Author Topic: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster  (Read 41251 times)

Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #15 on: July 06, 2014, 05:56:56 PM »
 OK! Thats what I'm talkin about. Sitting here after the family get together with a
comforting layer of espresso on the back of the tongue. Just lovely. I normally evaluate" espresso early in the am before any other coffee. But this afternoon after all the family lies and damn lies there was a wave of coffee craving and I made 6 capa's including one for myself. I had mixed a blend from the roasting attempts last week figuring they should be in various states of drinkability. The capa's were just my cup of tea! Really good! So I thought, "lets see how smooth or not the espresso might be"? Well, LAB, it was superb.

How did we arrive at this blissful state that birthed this impromptu posting even before I am back at the roaster on Tuesday? Lets continue the poor saga from my last post. Having pooched the 2nd batch in as many days, I took my armour off and couter attacked. I threw in another of the 2.5 lb of Sumatra that I pooched on the first roast and treated the roaster like I would the Gene. Preheat to 300F on 10KW, let the chamber cool to 165F, throw in the beans, loft to get a good roll going, heat at 10k to 1C, reduce the heat to streach a bit and dump just before target temp. The Sumatra I took to 445F FBT. Then I did the same a Yirg to 457F FBT. I did these to have something to give my buddies that built the roast room for
me and get some more practice, but they were great confidence builders. I don't have the data logging sheets to refer to but these were essentially Kens "put the beans in, turn the heat on...LOOK we're roasting coffee." No serious attempt to profile the roast. Just "git 'er done."
The blend:
4 Sumatra GLOC 445F 3 days rest to
4 Guatamala huehue(WP)450F 5 days rest to
3 Yirg wote konga(NP)457F 3 days rest

I am totally psyched. I just KNOW we are going to make this work. I just love the infinite heat control with 10kw at disposal and may try some jedda mind tricks on the loft control. I even wandered off into rasquel territory wondering about the relationship between psychology and senses. So OF COURSE we have to have automation to believe our senses. Happy.

Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #16 on: July 07, 2014, 07:38:31 PM »
Hey Doug,
Is that 94# a marathon or a relay race with yourself? Almost sounds like torture. 50+ hours?
Kevin
Hope you have recovered. I remember 3lb sessions with the Gene. Not even close.

Offline dsil

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #17 on: July 07, 2014, 08:34:38 PM »
Relay. I took a day off work and knocked out half of it the 2 days after work. Was nice when I got paid for it, but dreadful doing it.
I don't want to dread roasting, I want to enjoy it. Electrician coming tomorrow evening to give his opinion on what needs to be done and approx costs. Hopefully CC will run The free ship special again soon.

Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #18 on: July 16, 2014, 03:19:13 PM »
Thought I would share some pictures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ijdpz8z8o74bh2r/AAALN1B_-0V4EohdoM6FGoxna
This is a link to my dropbox with ~ 2.1MB PDF file with 23 pictures. These are low res. Send a PM if anyone wants originals (~4.1MB) and I will put them up too.

After 10 roasts I am feeling comfortable with this roaster and I am glad I bought it. I have the TMD-56 Amprobe working with a K type bead thermocouple covered with kapton tape routed alongside the allclad oven probe and they basically agree on bean temp. I have saved the time-temp profile for the last 6 roasts and got the TMD-56 working with Artisan 0.8 Roaster Scope opensource software, so I am ready to roast and record in Roaster Scope.

Pro:
1. Quality materials; stainless fasteners; powder coated metal both sides.
2. Well insulated heater.
3. Plenty of power available and "infinite" control from 0-10kw with the normal electric lag. Want to plot this with automation in mind.  My normal batch size is 2-1/2lb (1134g) but I am sure 5-6lb will be no problem.
4. Heater unit replacement = $90. With about a 100 in the field Ken said none have been needed and the original prototype has beengoing a long time. I like the off-the-shelf mentality.
5. No loose nuts and bolt combinations; everything is either a fastened stud to which a nut is attached or a tapped hole or nutsert to which a screw is fastened.
6. 8lb bean cooler is slicker than owl shit! 2-1/2 lbs cools to "cold" in less than 90 sec.
7. Roaster is dirt simple to work on and very adaptable to tinkering.

