Since December ’09 I’ve been using Auber Instrument’s SYL-2352P controller on my coffee roaster. This type of controller lets you program in your desired temperature at any point in time. I’ve settled on a roast profile that seems to work well enough for the varieties that I roast. I’m sure that I ought to have different profiles for each bean variety but I haven’t had any really bad results yet.
Here is the program, which will make sense if you’re familiar with the syntax:
| Step | Value |
|---|---|
| C01 | 85° F |
| T01 | 1 min |
| C02 | 85° F |
| T02 | 10 min |
| C03 | 330° F |
| T03 | 5 min |
| C04 | 406° F |
| T04 | 3 min |
| C05 | 406° F |
| T05 | 2 min |
| C06 | 430° F |
| T06 | 0 (Hold) |
And to better illustrate, here is a graph of the same thing:
The primary driver for the evolution of my profile was avoiding tipping. My first profile was to simply heat the beans to 405 for 12 minutes, but I found that the heat gun had to stay on too much causing somewhat scorched beans (tipping) and/or dark chaff. This made me lengthen the roast and to add the shallower 330 -> 406 phase. The second was was added because during the high 300’s the roaster seems to require more heat for the same increases as compared to lower temps. I didn’t like how the heat gun’s duty cycle increased during this period so I made its slope more shallow. Now the chaff from my roasts is consistently medium-to-light in color, as seen in the accumulation in my “chaff bucket” at the bottom of the post.
The 1-minute 85 degree period at the start is a pre-heat phase while the 16 -> 19 minute period is the post-1C “bake” that I’ve read about on the Coffee Snobs forums. And finally, the last phase is the ramp to 2C followed by a hold @ 430. I often don’t make it to 430 because 2C will happen earlier.
