# Bread Machine / Heat Gun 1st roast



## Stevebee (Jul 21, 2015)

After reading some old posts I decided to try roasting using this method. A £10 breadmaker on Gumtree, a thermometer / thermocouple , a heat gun I had (Earlex variable temp one) , a fan and 2 colander also had and a quick download of Artisan and I was good to go. The last 2 steps were 3 tin foil baking trays stapled together for a lid and a spare fire blanket to insulate the tin.

On dough cycle, the paddle agitates slowly for about 4 mins then continuous for 86 mins and there doesn't seem to be any overheat cut out so no mod required.

The first attempt I had no idea if the heat gun would give enough heat so had it on max. Mistake.

6 or 7 mins later, smoke and charcoal beans.

Batch 2 , medium heat (5/6) , a roast time of 13 mins well past 2nd crack - overdone again

After reading a lot more about profiles etc and installing Artisan tried again. A lovely s shape profile, decreasing ror with 1st crack at 7:50, dropped at 10:30 , Artisan % 29/45/25

I normally drink pourover so did a 3 way blind taste with the wife with my currant Kopi coffee (Rwanda) and one from Pact. To my suprise , we both chose the Brazilian I roasted.

I am finding that with the variable temp heat gun and the Artisan graph I can adjust to get any profile I want and as the gun is only on approx a middle setting there is not scorching. Will continue as the more I roast the more I learn. This forum has been so useful in giving me the info I needed to get started


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## PottyMouthedBuddhist (Oct 18, 2016)

Steve,

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but wondered it you might be able to help me out with a couple of questions based on your experience:

1. What size batches are you roasting?

2. What temperature do you set the heat gun to in order to get you to FC at ~8:00? I'd prefer to get to more like 10:00, but would be interested to know your settings

3. And lastly - do you have any idea how to get FC start and FC end to show on the Artisan graph when you've saved it and reopen it later? During the roast, they are clearly displayed, but afterwards I only have the curves for ET, BT and deltas displayed - the FC information is present only in the roast properties section, which doesn't give me the visual info that I'd like

Thanks for any answers you can give!


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## Stevebee (Jul 21, 2015)

My batch size was 300g which gives me about 250g roasted. I tried up to 600g but was too long / tipping as the beans get too close to the heat gun.

My gun goes from 1 to 10. I'm estimating that 1 is 100c and 10 is 550c based on the specs. For a FC of 8:00 I'd set the gun to 400c and leave it at that. If you preheat to 180c it cuts the time by 0:30 to 1:00. If you leave the heat at the same level you get a nice declining ROR. Just before or at FC I reduce the heat but only by 1 or 2 (50 to 100c) as the system reacts quickly to heat input. This slows down ROR but temp doesn't stall and extends the development time between fc and drop. I aim for 20% dev time. When FC starts, I have a table that shows me 20% and 25% dev time drop times. I use these and the difference in temp from FC and drop. By reducing the heat at just before FC you can get good development but still keep the beans from getting too dark.

With Artisan, the bog standard download has buttons at the bottom that I click during the roast. These are shown on the graph both live and after its saved. The FC marks the start of the yellow development phase. Haven't changed FC time but if I wanted to change the timing of an event I move the cursor to when I want it on the bean temp and right click the mouse. It then gives you a list of events depending on where on the line you are. Simply choose the one you want. If FC isn't showing after its saved must be some setting in Artisan as in mine it has always shown the same before and after.


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## PottyMouthedBuddhist (Oct 18, 2016)

That's fantastic, thanks Steve - very much in line with what I've found so far, in terms of reducing the heat at FC; I'll definitely experiment a little based on what the info you've given above.

I've been through every setting in Artisan and can't get the damn FC points to show on the graph. It's bizarre, because they are recorded quite clearly in the roast properties, and they've come about by me clicking the standard buttons as you say. The only thing I wonder is that I downloaded the latest Beta version and maybe it has a bug (although I'd think plenty of other people would have picked that up). I'll drop them a mail and see what they say.

Thanks again for all that info, looking forward to my next attempt armed with all that!


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## PottyMouthedBuddhist (Oct 18, 2016)

I've just realised something - the FCs / FCe times are incorrectly stored in the roast properties as minus values. Because that's all I've seen so far I thought it was odd but intentional, so I guess there is definitely something wrong there somewhere.


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