Silver Case

This was a disgusting experiment.  I think this proves that either my iRoast is broken or just fundamentally a piece of crap. Regardless of the profile I install, it basically gives the same results:  drive as fast as possible to 200c.  When I programmed in the blue profile (humm at 160, the minimum temp, for 15 minutes) it didn’t even try to throttle itself (by controlling fan speed) until it hit 200c.  WTF is that?

Nauseated I wasted my time with this thing.  Getting service will be a joke — I bought it in Australia. Have fun mailing a cooking appliance into Australia.  I’m basically boned I fear.

Hearthware, maker of the iRoast, doesn’t inspire confidence either. Many out-of-date references on their website, and their faq reeks of Engrish of some type.  Fuck. I should have bought the $2,500 sample roaster instead of the $200 coffee burner instead.

Don’t know what sort of programming the iRoast has, but it seems stupid. Note the graph above which shows actual temperature versus the programmed temperature curve. Roast 2 was a hotter profile, yet it managed to be less hot than the Roast 3. Everything else (ambient temperature, beans, weight)
It’s like this thing overshoots but has no satisfactory way to cool or vent itself, so it just keeps overrunning the temperature guidance. We’ll see how the beans are tomorrow morning, but I can’t imagine they are materially different from roast 002. The first crack perhaps came 30 seconds later, but not much, and I still couldn’t get a more extended roast. Ugh.

Am cooling the iroast in front of a fan, and in an hour or so, I’m just going to run it at 160C (the lowest available temperature) for 15 minutes and see what this thing does.

Second roast tonight. I used a different profile (also found online). Still was a relatively short roast. First crack still occuring relatively early. Looks like longer stages allow the iRoast to ramp to that temperature more accurately.

Not sure how these beans will turn out, but for next profile I’ll have a longer, cooler stage to start with. Seems to be no problem getting the heat if i do need it.

I’ve done a few small batches so far. The first two batches of PNG I carbonized. Then I tried a batch cooked much lighter. It acted really weird in the espresso machine. The water blasted through at light speed, just roared through the portafilter. Even after I made the grind considerably finer, it rocketed through.

Two considerations: 1) are the default iRoast profiles too hot? 2) are 75g batches too small and get cooked too quick? [I seemed to be finishing up quite early in the roasting profiles]

So today I tried another batch, using a customize profile I found online, on a 150g batch. I used brazillian beans this time, hoping that would make a more appropriate espresso single-origin.

I did the roasting, profile shown above. They nominally look ok. I have to wait for 4-14 hours while the beans outgas CO2. In the meantime, I charted the temperature telemetry I captured from the onboard thermometer.

The colored bars are the target temperatures during the three stages. Sort of silly. It doesn’t seem to have much control on the temperature. It seems to steer it more like a freighter than a golf cart. I can program up to five stages (totalling a dead limit of 15 minutes). I suppose once I have enough of this telemetry, I can figure out approximate over- and under-steering on this thing’s temperature control.

I’ll see how the coffee tastes later.