Kaffelogic for the USA is on Indiegogo - Page 4

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
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ducats
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#31: Post by ducats »

luca wrote:the firmware on the PCB calculates ROR over a 30s interval, I gather. But what I don't know is if each of the individual 1 second point temperature values are themselves the result of averaging/smoothing or whatever.
Thanks, that's what I was looking for.
luca wrote:Ducats, I guess one point worth observing here is that Steve and I tried a lot of stuff for a long time before giving up. So like we're unlikely to answer any questions that you or anyone else may have with some sort of simple answer that gets you great roasts. If we were, we wouldn't have given up! So you guys are sort of on your own to figure it out, but please do report back if you get good results for light, aromatic roasts. I have a few friends with KLs and they'd appreciate knowing how to do it.
I'll see what I can do. Are those few friends active on any forum?

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ducats
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#32: Post by ducats »

LuckyMark wrote:Ducats, you only have 90 watts spare overhead in your last roast (1460w available, 1368w used), do you think that is enough to handle the proposed two thirds increase in capacity? I am assuming because you have a pre release unit you may have inside info.
Just speculation here but a 5min roast with 125g batch, stated max capacity, and within that length reaching say second crack is probably beyond the power limits but many variables. Lower fan means you can send more power to the heater, but too low of a fan and you get uneven roasts. It's a balance and different people want different roast levels. Without this "BOOST" kit forthcoming I'd be more inclined to try a profile with max power and max capacity and see how long it took to get to second crack.

KL sent out a newsletter within the last 5 hours, I think anyone can sign up for it. Chaff collector and BOOST kit are listed separately. "Your BOOST kit will includes a lathed anodised aluminium roast chamber extension with specially designed tension 'legs', a dosing cup and most importantly a software activation key that will unlock features to allow users to roast a range of batch sizes between 50-60gms to 180-200gms. (note: of course all batch capacity results will be dependent upon the coffee being inputted)."
I'm not an engineer but something about the law of thermodynamics makes me suspect that without an increasing the power limit of the KL 110v then for it to do 200gms means you'd have to lengthen the roast, maybe by quite a bit. Thankfully going dark is not something I want to do.

*Max batch size right now is 125g so from 90g that's only about 38% increase. And from 1368w to 1460w is a 6.7% increase. But you have to move the beans so fan setting makes it a multi-variable situation.

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ducats
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#33: Post by ducats »

Beeroclock wrote:For those interested there is fairly active unofficial group on Discord.

Here are a few images of experiments I've made with using different probes. It's a bit crude, but did the job. I think it would be fairly straight forward to locate a 2/3mm sheathed probe through the top casing bolt/hole and drill into the bean chamber. Will look to possibly try and do this with a PT100 probe. Though my current probe that I use on my gas roaster is particularly sensitive to insertion depth for accurate readings.


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Cheers Phil
Nice work and nice vids! I don't know much about Discord even though I technically have an account. Could you explain how I would join this unofficial group? Thanks.

Beeroclock
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#34: Post by Beeroclock »


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ducats
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#35: Post by ducats replying to Beeroclock »

In. Thanks.

OldmatefromOZ
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#36: Post by OldmatefromOZ »

ducats wrote:Not as noisy would make me feel better as well. :D Any final thoughts on power profiling? Did you try it after the firmware came out that allowed zone 3 to be functional?
I did a lot of power profiling and had a few hits among many fails. From memory, zone 3 worked at the time but not very precise and maybe that was fixed in update.

hairyco
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#37: Post by hairyco »

ducats wrote:Just speculation here but a 5min roast with 125g batch, stated max capacity, and within that length reaching say second crack is probably beyond the power limits but many variables. Lower fan means you can send more power to the heater, but too low of a fan and you get uneven roasts. It's a balance and different people want different roast levels. Without this "BOOST" kit forthcoming I'd be more inclined to try a profile with max power and max capacity and see how long it took to get to second crack.

KL sent out a newsletter within the last 5 hours, I think anyone can sign up for it. Chaff collector and BOOST kit are listed separately. "Your BOOST kit will includes a lathed anodised aluminium roast chamber extension with specially designed tension 'legs', a dosing cup and most importantly a software activation key that will unlock features to allow users to roast a range of batch sizes between 50-60gms to 180-200gms. (note: of course all batch capacity results will be dependent upon the coffee being inputted)."
I'm not an engineer but something about the law of thermodynamics makes me suspect that without an increasing the power limit of the KL 110v then for it to do 200gms means you'd have to lengthen the roast, maybe by quite a bit. Thankfully going dark is not something I want to do.

