CCR-1kg Coffee Roaster

Kevohere

Well fellow CCR-1kgers, without going into any details due to its irrelevancy (no other 500g CCr owners here), I have handed back the 500grammer, dug deeper into my pockets 😛 and took delivery of a 1kg model today from John. Just couldn't take a backward step in my coffee addicted journey, so onwards and upwards eh? So any helpful advice offered will be gratefully accepted as I attach the "L" plates and "get into it". :🙂 Firstly: Chris, if you could let me know the location and size holeyou used for the thermocouple and what data logging equipment/type do you use/recommend. I AM going to back-step my way through this thread (again 😛) to refresh my brain with the info posted by Tim and the others, so the answer to that question may be in there somewhere. I still have to hook up the chaff catcher and orientate the roasting bench to accommodate this larger roaster, so hope to make the initial sacrificial >😃 roast on Wednesday. Back soon, Kevo

Brett_H

Fantastic Kevo. There are many if us living vicariously through all you guys. Roast well mate!

sholayer

Congratulations Kevo A good move to a great roaster, lots of fun ahead. Sorry I have just seen your post and am at work, when I get home I will get you info on the thermocouple position etc. Info at the moment - I use the factory standard thermocouple that displays temp on the control panel, I also have fitted a Victor 86B I got thru CS, this has a thermocouple and logs to the meter and on to a computer. So I log the roast and store on computer, can send a couple of profiles if you like. There is a fair difference between the 2 temps but I take the main readings from the Victor meter as I have used it for a couple of years on both a coretto and a Quest M3 so am happy with the temps it shows. Also I have checked against boiling water (100C) and frozen peas (-4C ish) I am doing 650 gm roasts, so bean volume in the drum is fairly consistent, subject to bean size, the first position for the Victor thermocouple was fitted to the left hand screw of sightglass, I took the door off and drilled and tapped it out to M6 and fitted thermocouple. It has since been moved, present position I will get to you later with a photo. I also have an TC4C running Artisan, not set up in the roaster yet, I havent had much luck with it but I plan to spend some more time with it in the next month, try to get it going. One thing I have noticed with roasts from this roaster - the results seem better with a good rest time. I have read that some guys roasting on different equip drink after 4 days, I get good tastes after at least 9 days onwards and had superb MM after 6 weeks, so let them rest, just build up a supply in the cupboard and you will appreciate it more. Again, congrats Chris

sholayer

Kevo Here is a photo of where I have my BT thermocouple, 25mm long probe, M6 thread, bought from CS. It was in the LHS of the sightglass, moved it from there to vertically up 20mm. Seems OK for 650 gm loads and would also be OK for larger loads. I am using the factory thermocouple for ET but am not sure how accurate it is, I will be moving it soon. Chris

Kevohere

Thanks for the info and suggestions Chris. I started her up and did three roasts Thursday morning. Used some of my older beans, starting with 650gms of Malawi Nyika AA. Dropped them in at 150 and pulled just on 2C at 16mins. I was relatively happy with the way it went as a first up roast. Looks about a CS 7/8, tried some in a long black yesterday and it tasted very bland. As you say, leave 'em longer, but I have completely run out of browns, so I'm going to be on the tasting wagon as these mature. Second roast (600gms) Bolivia Green Mountain was a bit of a disaster and took over 25 min! A guess, as I accidentally reset the timer. :doh: Not drank any as yet. The third (760gms) Haiti Grand Cru dropped at 190 took too long to 1C (18 min) unless I missed it :🙂. I am going to try 1kg next week to test its performance at (marketed) maximum load. Yeah, I know Tim has done 1.3kg roasts, but I want to test this roaster's capabilities. Only roasting with the factory thermocouple readings at this stage until I get around to purchasing and fitting a BT. Ah well, it seems the "L" plates will be on for a fair while yet, but that's what it's all about eh? This journey! 😉 Cheers.

