reinforces some things that I've been discovering myself with my roasting.

There it is guys... A huge pat on the back for your efforts

Intense_Coffee

Latest V4 (Flash) - - Also allows the use of Fahrenheit inputs - 2 files now provided - call the .html file to standardise the frame it runs in - Some of the setting limits were incorrect Graham

Roast Designer v4.0 (Flash).zip

ash

Quick question to clarify something for me Graham, are all the times used throughout based from when the beans are dumped into the roaster?

Intense_Coffee

ash wrote:

are all the times used throughout based from when the beans are dumped into the roaster?

Hi Ash, The Drying End, FC and Drop times are based on that yes. So basically it uses the TP Time to calculate the time back to zero, with the key time points being the elapsed time since the Charge point (when the beans are dumped into the roaster), which is considered the zero point 00:00. The "DT" figures in the table refer to the Development period time, which is between the start of FC and the Drop Point. (Note: The start of FC I deem as the moment I hear more than one or two isolated cracks.) This is all predicated on a Drum style roast where the drum is pre-heated. If you use a different arrangement, e.g. The container is not pre-heated and the beans & it are heated simultaneously, then you may need to adjust the TP time to accommodate that, so the 00:00 point fits with your arrangements. I have actually no experience with alternative roasters such as Corretto, KKTO or Popper styles, so anyone who does could maybe provide some advice on how that scenario could be better managed. Oops sorry about double entry, cant find a way to delete one of them. See the following for an article by Scott Rao : http://dailycoffeenews.com/2014/08/12/roast-development-time-and-the-prerequisite-for-any-successful-roast/ Hope that helps. Graham

ash

Cheers Graham! 🙂 I'm using a Hottop 'B' with a bean temp probe for my roasting, so no help with the other styles of roasters and feed back. I'm using your software along with the CS Roast Monitor Software at the moment, to help me get a feel for the ROC and times. I'm inputing the predicted values from previous roast profiles into your software, then updating it in realtime as things progress. Hopefully this will give me a more accurate DTR value which I use to see where I end up with a drop value. My first batch should have rested enough, after using this process, later this week. So I'll be able to post some results next weekend. The few roasts I've done so far all look quite nice 🙂