Using an Energy Meter to Measure Roast Machine Energy Consumption with Artisan

 

Artisan version 3.1.2 allows connecting energy meters to log precise measurements of energy consumption.  Artisan can connect to one or two meters simultaneously allowing measurement of gas energy consumption and/or electricity energy consumption.  This allows the roasting operation to accurately monitor and report on its energy use and carbon footprint. 

Artisan v2.10.0

 

Artisan 2.10 runs native on Apple Silicon and adds support for Bühler und Joper roasting machines. There are some more news (see below).

Probe Arrays

There are a number of reasons why using an array of probes to measure temperatures inside a roasting machine, instead of using single probes, seems to be a good idea. The intrinsic redundancy of probe arrays allows a machine to handle probe failures silently and to report them early on to the operator, avoiding down time. Another advantage is using averages of all readings per sampling time. This increases the stability compared to single probes. Averaging of readings gathered in parallel avoids also the main disadvantage of common software based smoothing, the introduction of delays caused by averaging readings gathered sequentially. Are probe arrays worth it?

Roast Simulator

The Roast Simulator allows to replay a previously recorded roast session. It allows to play with events, alarms, and other settings without wasting coffee.

Profile Transposer

The temperatures recorded and logged in profiles during roasts depend on the exact probe placement among other things like airflow. This makes it hard to compare profiles recorded on different machines. Luckily there are some points in a roast that can be identified based on physical changes of the beans during a roast, like the yellow point (DRY) and the start of first-crack (FCs). The recorded temperatures at those points can be compared and used to construct a mapping from profiles recorded on one machine to those on another machine. The profile transposer is a tool that supports the construction and application of such mappings along the temperature axis, but also along the time axis to extend or compress a profile.

Displaying Development Time Ratio in Artisan

Recent roast profile analysis has focused on using Development Time Ratio (DTR), rather than time, as being the appropriate measure for making changes in power or air flow after first crack begins.  Artisan allows multiple excellent methods to display DTR, and many other useful metrics too. This post will discuss how DTR can be displayed in Artisan during and after roast logging.

Artisan v2.1

This is the Artisan version we will use to prove Scott Rao wrong (or right). We extended Artisan in various ways to facilitate the application of his roasting theory.  Thanks Scott, for pushing us!

Symbolic Formulas: Basics, New Variables and Applications

Each Artisan input channel can be intercepted by a symbolic formula before its data is forwarded to the corresponding curve. Symbolic formulas allow to change data retrieved from the input source before it is further processed, displayed and stored in the internal data structures. In that respect, the use of symbolic formulas is usually destructive to the original data received. From Artisan v2.1 on, symbolic formulas can also be applied to the two rate-of-rise channels.

In this post we recap the basics of Artisan's symbolic formula mechanism, describe the new variables that have been added in Artisan v2.1 and explain their interplay by discussing useful applications.

Keep an eye on the delta!

Once you have developed a profile for a coffee you want to precisely duplicate that one in future roasts. Artisan allows to load this successful profile in the background serving as a template for your production roasts. While seeing the delta of your current roast curve and that template helps you to decide if you should slow down or speed up your roast at any moment, especially if zoomed into the graph somewhat. However, often a numeric value expressing this delta is easier to work with. What about adding another LCD to show this delta?

On Idle Noise

This note describes how I improved the measuring system of my roasting machine to get more accurate roast profiles, like the one shown above. I got motivated by the work of Scott Rao.

Artisan v1.4.0

Here is Artisan v1.4. More than 30 bugs have been fixed w.r.t. v1.3.1 and many suggestions for improvements have been integrated, mostly communicated via our Artisan issue tracker.

UPDATE 17. October, 2018: Artisan v1.5.0 has been released with important bug fixes.

Profile Templates

Once a convincing roast profile for a certain coffee and purpose is found, a roastmaster has to replicate it over and over to produce a consistent product. Artisan offers a list of tools to support the roastmaster on this.

Giesen Roaster Connected

A number of people have asked how best to connect their Giesen coffee roasters to Artisan. Here is a quite elegant solution by Barry that brings his Giesen onto the network for remote access. He owns a 2016 Giesen W6A propane drum roaster, which is equipped with the dual probe options by the factory. So it has a PT100 dual probe measuring environmental temperature (ET) as well as another PT100 dual probe measuring bean temperature (BT). For each of those probes, one channel (pair of wires) is connected to the Giesen control panel. In the following Barry shows how to connect the second channel (pair of wire) of each probe to some magic, such that Artisan can log its readings over the network.

by Barry Randall

Note: since Artisan v1.3 Giesen roasters are supported directly via their network connection.

Roast Calculus

This post is going to review the subject of roast calculus. This calculus is about change and motion. Everything is dynamic. Measurements of changes are vehicles for understanding a wide spectrum of physical processes. Knowledge of the universe comes from observations of changes and not from static measurements. We use calculi in real life every day. In a car for example, the speedometer measures a rate, the speed. The odometer integrates the speed over time, the distance, and the foot pedals control the acceleration, rate of speed.  

by Rafael Cobo

Signals, Symbolic Assignments and the Plotter

Symbolic assignments are mostly used to adjust readings coming from connected devices or to define so called virtual devices. In this post, Rafael Cobo will get you familiar with the extended symbolic assignments he just implemented for the plotter in Artisan v0.9.8.

Connecting Artisan to a Coffee-Tech FZ-94 Lab Roaster

The extensive controllability of the FZ-94, a 100g to 2.4kg capacity range lab roaster from Coffee-Tech Engineering, makes it an excellent machine for the development of roast profiles. It features three electric heating elements that can be controlled separately, controls for both, drum speed and air speed, and comes with three build-in temperature probes. The roaster is prepared for data logging using Artisan via its USB connector.

Virtual Devices and Symbolic Assignments

Artisan supports a wide list of different devices to read data from and to write data to. Several of those devices can be operated in parallel ending up in more temperature channels than one can fit on the display. Could anybody need more?

Fighting Spikes

You might be one of the lucky roasters who gets perfect readings from your meter. However, some don't. Mostly spikes are caused by some electrical interferences between the temperature probe, meter or Computer. In the ideal word those should be resolved by an improved hardware setup. A nice description of the issue and a documentation towards its solution was recently posted to the HomeBarista forum and also a newer post details on a solution. However, in some cases a physical solution is not possible for various reasons. In those cases the new spike removal features of Artisan might help you out.