Con:
1. When the heat is reduced from 10k tosay 7k to streach and then turned back to 10k a bean loft adjustment is needed because the loft motor and heater are on the same circuit. No biggie since you are already "hands on" the whole time but something to consider in the automation algo.

2. At the lower charges (<2 lb) the loft adjustment is sensitive. The lowest I have done is 500g. I have a pot vernier coming but am also working on a simpler solution with the 3-d printer: a pot cap with a lever.

Will work on posting some profiles from the roasts next.

Offline Ascholten

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2014, 04:48:18 PM »
I too have been looking at this and the northern roasters one.

The thing that bothers me most about this is, they brag on how 'fast' you can roast coffee.  Also, The 'it pays for itself in a little as a month' reminds me of a sleazy infomercial or high pressure used car salesman pitch.

Another thing that really bothers me is, they came out with their first model what 8 months ago for a lesser price.  Now this 'new' model is on the streets with what are really major modifications and a significant price increase (probably justifiable given the changes)  What about all those people who bought the 5, only to feel like well, yah, you got the prototype, here is  slicker one, sorry about your timing.   Whos' to know if a year down the road they come out with the nifter neater Model 7 and the 5 grand I paid for the 6 well... sorry, outdated model.

The quickness thing,  roasting beans in 6 or 7 minute, at least to me seems very fast, (im not even going to comment on the comment they made about less time, just get the popcorn popper and a soup can geez) and you are not fully developing them that way.  It is almost like, well we can give you roasted coffee, but if you want it 'professionally roasted' well....  Don't get me wrong I own a few I roasts which yes I do still use so know all about the 8 minute roast, but for a better coffee, umm NO!!

I love the concept and yes know you can loft them higher to stretch out the time but that only goes so far, it's akin to ok lets keep them at 325 for ten minutes...do we really want to do that?    Maybe I just don't understand the fluid bed process well enough but to me it just seems like you don't have a lot of real control over the process, which is why most people kind of go that route to begin with.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Aaron
As I have grown older, I have learned that pleasing everybody is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake!

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2014, 05:44:49 PM »
kjr55w,

Thanks for the pics!

Interesting roaster..... A lot different than the Sono and appears to have the variables needed for a more hands on experience, I feel hot air roasters do have some advantages yet I still "lust" for a 1K drum, So many choices and cost is a variable that is still important to me.

I'd be interested in what you find as you do the 1/2# roasts.. Thanks again for the update and the pics. 

Offline dsil

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #21 on: July 17, 2014, 05:35:55 AM »
Thanks for all the detailed info. As far as Aaron's concern about the fast roast times, I don't see a reason why it can't be stretched as much as you want since you can control the air and the heat separately. It sounds like a great  cost effective option for  roasting  volume.
-Doug

Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #22 on: July 17, 2014, 09:51:16 AM »
Hi Aaron, no correction from me, because I am not fully detached from these concerns you raise (except for 1), which were shared by me when I started down this path. But I am moving away from them and I will share my perspective as to why.

The thing that bothers me most about this is, they brag on how 'fast' you can roast coffee.  Also, The 'it pays for itself in a little as a month' reminds me of a sleazy infomercial or high pressure used car salesman pitch.

This 'fast' thing bothered me too until I visited the company and saw Ken and then someone else roast some coffee. What they say and what they do when roasting are two different things. Even in the video he said 'about 8 minutes' and the overlay says 9.25. I think it was actually longer than that. They really were trying to develope the roast both times, but what they were talking about was I think directed to their target market, that underserved commercial shop with 12-25 lb a week needs. In that regard I think they understand their target market much better than we do. This is really a low priced commercial roaster, not a high priced hobby roaster. There is a very good commercial roaster near my house that roasts on a gianormous ambex. I would dearly love to pick his brain and learn from him, but I don't because that is his livelyhood and I don't want to intrude on that. Most of us were there at one time and understand that. So when I run short I buya couple lbs of his espresso blend and have a short conversation. Ken is not focused on us and I don't hold that against him.


Another thing that really bothers me is, they came out with their first model what 8 months ago for a lesser price.  Now this 'new' model is on the streets with what are really major modifications and a significant price increase (probably justifiable given the changes)  What about all those people who bought the 5, only to feel like well, yah, you got the prototype, here is  slicker one, sorry about your timing.   Whos' to know if a year down the road they come out with the nifter neater Model 7 and the 5 grand I paid for the 6 well... sorry, outdated model.

