It happens that you run out of certain green beans. Often those beans can just be replaced by another one. However, if those beans play a part in one of your blends you might want to replace them with comparable beans without changing the recipe otherwise. Especially, if you just received the new harvest of that very same bean. Here we assume that you are managing your green bean inventory with artisan.plus.
Blend without replacement
Let’s assume you have your standard Espresso Blend defined like this.
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| Espresso Blend with 5kg remaining stock |
The indicated 5kg available stock is not enough to roast another full 15kg batch of this blend as the stock of its main ingredient is just 2.5kg. The Artisan app indicates this by marking the batch size red.
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| Artisan indicating missing stock |
Luckily, you just received 2 bags of the new harvest of this bean.
Of course you can edit the blend definition and replace the ingredients that is running out by its follow-up before your next roast. However, what to do then with those 5kg left-over from the previous harvest? It should be totally ok to “blend” this remaining stock of that Brazil and fill the missing amount with beans from the new harvest.
Blend with replacement
Why not specify the new harvest as a replacement for the previous harvest in the first place? Just click on the “Add/Change replacement ingredients” and establish the new 2020 crop as replacement bean. Replacement beans will automatically be used as substitutes once the linked component runs out.
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| Espresso Blend with replacement |
The artisan.plus platform estimates an additional 240kg range for our Espresso Blend with this replacement.
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| Estimated reach with replacements |
The Artisan app automatically generate an intermediate blend recipe for the next batch that consumes up that left-over part and fills this batch up with beans from the specified replacement.
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| Intermediate blend recipe |
What is left to do is to promote the replacement as permanent component and specify a new replacement for it once it is available.
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| Replacement promotion |
All succeeding batches will automatically be composed using the updated recipe based on the promoted replacement.
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| Intermediate blend recipe |
Further applications
Of course nothing prevents you in defining some beans already used as an ingredient in a blend as replacement of another ingredients. The replacement mechanism can also be used to automate the transition to succeeding harvests of single origins by blend recipes with just one component.