The FrogPad

Roastmaster Support => Support => Topic started by: truk on January 25, 2013, 06:39:34 PM

Title: Great app
Post by: truk on January 25, 2013, 06:39:34 PM


Posts: 1









GeneCafe

« on: Today at 01:17:59 PM »

Quote
Danny,

By the way, this is a very nice app, well worth the money. I know I know, you're wondering why I said that given I can't even use it.  But I'm basing it on the reviews of many a good roaster...and because it looks so cool.

Right now I'm just doing fake roasts in between assignments at work, so no beans are being harmed in these experiments. 

I'm planning on getting a GeneCafe, so that's the machine I'm sort of training for.  Right now I'm using a popcorn popper.  If I'm still into this hobby after a few more months of the popcorn popper I'm springing for the GC.  And I think I will be because I really hate it when I take a sip of my wifes coffee at home.

When I start a new roast, do I immediately set the temp to whatever I have the GC knob at? So the temp would start at 450 (or whatever).  Then, of course, I would only manipulate the temp when I turned the knob on the GC.

OK, I think a curve is something you create so that you'll have that visual thing to look at with the temps and times, right?  Do I create a new curve with each new roast and is that where the history is stored.  And if I write over one it's gone, right?

I'm sure there will be more to come, but basically this app is very intuitive.  The only really non-intuitive thing was not being able to mess with the temp until I created a curve.  And I quickly found the answer here.

Thanks,

Truk
Title: Re: Great app
Post by: Danny Hall on January 27, 2013, 05:35:07 PM
Hi Truk

Great to hear from you, and I really appreciate the kind words!

Glad you were able to find some help - the site is in a bit of disarray. Right now I'm switching things around in the background so that help and documentation files will be easy to add, maintain and most importantly - find. Also to create a place for the upcoming tutorial videos, which are long overdue. Hopefully the new site will be up and running this week.

Yes - curves are your means to store any variable that changes throughout a roast. They can be one of 2 types - "Reading" curves for temperature readings, and "Control" curves to represent control information, like Gas flow, fan, heat settings, etc. In the roasting console, to add a value to a curve, simply make sure it's selected (tap the graph to select through each curve in succession), then tap the digital readout near the gauge to create or edit node data. That will either A: create a new node at the current roast time if no node is selected, or B: alter the value of the selected node if a node is selected.

Curves belong to one of three things - according to where you create them: A roast, a profile or a program. Whenever you use a profile or program that contains curves, those curves display in the roasting console and analyzer alongside any curves you have created directly in that roast. The list view of the roasting console will tell you the location of the curve.

Yes - you are correct, if you delete a curve, it's gone for good. I've tried to instill warnings throughout the app where you might inadvertently delete a curve that is being used by multiple roasts (such as in a profile or program), so Roastmaster should give appropriate warnings. The way that this all works is rather complex, I've tried to make it as intuitive as possible, but still flexible. The goal is to have it "just work" without a lot of thought.

Yes - In a basic roast, you create the curves you want. Here's an example...

Using curves on a per-roast basis:
With my Quest roaster, I might create 2 control curves - 1 for heat, and 1 for fan. These would store what settings I use on the machine. I'd enter the value of the control immediately after starting the roast (the first value you enter via the roasting console is always time-stamped at 0 seconds) and then adjust the appropriate curve whenever I change a control on the machine. I'd also create 1 Reading curve - to store what temps I recorded throughout the roast, and input readings whenever I felt appropriate, usually 1 immediately at bean drop, then every 30 or 60 seconds as I felt appropriate. (These curves will later be very informative in the Roast Analyzer environment - since i can quickly swipe through past roasts graphically, and see cupping data and curves for each past roast in a flip-book type of UI.)

Now, that's well and good, but doesn't provide a "workflow" so to speak, and there's lots of manual entry with each roast. That's where profiles and programs start to help. Profiles and programs are identical in their function. The Behmor uses both, so I included both. You can pick whichever moniker you like and ignore the other.

Using curves with Profiles and Programs
So, to start off... If I wanted to eliminate the extra steps of creating curves for each roast, according to the Quest example above, I'd create a profile, then I'd define 3 "curve templates" - 2 control and 1 reading - in that profile. Then, whenever I use that profile in a roast, those 3 curves would be duplicated in that roast automatically as blank curves, and I can avoid those extra steps in each roast.

Now as nice as that automation is, you'd soon think "I haven't yet done anything to help me shape my future roasts based on my past roasts." So, as you roast, and find combinations you like and want to duplicate, you can copy and paste the corresponding curves from a particularly good roast you like into to a new profile or program. Then, whenever you choose that profile in a new roast, those curves will display in that roast as well. In this scenario (with the Quest example), the "Control" curves would be your guide as to what to control on the machine, and the "Reading" curve would be the curve you're trying to match, so you would make 1 "Curve Template" in that profile as well - of a Reading curve type. That way, in the roast you'd see the control curves you pasted to inform you of machine settings to achieve that roast, as well as the past reading curve you pasted with the temps you are trying to match, and finally, the new reading curve overlaid that will be automatically created in the roast for you to record temp readings to as the roast progresses.

You'd probably soon find you want to experiment with this "recipe" as you roast, and tweak machine settings to see what outcomes you get. Anytime you alter a curve that belongs to a profile or program, in the context of a roast, Roastmaster will create a snapshot in that roast, so that the original master profile remains untouched, and the new snapshot becomes editable - allowing you to tweak the curves of the profile as you roast. This happens automatically in the roasting console - whenever you try to edit a curve belonging to a profile or program, you'll hear the shutter-click camera sound and the profile name will display with an asterisk to denote that it's a snapshot. Otherwise, if you're using the roast analyzer full screen, you'll need to manually create the snapshot first, then edit it.

One final note:
You'll soon realize that Control curves are directly tied to the weight you're roasting, so cannot be interchanged among roasts of different weights. Most home roasters will be bound to a machine that only has a heat control, with no way to measure bean mass temp, so this scenario will be ideal for them.

If you have a roaster that allows to read the bean mass temp, you'll probably prefer to roast by bean temperature readings alone - adjusting the controls to keep your new reading curve in sync with your target reading curve. That's the great thing about temp reading curves - they are not weight-dependent. In other words, the same profile curve that works for 100g, would work for 100kg.

Hope this all helps! Let me know if you have more questions, and thanks for the great feedback!

Kind regards
Danny Hall
Title: Re: Great app
Post by: truk on January 28, 2013, 04:15:13 PM
Thanks Danny, and there's a youtube on that process too, right  ;)
Title: Re: Great app
Post by: Danny Hall on January 29, 2013, 01:27:48 PM
Almost  :)