Fresh Roast SR800 - Thermocouple to iPhone?

#1: Post by **MassWineGuy** » December 3rd, 2022, 3:06 pm

Is there a way to use a thermocouple and send the data to my iPhone or MacBook? I'd like to try getting more accurate temperature readings, but if not, I'll be fine.

December 3rd, 2022, 3:40 pm

Definitely. There are a few threads that discuss it a bit. Search Sr800 or Fresh Roast and Artisan Or Phidget.

This is what I did:
Fresh Roast SR800 adding Phidget, Artisan

December 3rd, 2022, 4:08 pm

Holy cow. That looks like five tons of complicated work just to get a precise temperature reading. Five tons more than I want.

#4: Post by **MNate** » December 3rd, 2022, 5:24 pm

Any temp probe you have can work... I stuck a grill probe with a temp readout down the shaft. The advantage of having a readout on something like artisan is you really are watching the Rate of Rise graph to know when to make adjustments to your heat. But having a consistent drop temp with any basic probe would help give you some consistency roast to roast. That's not going to be much better than the built in readout you already have though.

December 3rd, 2022, 7:51 pm

Thanks very much for this, both of you.

When roasting, is it advisable to start with a high temperature setting? Or to increase gradually? The idea of baked coffee is not appealing.

#6: Post by **ira** » December 4th, 2022, 2:20 am

When I started with a popper back in the 80's, I had a popcorn pumper with a toggle switch on the heater and a dial thermometer inserted through a hole drilled in the top and a spacer to set the depth. At the time, I was extremely happy with just that and a stopwatch to keep track of the time so it's possible to do quite well with quite minimal instrumentation. Not that I wouldn't suggest more is better, but at the time I was quite happy with my roasts.

December 4th, 2022, 12:18 pm

Maybe I'll just start with a bbq thermometer with a long metal sensor cable.

#8: Post by **MNate** » December 4th, 2022, 9:39 pm

If you can get the probe to be in the mass of beans most of the time (won't be at the very start) it's ideal.

This is what I ended up doing and I think it could be replicated without Artisan's help. Really not complicated. The main difference in roasts is where you end (drop) so that's the main thing you're watching for and recording and deciding to go longer or shorter next time. This is from post 234 on this thread (where we seems to try a lot of methods over time): Fresh Roast SR800 - 1/2 lb Air Roaster

MNate wrote:I've ordered an Ikawa Home roaster so this was my last day roasting on the Fresh Roast (I hope, but who knows?). Mainly I'm just wanting an Espresso bar roaster that I can leave out, dump beans in and hit a button and not watch. But yet it's fun to think I could dial in things - I don't know if I'll get that with the Ikawa Home but I'm not sure I got that with the Fresh Roast either. I basically roasted on the Fresh Roast until first crack stopped, then dropped the roast.

Here's what I came to find worked best for me:
- Equipment: Razzo 12" tube with extended chaff collector hooked up to 2 fidgets TC, one in the bean mass (BT) one just above a bit (ET).
- Charge Weight: 225g (I did 200 for a while then ran 250 a few times to deplete my beans and found it not bad, but 225 moved the bean pile a bit better and actually required fewer fan changes as the roast went on than the lower batch sizes do)
- No preheat
1. Start Artisan
2. Dump beans in and quickly start at 9 fan, 1 heat.
-2b. Drop fan a notch whenever the bean pile trampolines (you'll notice the drops on the graph below - I don't think I recorded each fan adjustment but you can kind of tell from the graph - I was making some great banana bread at the same time)
3. @about 1:30 start moving the heat up by 2 digits every 30 seconds or so until heat 7
4. @ FC start decreasing heat (in Artisan I'm just trying to keep the RoR below 20 by this time and decreasing, but not get to 0 before FC ends.
5. Drop the roast as soon as most of FC is over, or if it's above 405 degrees on my Artisan (many beans I'm hoping this is actually more like 395).
6. Let cool in the Fresh Roast for only about 30 seconds, then quickly dump into my homemade cooling tray (in my case a laptop fan system with a cake dusting pan).
-I do the next batch immediately or so and haven't found any difference in how things go.

Here is my last roast. Turns out to be a very even roast with this Rwandan. You'll notice the quick drops - those are each time I have to drop the fan speed. No way around that. Smoothing is only set to 6... I could set it way up and make the curve look nicer, but this level has been helpful.

I've enjoyed learning a lot on the Fresh Roast and think I've gotten ok results. At this point I've just been wanting to roast a good every day comfort blend sort of thing which I expect the Ikawa Home to be able to provide equally well. I've gotten some ok Ethiopians out of this too, but I don't think my skills with it are good enough to go coffee exploring. I'll likely be looking for someone local - maybe even one of my friends or at one of our gatherings - who would like to try this out too! Nice cheap inroad - I do think my time with it has saved me money overall and increased my knowledge and experience.

#9: Post by **SutterMill** » December 4th, 2022, 10:21 pm

If your up for the investment, the new V5 razzo tube has a built in thermoprobe port. Its a fair chunk of change but worthwhile if using the SR800 for awhile.

Personally I would go for the 9". I have the v4 12" and its a little to tall for comfort.

December 4th, 2022, 11:45 pm

So is it generally believed that going over 375 F is too hot? If so, uh oh.