artisan blog: Artisan v3.1.2

Initially planned as a minor release to address a few specific issues that has been reported, things took an unexpected turn. In the end, we added several useful features to our so-called "free-but-limited approach."

Enjoy Artisan v3.1.2!

THANK YOU!

The Artisan project relies on donations from individuals and companies who value Artisan for its impact on their customers, work, or personal lives. If you're interested in supporting this project, consider making a donation. And for an even more rewarding experience, consider becoming an artisan.plus member!

As before, Marko and Paul, the creators of artisan.plus, have been the main contributors to the costs. They designed the service to provide a financial foundation for the Artisan project.

The following individuals and operations (in no specific order) did support the development of this version with their donation: Robert A Redcay Jr, Chad Yeftich, Brian Keneipp, Nino Zufall, Eva (orchidees.ca), Joaquin Albeiro Aranzazu C, Charlie (Trailhead Coffee Roasters LLC), Pam Vore, John Eickhoff, Eliacib Marquez, Todd Harrell, Alan (Q's Coffee Roasting), Brian Beebee, Jorge Granja, Pedro Maculo, Kelvin Yap, Chris Liles, Charlie (Trailhead Coffee Roasters LLC), Joshua Roberts, Co Tang, Jake Mosher, Ed Neely, Steve Elder, Chris (bean miles), Dave Janiszewski, Burkhard Stoltenberg, David Oakes, Michael Atkins, Adam and Briana (Red Light Roastery), Derek Stearns, Robert Silverman, Emma Walters, Martin Côté, Tod (Tod's Coffee Roastery), Steven Louis, Wen Tai Tan, Edward Roseboom, Gustavo Adolfo Cano Martínez, Tyler (Percussive Coffee), Jeremy Good, Jonathan Davis, Scott Angelo, Paul (Blaffke Kaffeebar und Rösterei), Timothy Graham, Richard Stulen, Angela LaBrie, Timm & Lori (Conversatio Coffee Roasters), Michael Silverman, Vladimir Sida, Lyle Phillips, Andrew and Lisamarie (Howlin Owl Roasters), Katherine Dolliver, Heber Santana, Carlos Bustamante, Patrick Turner, Alpine Wellness Clinic, Nakamura Tomoaki, Thai Dinh Phan, heheboy, Kwok Cheung, Premier Roofing, Paul Hebert, James Fee, ufoactivity, Rene Garcia, Stephen Mather, and David Wheeler.

We would like to thank especially the ones on the growing list of those that are supporting this project regularly: Richard Williams, Vanik922, Mark Kelley, Cecil (Rainshadow Coffee Roasting Company), Dennis Dran, Norman Hardy, Colin (Iron Mule, Inc.), Doug Leblanc, Milorad Popadic, Patricio (Balloon Coffee Roasters), Flint W Orr, John Ewing, Rick (Software Polish), Michael Kane, Frans Goddijn, Darrell (BYGood Coffee), Eugene Nightingale, Bruce Dillingham, Lou (Covabrelli Coffee), Evette Eickelmann, Kelvin Yap, Bradley (Fiesta Roasters), Marvio Vinhaes, Gregory Cipov, Manuel (Caffe Terzi), Jose Inacio Rocha Filho, Daniel (derkaffee), Kathleen Poer, Crozatman, Milorad Popadic, Peter and Peroesjka (Bethells Beanz Coffee Roasters), Antonius Asbroek, Richard Bigus, JP Salvat (Paco’s Coffee), Richard Williams, Sinisa Novakovic, Bradley (Fiesta Roasters), Robert Merchant, and Adam Glass.

There are those passionate Artisan folks who diligently tested continuous builds, beta, and release candidate releases. They've made valuable suggestions for better translations, changes, and new features. They've also reported numerous issues and resolved discussion items. Thanks a million to all of you! You know who you are!

Special thanks go to Gwilym Davies (The naughty dog) for suggesting the addition of the sorted roast defects, Gábor (impresso) and Balázs (Roastopus), who tested the new IMF control and automation features and suggested many improvements along the way, to Brendan Hammond for testing the Energy Meter integration, to Kemal Akdas for improving the Turkish translations, to Mike Furlotti who developed the Aillio R2 support and Chris Moritz (aka Yakster) for testing the Aillio connection.

Let's get moving! Share your ideas, report any issues, help us improve the documentation, and correct and extend the localizations. If you're short on time, consider making a donation to help keep us going and develop a next version.

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What's New?

The Artisan v3 series is going strong with more than 30k downloads! However, there is always room for improvement. The major extensions are the following (check the Detailed Release History for the complete list).

New Features

Let's quickly review the most important new features.

ROAST DEFECTS

As smaller operations automate production, color sorting machines are increasingly used to reduce defects, especially quakers, and ensure product quality and consistency. To report the defect rate (e.g., for tax purposes), we added a field to the Roast Properties dialog to enter either the weight of the defects or of the sorted coffee yield, and the defect rate will be computed.

The completed items editor of the roast scheduler has been extended by the corresponding fields as well.

Of course, we added defect information to all roast reports and shared them with artisan.plus.