cosmic_couple22

Hi Kevohere I had a lot of success on my ccr doing 1kg loads, pretty consistent with 1st at 9:30 @ 175-180 second and finish normally around that 14:30 depending on if I was backing off the heat or holding her steady. BF gave me a good outline to start with, something like :- Drop in at 180-190 2 mins at 90 -100% heat no fan 80% heat 40% fan to around the 6-7 min mark 60% heat 40% fan till start first crack 30 secs full fan to clear out any dead air 50% 50% thruogh first, slowly adding a little more heat to finish. and tweaked it from there depending on the bean to maintain even temp gains and avoiding stalls towrads the end. (% are based on dial on ccr) Wish I could work this on the silver streak ;D Happy roasting Chester

saoye

Hi Bean flying. It's been 1 year since you purchased the CCR. Any further thoughts on it? I don't think you've posted a photo of the final setup with Chaff collector in place (unless it's buried within this thread somewhere). What about all the other CCR owners? Any issues? Really looking to upgrade from my corretto roaster which has been serving me faithfully but need the higher capacity with the amount of friends and families asking me to roast for them...plus I want more 'blings' 😛

askthecoffeeguy

I think BF has left the building and is no longer an active contributor to the forum other than the chat function so you may want to catch him there P

saoye

No worries. Thanks P. What about the other few who have purchased one? Any issues?

Kevohere

Hi Saoye, It seems all has gone relatively quiet on the 1kg CCR front here. I have only roasted 10 batches to date with mine, so still consider I am well within the learning/breaking in stages. I seem to be having "issues" with the length of roast times for some reason. In that; all is going to schedule/profile/plan until around the 9 or 10 minute mark where I start to lose the temperature increase rate needed to hit 1C and then 2C. Taking up to 18 to 25 minutes to dropping for cooling. I'm thinking it's to do with the air flow regulation that I still need to work on. I am sure that will come. The beans have been very drinkable and as Chris said earlier, seem to take longer to reach peak taste than the other smaller batch roasters do. I haven't the time to go further into my roasts detail just now, (have to go out) but I will geyt back later. Cheers, Kevin

saoye

Kevohere wrote:

Hi Saoye, It seems all has gone relatively quiet on the 1kg CCR front here. I have only roasted 10 batches to date with mine, so still consider I am well within the learning/breaking in stages. I seem to be having "issues" with the length of roast times for some reason. In that; all is going to schedule/profile/plan until around the 9 or 10 minute mark where I start to lose the temperature increase rate needed to hit 1C and then 2C. Taking up to 18 to 25 minutes to dropping for cooling. I'm thinking it's to do with the air flow regulation that I still need to work on. I am sure that will come. The beans have been very drinkable and as Chris said earlier, seem to take longer to reach peak taste than the other smaller batch roasters do. I haven't the time to go further into my roasts detail just now, (have to go out) but I will geyt back later. Cheers, Kevin

Thanks for replying Kevin! Did you follow the settings as per cosmic couple's instructions above or did you improvise with your own? What drop temperatures are you starting out with and what power settings/fan settings? No one has really mentioned about the PID temperature settings as yet (lcd other than the timer)...do you use it or just the power and air dials? Let's learn together. I've gone ahead and placed an order so waiting patiently now.

Kevohere

saoye wrote:

Did you follow the settings as per cosmic couple's instructions above or did you improvise with your own? What drop temperatures are you starting out with and what power settings/fan settings? No one has really mentioned about the PID temperature settings as yet (lcd other than the timer)...do you use it or just the power and air dials? Let's learn together. I've gone ahead and placed an order so waiting patiently now.

Congratulations on your purchase! It's seems with equipment and processes new, that you have to approach it as a 'newbie' and be prepared to learn "roasting" again. The Behmor was and is, a totally different experience. I have been following CC's guidelines (and BF"s earlier postings, but seem to be having power issues mid roast and am battling with the temp increase rate (1 or 2 degrees per min). I have been dropping at about 190 - 200 degrees, with a best roast result with 600g of Monsoon Malabar done on the 25th. Dropped at 202 with 1C at 188 and 6:40 min. 2C at 199 and 12:30 min, pulling them out at 13:50 min. Just use CC's guide yourself at first with the power settings. I haven't installed a BT probe as yet. There area lot of variables to play with. Drum speed, fan and the PID drum temp. The air control is the key factor I believe. I played with different start weights at first, but now staying with 600 gms to "get the feel". Let me know when it arrives. Kevin

