Too Much Coffee

Hi guys!

What do you think about roasing curves for HOTTOP B roaster? I'm interesting for your opinion about first stage (evaporating), best time between First and Second e.t.c. My example roasting chart below:

I can't help with the question Sergey, but a big welcome to TMC

Welcome to TMC Sergey. I will leave it to the experts to comment on your profile. Unfortunately I have the P model so do not have the luxury of being able to adjust the heater power (other than turning the temperature down). I live in the hope that our electronics gurus will come up with a way to modify the P model to allow heater power control.

Hi, Sergey -

I added two temperature sensors to my Hottop B. One measures the environmental temperature above the beans, the other is located within the bean mass.

So my temperature profile is going to look different. But I think there is still some useful information for comparison:

1. During the drying phase, I adjust heater power so that the environmental temperature does not rise above ~180C. You can see on the plot that the slope of the red line flattens out at around the 5 minute mark as a result of turning down the heat to maintain 180C.

2. After the bean mass has reached ~150C (at around 8 minutes for this roast), I turn the power back up to 100%. I watch the environmental temperature again, and when it starts to approach 230C, I gradually dial it back down, maintaining 230C as closely as possible. Again, you can see the slope of the red line flatten out at around 13 min as the power is reduced.

3. I go around 4 minutes from FC to SC. Some roasts require increasing the power again to have the bean temps rise. Other roasts, the bean mass will continue to rise on its own and result in SC occurring at ~4 minutes after FC.

I have found that the most effective roast control seems to be to directly control the environmental temperature. After a little trial and error, I discovered that a ramp/soak profile with ~180C and ~230C "soaks" gives good results. I also try to not ever allow the environmental temperature to drop as I am told this has detrimental effects.

Compared to your profile, I think I might suggest hitting full power again as soon as the beans are yellow, but then tapering it off as FC approaches. I might also suggest that too large a power reduction during FC might allow the environmental temperature to drop, so small adjustments starting in advance of FC are probably preferable.

Jim

I too am very interested in any profiles that people may have for the 240v version of the Hottop B.

I have tried a few of the ones posted for the 110v US version but the changes appear at least to me to occur rather faster with the 240v version. I just cannot seem to get any gap between 1st and 2nd at all.

Is it just me?

Thank's for answers, folks!

I use Hottop without modification and try to guess temperature by factory installed sensor. It seems to show average temperature between bean mass and environment. Unfortunately, saving profiles in this model is evidently useless, because events recording occur by time, not by temperature. For my beans (Brasil Yellow Bourbon) first crack begins at 195-196 C degrees (by integrated sensor), whereas, time may vary for 2 minutes from roast to roast.