EXTENDED EVENT REPLAY

Event replay, introduced in Artisan v0.4 (4/2011), automatically adjusts roasting inputs like airflow or heater based on a previously recorded template profile. This allows easy duplication of roasts on Artisan-controlled roasting machines. In 2017, event replay by time was complemented with event replay by temperature, duplicating actions when the template events environmental temperature (ET) or bean temperature (BT) was reached.

This release extends the replay mechanism by optionally ramping event values, enabling smoother control than the traditional step-wise control. Further, this enables time-based inlet-temperature profiles or IT/BT profiles (inlet temperature control with bean-temperature set points) for machines that offer inlet temperature readings and inlet target temperature control (like the IMF or Sivetz machines). On machines offering only regular heater control (e.g. Santoker Cube, Probat, ...), the Artisan PID can be configured to provide the corresponding target temperature control.

The very affordable little Santoker Cube air roaster, connected via Bluetooth, automatically roasts the 70g to perfection. Constant 60% air and the Artisan internal software PID control the heater, taking target values from the ramping replaying IT SV background events. This setup consistently produces identical roasts with 11.6% weight loss at roast color Tonino #120.

Two new replay modes combine time-based and temperature-based replay. Increasing event values are replayed by time, while decreasing event values are replayed by temperature. This prevents heater increase steps from being delayed due to a slower roast development, further slowing down the roast.

Below, you see that the replay mode by BT delays the replay of events after TP as the current roast progresses slower than the background profile. This is counterproductive as the roast gets further delayed by increasing the heater later. The replay mode by time/BT replays early events where event values increase by time and delays the replay of later events based on the slower BT increase, slightly reducing the heater level later.

Replay by BT

Replay by time/BT

Finally, the replay of the DROP event can now be configured separately based on time or temperature.

ENERGY METERS

To meet increased stakeholder pressure, regulations, and the business imperative of sustainability, more operations must report progress on reducing their carbon footprint. Reliable figures are required, so we introduced energy consumption and CO2 production estimation for the roasting process in Artisan v2.4.5 (2021) and added corresponding reporting to artisan.plus.

Our partner Algrano recently started to provide precise CO2 estimates for green coffee, which we integrated into the artisan.plus platform. Combining these estimates with those from roasting, the platform computes the total CO2 footprint of every kg roasted coffee.

Dave extended the Artisan Energy Meter for this release to support precise electric or gas consumption measurements from connected instruments like the Yocto-Watt meter from Yoctopuce or any energy meter connected via one of the supported protocols like MODBUS. This allows roasters to monitor and report on their energy use and carbon footprint per roast even more precisely. The first roasting machines with built-in meters are now available (like the Gemma series from Sweet Coffee Italia), directly reporting energy consumption. While on it, Dave also added the option to configure the renewable gas mix as more roasters start to use bio gas.

Added Machine Support

This release supports two new machines: the Aillio R2 line (thanks to Mike Furlotti) and Carmomaq's Stratto Lab sample roaster (thanks to Gustavo do Prado Ferreira dos Santos).

The Loring setup auto, introduced in Artisan v3.1, finally works as expected, setting the CHARGE and DROP events when the machine's controls start or stop a roast.

Artisan now provides dedicated setups for each Giesen machine type, with access to hi-resolution curve data if available, and machine-specific data and actors.

IMF machines' vortex valves can now be controlled directly by Artisan in MANUAL mode or indirectly in AUTO mode by controlling the IMF PID inlet temperature (IT) set point (IT SV). This allows the use of IT/BT profiles as discussed above.

An additional PID setup for the Santoker Cube configures the Artisan PID to demonstrate working with IT/BT profiles on these small machines.

UI Improvements

Several small UI improvements have been added, such as dragging-and-dropping items in the statistic summary configuration and sorting rows in the background events table.

Events in Step, Step+, and Combo modes can be edited using the pick-and-move feature, which is also available while roasting. To restrict movement to a single axis, hold the SHIFT key. Once an event is selected, you can move it using the cursor keys (while event sliders don't hold focus) or delete it by pressing the BACKSPACE key.

Setting new event values during roasting got easier too. You can double click an event slider LCD to set a specific value. Even easier, just activate the slider and type the new value using the number keys, correct typos using BACKSPACE and register the value using the ENTER key.

The help dialogs now feature a search field and finally, users in need for greater precision can view percentage values, such as roast loss, with two decimal places.

New on artisan.plus

The scheduler now provides a convenient way to skip tasks by simply hiding them. You can achieve this by either dragging the task out of the schedule or by selecting the task from the context menu.

The stock popup menus now suppress the pick year unless it's necessary to differentiate an entry. Additionally, entries can be optionally rendered in reverse order, presenting the bean's name first, followed by its origin.

The names of schedule items can be configured similarly in the scheduler on the artisan.plus platform.

Additionally, the display of roast weights in the list has become configurable in multiple ways.

To enhance the organization of stores, you can now select the preferred store for first listing, hide away infrequently used stores, and optimize store representation for a more compact display.

The artisan.plus platform has recently undergone several enhancements. For instance, it now tracks the carbon dioxide impact of green coffee and the weight of defects in roasted coffee. Paul's video tutorials on our YouTube channel cover those and many other features of the artisan.plus.