I actually approach this from the opposite perspective. I would be more upset if they had NOT come out with the new model and am thrilled they did it so fast. I have been on the leading bleeding edge so many times, it borders on Masochism. $1000 for a dot-matrix printer that took three full days of my time to get working because they printed the pin-outs backwards; $6000 for S-100 bus computer paid for dearly with all my Anheuser Busch employee stock; $2300 recently for 3-d printer that now sells for $1200. The list is endless. But I never felt 'taken' by any of those choices. Plus, it seemed to me that CoffeeCrafters was bending over backwards to please their customers. I know that they shipped a new roaster to replace a freight damaged one while they dickered with the shipping company. I am pretty sure a large majority of the model V owners are OK on this. I could be wrong.

The quickness thing,  roasting beans in 6 or 7 minute, at least to me seems very fast, (im not even going to comment on the comment they made about less time, just get the popcorn popper and a soup can geez) and you are not fully developing them that way.  It is almost like, well we can give you roasted coffee, but if you want it 'professionally roasted' well....  Don't get me wrong I own a few I roasts which yes I do still use so know all about the 8 minute roast, but for a better coffee, umm NO!!
I love the concept and yes know you can loft them higher to stretch out the time but that only goes so far, it's akin to ok lets keep them at 325 for ten minutes...do we really want to do that?    Maybe I just don't understand the fluid bed process well enough but to me it just seems like you don't have a lot of real control over the process, which is why most people kind of go that route to begin with.


This is the one that is hardest to be open minded about, because all of my short 4 years of coffee roasting has been on drum roasters. After the gene cafe, I took a roasting class with Terry Davis at Ambex in clearwater. When I started the class,I was of the opinion that all these aroma and flavors that our esteemed cuppers pick out was a bunch of BS. Terry made me see that even though I could't do it (and still can't), it was in fact real and a result of training.
Well, at some point in all the reading about fluid bed and hands on with the new roaster, there was an 'AH-HA!' moment where something made sense to me. Most of the fluid bed roasters that Michael Sivetz designed and built from the 80's on were true fluid bed and had to be scientifically designed to use a specific batch (charge) weight (1/4 bag, 15 lb etc) because of the loft motor and roast chamber choices. THere was a 'sweet spot' of variables for a given charge. This was fine for commercial setting and has a lot of advocates.
The Artisan 6 is not a true fluid bed roaster, it is a 'spouting bed' resulting from the conical roast chamber and the diffusion of the loft motor air. In both cases the coffee is roasted by transfering heat into the moving bed of beans. We do the same thing in a drum roaster. There is a lot of science going on here with the thermo and fluid dynamics which I do not understand, but I don't need to understand it to use it. Intuitively, I don't see how enough heat gets transferred into the beans through that cylinder of hot air moving through the center, but it does. And most important in the spouting bed configuration...it is fully controllable over a large range of charges. The higher the 'spout', the less heat gets transferred because it is simply being moved 'through' the bean mass. The lower the 'spout' the more heat transfer. Understand the parameters of the heat transfer and you can control the roast.
Here is an artisan graph of a very early roast #425 of Guat HueHue. I entered the times and temps into the artisan software manually because I didn't have the TMD-56 meter working yet: See attachment
 

This looks very much like a sonofresco profile to me.
Here are the last six roast time-temp curves graphs downloaded from the Amprobe showing 6.5 - 9.5 minute roast times and only one went into 2c:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2r160p9qh922dgx/GCBC_CCA6_R429-R434_TTprofile_2014jul16.pdf
Group 1: R429_CRV_454f_T0710_20140710233600-L1
Costa Rican Volcanes 2 years old 454F 7.1 min
Group 2: R430_CRV_455f_T0840_20140710233600-L2
Costa RicanVolcanes 2 years old 455F 8.4 min 2c
Group 3: R431_MAC_459f_T0650_20140710233600-L3
Mexican Altura Chiapas 459F 6.5 min
Group 4: R432_GHC_F455_T0950_20140711141909-L4
Guat HueHue CODEH 455 9.5 min 'profiled'
Group 5: R433_BMS_F449_T0950_20140711145240-L5
Brazil Mogiana YB 449F 9.5 min 'profiled'
Group 6: R434_VCD_F449_T0880_20140711152350-L6
Vietnam CauDat Temple Hills 449F 8.9 min 'profiled'
There is good reason that old farts (talking about me and a majority of our club membership I'm sure) are skeptical and cynical... too often it is justified. But I am always curious and looking over the horizon for better. I like what I see here.
Kevin

Offline Ascholten

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #23 on: July 17, 2014, 01:55:25 PM »
Thank you for the detailed reply Kevin.  I was not trying to disrespect you or the roaster in any way, as I honestly don't know enough about it to do so, but was concerned on how fast it does roast.

