Newbie here. I did 3 seasoning roasts then my first real roast, a honey process. I didn’t use my laptop yet. I just used the control panel and watched and listened to the beans. I just documented my steps on a notepad for now. The roast looked good. Time will tell in a few days when I brew my first cup. Maybe on my next roast I’ll hook up my laptop and learn the software.
I love having a cooling bowl! My gene cafe didn’t and I never bothered to get one. Welp, I was missing out. I normally roasted to the first pops of second crack, but the gene coasted past that to more of a French roast. Today, I dumped at the start of second crack and it was an immediate stop. I heard the beans cracking in the cooking bowl. Yay! A true full city to full city + roast.
I do have a couple of questions. Is there a way to turn off the usb light? No biggie there, but neither the A or B button did it. I actually discovered the A button changed the temp sensor. Now I don’t know what version I’m using. I assumed the lower temp would be the IBTS one? Is that correct?
Thx for any advice for a newbie.
Lobe it that you went all manual and not used the software. Let us know how the beans cupped 
You can’t turn off the USB light once you plug it in and the power to the roaster is plugged in.
Did you get a manual with your roaster? It has a couple pages that goes through the display. The lower temp is usually the bean prob temp if you’re roasting less than 800g batches. If you’re roasting 800 to 1000g the readings for the BT and IBTS temps will be closer to each other once you reach 1st crack. I think there is a little light indicator on the front panel whether it is BT or not when lit - I don’t remember exactly.
Thx! I was reading the pdf manual, but flipping back and forth in it since the info I needed wasn’t in the order the manual was written in. So maybe I just missed the notation of which temp was showing when the green light was lit.
Lots to learn. 
I may opt to roast a bit more without the computer. The idea of that is so new to me, so it’s nice to just focus on learning the roaster
and how the beans respond in this unit versus my old roster.
Crossing my fingers that these beans will cup well in a few days. Patience isn’t my virtue. 
Definitely a learning curve with this roaster. I came to it from a FreshRoast SR500 so an even bigger learning curve than you coming from the Gene Even though I use the software to track progress, similar to you my “recipe” is still written out manually each time I roast and I notate the adjustments (i.e. I don’t use the automated recipe feature) as it allows me to adjust based on what I’m seeing, hearing and smelling.
Enjoy the journey thought. Happy Roasting!
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