Huky and gas vs airflow

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
hoangelos
Posts: 3
Joined: 8 years ago

#1: Post by hoangelos »

So, I have been roasting for over 4 years, and of late on a Gene Cafe. It's recently had a heater problem, and I'm considering upgrading to a Huky to take my next trip deeper down the rabbit hole. I've started to read all that I can on the forum and educate myself. So, there's some confusion I have trying to learn more about how to roast coffee best on the Huky. There's a lot of focus on adjustability in the fan. However, there's not really as much discussion with adjustability and measurability with the gas.

I was watching an old video on airflow in different model roasters put out by Chris at Coffee Shrub a while ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOcSIkLloRQ). I would interpret this to mean that we should focus more on adjustability and controlling the roast with the burners on the Huky and less with the airflow (but not no adjustment with airflow.

So, leads to a question on ideally, I'd love to connect my airflow rate and gas pressure to the burner to artisan. I've seen efforts on the air pressure, but not a lot of talk on the gas pressure, and that's what I'd think is the most important. I mean if you have MET, I see you can see an indirect correlation with what you are doing with the burners, but it would be great to get the whole picture.

day
Posts: 1316
Joined: 9 years ago

#2: Post by day »

hoangelos wrote:So, I have been roasting for over 4 years, and of late on a Gene Cafe. It's recently had a heater problem, and I'm considering upgrading to a Huky to take my next trip deeper down the rabbit hole. I've started to read all that I can on the forum and educate myself. So, there's some confusion I have trying to learn more about how to roast coffee best on the Huky. There's a lot of focus on adjustability in the fan. However, there's not really as much discussion with adjustability and measurability with the gas.

I was watching an old video on airflow in different model roasters put out by Chris at Coffee Shrub a while ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOcSIkLloRQ). I would interpret this to mean that we should focus more on adjustability and controlling the roast with the burners on the Huky and less with the airflow (but not no adjustment with airflow.

So, leads to a question on ideally, I'd love to connect my airflow rate and gas pressure to the burner to artisan. I've seen efforts on the air pressure, but not a lot of talk on the gas pressure, and that's what I'd think is the most important. I mean if you have MET, I see you can see an indirect correlation with what you are doing with the burners, but it would be great to get the whole picture.
No problems with adjustability. Manometer to measure pressure in Artisan: got it!! if you purchase one of these manometers it should be compatible soon, though still waiting on the executable file to test run and make sure its all good (no problems expected though).

There are a variety of ways to get fan input, the best I have seen is a guy on hukyforum that actually bought a fan with analog outputs of voltage and hooked it up to adruino and can not oInly record via artisan but also controls it via artisan. If I hadnt already spent the money on my Variac I would have done that. Unfortunately the hukyforum has been down for a few days now.
Yes, i you per this on an iPhone

hoangelos (original poster)
Posts: 3
Joined: 8 years ago

#3: Post by hoangelos (original poster) »

So the manometer you have gives a differential pressure reading right. So this is logging just what the delta is from previous reading right? I don't understand where the manometer is installed? It's inline before the burner, but after the adjustment?

So in terms of airflow, I thought I saw something that measured the wind in the exhausted was it? or do people just measure the voltage?

day
Posts: 1316
Joined: 9 years ago

#4: Post by day »

It is quite straight forward. You can zero it out prior to each session if you so choose. To avoid barometric pressure affecting results you cap one end. Then just connect it in as you would a regular pressure gauge with a 1/8barb-1/4nft connection. The most accurate would probably be a slack tube though I suspect it might be hard to stop it precisely, I really don't know that though, just a wild guess.
Yes, i you per this on an iPhone

edtbjon
Posts: 251
Joined: 9 years ago

#5: Post by edtbjon »

I've been roasting with the Huky for almost 2 years now and I'm very happy with it. Getting back to the question about why there seems to be more focus on adjusting the fan vs attention to the gas setting...
Most of the Hukys are sold with the IR burner, which is a nice and simple solution. It may be a little bit finicky, but nothing you cannot live with. Once it's ignited, the heat is fully adjustable and as there is a decent gas gague ("manometer" in some languages) it's easy to set the heater to very exact and repeatable values. It's very cheap on gas too. :) Now, this heater has caused very few problems, at least very few reported problems. I personally had to exchange a busted gas gague and from what I've read, that is a somewhat popular thing to do whether the gague is busted or not. (My new one is twice the size of the old one and much more easy to read.)
So why the focus on controlling the fan? That's because the setup you get when you collect the box from the postman doesn't include any fan control except a simple damper on top of the exhaust. I assume there are many Huky users who are happy with that solution and who doesn't bother to upgrade from Mr Li's original construction. But most of us here on HB and over at the Huky Forum seems to like a bit more control, which is why the use of electric/electronic fan speed controllers (usually some version of "Variac") seems common.
If you come from a GeneCafe (which I did too), roasting with the Huky is something completely different. Apart from having control of and having to control all aspects of the roasts yourself (heat - air - profile - etc), you're no longer a push-button passenger, but rather the driver of the roaster. It took me quite a number of roasts to even get on par with the results of the GeneCafe, but once I got the hang of it there was no turning back. With all the input and dedication from a number of Huky users available now (as compared to two years ago), I guess I could have gotten much better results from the start if I had to start all over again.
I record all my roast settings (heat and fan) including the recorded temp data into Artisan. I wouldn't mind to hook up the actual controls of the heat and fan to the computer, but as I don't mind having the very small (a few seconds) discrepance in setting these data points, manually twisting the gas knob and then moving the mouse in Artisan (or sometimes viceversa). As I normally don't do more than two or three changes to the heat and fan settings respectively during a roast, having these steps automated seems to over-complicate things. (But getting to doing "only two or three changes" came down from doing many more changes, all of them recorded into Artisan. Post-analyzing these graphs indicated where I could simplify the controls.)

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hankua
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Joined: 14 years ago

#6: Post by hankua »

The Huky is a good modular platform for tinkering with gas and air control. In this respect it's more of a hobbyist roaster than professional machine. Here's one owner who's goal is automation:
https://www.hukyforum.com/index.php/topic,1080.0.html

hoangelos (original poster)
Posts: 3
Joined: 8 years ago

#7: Post by hoangelos (original poster) »

edtbjon

Thanks for some explanation. I understand the lack of the adjustability of the fan. But my main point is that even with the IR burner it seems the immediacy of the effects on the Huky should mean that the fan should play a minimal effect in roast development as the heat. At least from what Chris was discussing on the video I link to.

In fact, I would think the greater problem should be the lack of fine tuned adjustments to the burner. In many professional models there's seems similar lack of adjustments in airflow. Sometimes just three or four positions.

SJM
Posts: 1819
Joined: 17 years ago

#8: Post by SJM »

hoangelos wrote: In fact, I would think the greater problem should be the lack of fine tuned adjustments to the burner. In many professional models there's seems similar lack of adjustments in airflow. Sometimes just three or four positions.
The needle valve which comes with the HUKY provides plenty of adjustability for the IR burner. It does make sense to change out the oem gauge, however, to give more accurate readings and thereby make those adjustments easier to control. Mr. Li has been shipping the HUKY with a gauge which reads from 0-10 kPa, only about 4 of which are necessary; therefore replacing that oem gauge with a Dwyer gauge which reads from 0-3.75 has suited the needs of many of us early adopters.

When I got my HUKY the oem gauge went up to 7.5 kPa. You can see in the photograph below how very little of even that gauge is useful for roasting with the HUKY. The second picture shows the Dwyer replacement. The small pie part of the first gauge now takes up the whole area of the new one, so the increments are easy...

SJM
Posts: 1819
Joined: 17 years ago

#9: Post by SJM »

hoangelos wrote: So in terms of airflow, I thought I saw something that measured the wind in the exhausted was it? or do people just measure the voltage?
Some of us have used an anemometer to test the impact that each setting of our variac (or other fan control gizmo) has on the flow. Once you establish and record what impact each setting has on airflow the anemometer has done it's job and is no longer needed.