Ive roasted on a LOT of different roasters and experimented on some really goofy and well im talking about me, so don't have to be polite, ok stupid things and some stuff just to say I did.  Some of the ways I won't share because I don't want a brick thrown at me but Ive done good and not so good coffee.   Nozzle block coffee anyone?  The nuke will probably know what I am talking about.

I have learned my Behmore very well and can tickle some really nice stuff out of it.  I have learned my I roast very well and while it gives good coffee, I have to say that the Behmore seems to bring out more subtleties in it because it does not roast in 7 or 8 minutes like the I roar does.

Heat gun coffee, popcorn popper coffee, stir fry coffee,... camp fire coffee...I even built a solar oven to roast coffee and yes it did work not too shabby, but is rather difficult to control the heat.   I even went to putting coffee in an aluminum well cup / pot and dunking that down into almost 500 degree hot oil just to see if the heat would transfer.  (ok so I did admit to one stupid ass roasting attempt).  All of my experiments, I find that the best coffees I have produced have been roasted over a bit of time, ie not rushed.   

Can you get maybe 12 to 14 minutes out of this thing?   Not sure but running coffee in a CFB roaster could this possibly dry them out or something detrimental running them that long? 

It's not off the table yet, im just trying to hone down between the northern roaster which is a china import however i have been hearing a lot of good about it or this one which seems really nifty as well IF it can really perform as I need.

Aaron
As I have grown older, I have learned that pleasing everybody is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake!

Offline Ascholten

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2014, 05:09:59 PM »
I did roast on my boat once,  just had to try it, it worked ok.  Now if i can get the espresso thing working good I might be onto something.

java on the water.

Aaron
As I have grown older, I have learned that pleasing everybody is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake!

Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #25 on: July 17, 2014, 08:02:31 PM »
Aaron, I have attached the very first roast #424 Sumatra on 2014jul01 I did on the Artisan 6 which I dropped at 17 min and 416 F.  The heater was set to 5kw and left there, mostly just from my ignorance. Very pooched. Had a peanut aroma after a day. After reading your post I still had that roast so I made a shot...had not changed any for the better, still baked, non-dimensional. But my point is that with 10kw to work with almost anything in between should be possible. Thats what I'm going to explore: expanding the development to compare to the quick roast and drum roast. And I guess I'll do all the experiments on a boat, but all I have is a 15' sea-doo and only 50 Amp availabile. Oh well, I'll make do.

Offline peter

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #26 on: July 17, 2014, 08:10:41 PM »
I don't have a way to chart my roasts like that, but that ramp looks similar to what my roaster puts out, except that I'd finish a Sumatra 35-40 degrees after the beginning of 1C, with an overall time around 16min.  That may be where you produced the grassy notes; a long-ish roast and too light.
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Offline kjr55w

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2014, 05:45:58 AM »
Thanks Peter, I will jack up the heat going into 1c and see what that produces.

Offline peter

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #28 on: July 18, 2014, 07:45:00 AM »
Thanks Peter, I will jack up the heat going into 1c and see what that produces.

It'll be different w/o the thermal mass of a drum, but I push it hard after ~285* (thinking by 5:00 the drying phase is over) but then slow it down ~30* before 1C so that it doesn't rush right through 1C, and I can get some flavor development between the end of 1C and end of roast.
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Offline Ascholten

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Re: Coffee Crafters Artisan 6 fluid bed roaster
« Reply #29 on: July 18, 2014, 03:08:19 PM »
Not sure how it works with your sumatra's but with kona's the opposite can happen, if you heat them up too quick, they can get grassy.  Waiting to hear how it works for you.  I am really interested in hearing how this roaster performs.  Like I said I have no problems with a fluid bed, just wondering if it can be controlled as precisely as we sometimes need on some coffee's

Aaron
As I have grown older, I have learned that pleasing everybody is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake!