Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

[justintime]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

Here is another roast with a 3k resistor and profile 2. this picture is at 6min

[justintime]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

finished profile 2, with 3k res.
Definitely darker than the last time with a 3.6K I did notice that the fan was pretty steady throughout the roast. It started of varying but then settled down to high and stayed their until the last stage 1:30 then varied for a few seconds and stayed full.
I noted the temp reading was 433 when programed to 455. If this is too dark I will go to a 3.3k
opinions? anyone with a picture of a profile 2 roast?

[chips60]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

Thanks for the feedback and the image editing.

I will have to start placing my Coffeesnobs card on top of my beans and some white or at least set the white balance first, for future photos to give a better colour indication.

Made an espresso with the sigri and all I can say is wow. Very smooth. easy to drink. Roasted some more yesterday with a custom profile a bit darker and looking forward to tasting it.

Will have to look into slowing the start down. I believe they designed the IRoast to go flatout initially (read it on a forum somewhere), however with the resistor swapped the fan speed varies early in the roast which it didnt before. Didnt have the TC setup before changing the resistor so it is hard to judge what it was like in the early stages before, however it must of been worse as 6 to 8 minutes the roast was coming out much darker. 11 minutes it was charcoal.

Will see what can be done.

Cheers
Greg.P

[justintime]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

Good Idea, how can I obtain a Coffeesnobs card.
Everything I have read tells me that the Iroast2 was set for 115V in America. I have 123V I believe that its the higher Voltage in the countries where they are sold is the problem. Looking at this forum shows that people with higher line voltage in both Au and GB have had to modify them.

[hazbean]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

Mal: sorry I didnt have time to finish my "gimping", I left it a state where I
could see the bean texture and had some idea of bean texture, I usually
confine myself to levels and brightness adjustments but this time I fiddled
with hue a swell and regretted it as soon as I saw the result on my
calibrated monitor at work

Yes, the iR goes it own way for the first few minutes; this behaviour is
described on their web site. Nothing will persuade it any differently. IIRC
its something to do with starting with cold beans and needing to get
them warmed up; I think the Korean (?) designers have a view of the
stereotypical home roaster as resident in rural Idaho, keeps the beans
stored outside, and only roasts in February

IME the "modified" profile, while by no means ideal by accepted standards,
produces a huge improvement. My Harrar roasts for example were just
flat before the mod, but brought out expected subtleties and nuances
afterwards. Also, in the only direct comparison I did with the Gene,
a 13 minute Sigri roast on the iR2, the cupping was quite close, more
so than I expected. The iR2 does roast very evenly when in good shape.

Greg, yes if you have something white (or a photographic grey card)
in the pic, then someone viewing it can calibrate to that. Lets know how
the experiments go.

Larry, sorry don;t have a pic of a profile 2 roast. In fact, I avoided profile
2 because it has a dip from 235C to 205C at 6 minutes, and I think
that will stall the roast. I settled on a continuously rising profile, as in post 1.
AFAIK you can get a card through the "buy green" link at the top of the page.
I agree that higher voltage has something to do with it, but no predictable
relationship as far as I can tell.

[simiansgrunt]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

Wow, I have much to learn.
I was given an I Roast 2 for Christmas, and thought it would be a good hobby, but I must admit I have become obsessed with my hobby, at what stage does a hobby become an obsession?

Any way back to the point... I am also having no joy with being able to experiment with profiles, and while I can do good roasts I would like to experiment more, to learn about what is actually going on.

It is posts like this one that really make my day. Thank you CS and keep up the good work

[simiansgrunt]

Re: Civilizing the i-Roast2 (Part 1)

I took the plunge and I am really happy I did. I can now experiment with longer roasting times, and try different profiles.

I installed a 2.7K resistor and am going to try the 1.8K next, but that is only for tweaking purposes, as it stands at the moment it is a lot better.

[rcarlyle]

I used a 2K ohm resistor and was very happy with the result. One thing that may save others some grief: I turned on my iRoast and used one of my saved presets. The roaster ran for exactly 30 seconds and then reset to 0. I tried restarting and it kept running for exactly 30 seconds and reset to 0. I tried running on every other preset, same result. The cool down cycle went for the four minutes. The problem was that the resister I put in had come a little loose, I pushed it in good and tight and it worked perfectly.