saoye

Hi Kevin, I suspect this roaster's controls are closer to a much more hands on roaster like the Corretto where you need to monitor closely the temperature and airflow compared to a profile setting machine like the Behmor. I am currently using the corretto and am comfortable with the idea of this roaster but also understands it will be very different to a corretto. I have a feeling (in theory) that air control in this machine largely is used to purge smoke at critical roasting events such as 1st and 2nd crack and on the main is meant to stay at a constant and again only changed during the specific roasting events. It will also help with the temperature but as in espresso making, need to fix all variables and play with one at a time to understand the effects and come up with the best combo. The good thing is most of it is already done by BF and CC. Air flow is a control that I am looking forward to since a smokey tasting roast is something I do not like. Your time to 2nd crack seems within the 15 minutes mark so I don't think heat/power is an issue at all. I think if you get a data logger you will see get a clearer understanding of what is happening in the roast. I intend to piggyback off the existing probe and have bought a themalcouple extension lead for that purpose and use it on my datalogger with the CS software.

sholayer

HI Saoye I don

UNM

Interesting comments about the CS thermocouple sholayer. I shall have to do some research. My meter is a Victor 86 rather than the CS one (didn't feel like paying twice the price just for local warranty), but is basically the same unit so may have the same issue.

Intense_Coffee

I Piggyback the CS Monitor off the back of my Proaster Thermocouple. However I have to adjust the CS Preferences to true up the CS monitor: # Meter calibration factors. meterAdjustMults=1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 meterAdjustAdds=17.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 For me this makes it accurate enough to follow a profile. I can also track the Proaster temps with the native software, but its not designed specifically for Coffee Roasting, so use it for tracking only. Note: the CS Meter is not for local warranty only, I understand there are some customisations as well to interface with the CS software. Graham

saoye

Hi Graham. Thanks for the calibration settings! The only difference I see is the meterAdjustAdds=17 What does that actually do?

Intense Coffee wrote:

I Piggyback the CS Monitor off the back of my Proaster Thermocouple. However I have to adjust the CS Preferences to true up the CS monitor: # Meter calibration factors. meterAdjustMults=1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 meterAdjustAdds=17.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 For me this makes it accurate enough to follow a profile. I can also track the Proaster temps with the native software, but its not designed specifically for Coffee Roasting, so use it for tracking only. Note: the CS Meter is not for local warranty only, I understand there are some customisations as well to interface with the CS software. Graham

Beanz

UNM wrote:

Interesting comments about the CS thermocouple sholayer. I shall have to do some research.

I was also puzzled by this. I have used K Type in the Victor and at room temp and 100C they read the same. I could not calibrate at higher temp easily. I checked with a manufacturer of thermocouples and he suggested they may use E type which is similar to K, they would then calibrated the meter to suit.

Intense_Coffee

saoye wrote:

The only difference I see is the meterAdjustAdds=17 What does that actually do?

When I piggyback the CS provided Meter off the back of the native Proaster thermocouple, the CS meter temp is not accurate. (The Proaster shows the correct temp so I can see the differences). The amount that it is out, (and always lower), varies to some degree (no pun intended), but when it reaches the temps suitable for roasting it stabilises. The meterAdjustAdds=17 calibrates the CS Monitor Software so that it shows the (virtually) correct temperature during the roast cycle, so can be used to profile and track. The following is the description of the Meter calibration factors for the CS Monitor software: Meter calibration factors: You can modify the displayed values of the 9 meters by setting values in preferences.txt. This can be used either to precisely calibrate a meter or to allow a reading other than temperature (e.g. airflow) to be scaled to suit the graphs. Each meter has a multiplier (meter1AdjustMult, meter2AdjustMult. .......etc ) and an offset (meter1AdjustAdd, meter2AdjustAdd, .........etc). For example, if meter 2 is measuring airflow that registers 4 mA at 0% and 20 mA at 100%, you could set: meterAdjustMults=1.0 6.25 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 meterAdjustAdds=0.0 25.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 so that it would display as values between 0 and 100. In other words, for the 2nd meter the multiplier (6.25) extends the initial range of 16 to a new range of 100 (25 - 125); while the offset (-25.0) adjusts the zero position. Hope that is helpful Graham

saoye

Thanks Graham on the calibration of the meter. Now just patiently waiting for the ship to arrive with my roaster.

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