*Max batch size right now is 125g so from 90g that's only about 38% increase. And from 1368w to 1460w is a 6.7% increase. But you have to move the beans so fan setting makes it a multi-variable situation.
From what you're saying about the KL is that the limiting factor of this roaster is the heat output. For batches of 125g or larger, it struggles to get to second crack at 5 min.

I am not well-versed in fluid bed roasters, so I wanted to ask: do roasts taste worse, when compared to drum roasters if they are roasted to times that are similar to that of drum roasters? According to Morten Münchow, you want a roaster to be able to hit first crack at 7.5 min with max flame/heat. Of course if you can hit it below 7.5 min, that is more runway that you can play with to experiment.
At the end of the day, what I'm interested in is whether the KL is capable of producing whatever roasts curves I want to experiment or am I limited to roasting a certain way because of the (limited) power output?
Assuming that Nordic roasts requires a high heat output, is the KL capable to doing nordic roast or does the power prevent it from producing a Nordic roast?

Also, I want to clarify why people are inserting extra probes on the KL. Why are people experimenting with extra probes in the roaster? Is it because the data from the original probe provides noisy data that is difficult to use (unusable) for reproducing consistent roasts?

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ducats
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#38: Post by ducats »

hairyco wrote:From what you're saying about the KL is that the limiting factor of this roaster is the heat output. For batches of 125g or larger, it struggles to get to second crack at 5 min.
I'm about 10-12 roasts into the machine. I'm still learning. I've only done 90g batches. Getting to second crack in 5 minutes, for any roaster, is crazy fast. I offered it as a hypothetical comparison as an acid test sort of situation for roaster power.
hairyco wrote:I am not well-versed in fluid bed roasters, so I wanted to ask: do roasts taste worse, when compared to drum roasters if they are roasted to times that are similar to that of drum roasters? According to Morten Münchow, you want a roaster to be able to hit first crack at 7.5 min with max flame/heat. Of course if you can hit it below 7.5 min, that is more runway that you can play with to experiment.
In general fluid bed roasters tend to have shorter roast times, even more so if it's for home use and batch size is <250g or so. I'm leery of such grand sweeping statements such as first crack must be hit at this time with this heat setting.
hairyco wrote:At the end of the day, what I'm interested in is whether the KL is capable of producing whatever roasts curves I want to experiment or am I limited to roasting a certain way because of the (limited) power output?
Assuming that Nordic roasts requires a high heat output, is the KL capable to doing nordic roast or does the power prevent it from producing a Nordic roast?
Since Nordics are roasted light your max temperature doesn't have to be that high, so less strain on the heater. But it can also depend on how fast you want to get the roast going.

See my post here Kaffelogic for the USA is on Indiegogo If you look at the middle picture, the log from KL Studio software, the black line is power draw and it peaked at 1315 at about 1:30. I did 2 of these 5 minute roasts. Haven't cupped them. One was way too light probably and won't bother. For what it's worth, at the end of that roast the power was 1271, plenty in the tank.
hairyco wrote:Also, I want to clarify why people are inserting extra probes on the KL. Why are people experimenting with extra probes in the roaster? Is it because the data from the original probe provides noisy data that is difficult to use (unusable) for reproducing consistent roasts?
Yes, I kind of wanted a cleaner look at the data just to get a better/broader picture of heat transfer, but if the PID is only going to run of the stock BT probe this extra data might not have much relevancy. For now I've put it on the backburner.

Otherwise, no heat up time is great and clean up is a breeze. Controlling via the 5 buttons below the screen is a little crude. There's talk of an app or something like that, hopefully most/all controls can be done through that.

The KL software is free to download and their forum is available for outsiders to read.
https://kaffelogic.com/home/support/downloads
https://kaffelogic.com/community/

There's also the discord linked above which seems to be the most active place.

Beeroclock
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#39: Post by Beeroclock »

Stock probe is a bare wire chosen for fast response for the PID, but gives a somewhat noisy curve. It's a trade off. Also until the Bluetooth module is completed one doesn't get a real-time graph for monitoring roasts.

The extra probe gives a "realtime" graph, I found this quite useful when roasting new beans as simple can set my roast degree/end temp higher and then stop the roast early based on my extra probe data.

hairyco
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#40: Post by hairyco »

So I've done more research on the KL, and I had a few more questions regarding its use and interface.

From what I've gathered, is it true that you cannot preheat the chamber before charging the beans?
All the videos on youtube have shown people dropping beans in cold. This is very different from the bullet or the IKAWA.

Second, do users have any control over parameters such as heat and fan?
It seems as if people alter the roast curve on the KL software, import it onto the USB, and press play. After that, you manually press a button to mark 1st crack and 2nd crack.

For what I want, I would prefer to have some input and knowledge of the power settings and fan settings at each stage of the roast. Does the KL provide that manual control?