Please don’t be so serious, it is all a learning process and some of us may have bad versions, no all products are perfect, but I am trying to discern what the heck is wrong with my machine, that I cannot get anything resembling all the great roasts other seem to be getting. So, take a relaxed approach to reading this and know we’re all here to get to the other side and learn.
Many of you have good roasts, and I have tried a number of profiles and made my own, but overall, roasts come out bland, and unbalanced.
My question, is how do we know if our machine has some issue? Is there detailed depictions and instructions on the workings we should check? Where are loose tolerances allowed? When does a part become an issue?
I’ve also noticed if I have the constant decline in RoR it is worse than allowing a slight flick at the end. Why would that be a thing? Almost every roaster here seems to avoid the flick, and then when I avoid the flick, I get raw or bland flavors depending on the development time.
Aillio support was not able to detect and issue electronically, but is there a hardware failure that few people seem to get?
I don’t live in a city, so I can’t try another machine to confirm whether it is the machine or not, but I do notice how different the standard roast profiles are from my own. Which makes me believe there is an issue with my machine.
Could it be an airflow issue? I don’t feel much or any airflow when I put my hand near or in the intake zones. I don’t detect any suction or movement of air. Although I can sort of imagine it, I don’t actually definitely notice air moving into the intakes.
Over the two years of owning, I have noticed that regardless of the bean or heat application or fan, my roasts tend to fall abruptly after FC. Not an extreme fall, but nothing that resembles the coffee mind sort of constant decay curves.
Does this imply an issue with my machine, or an airflow issue?
I’ve never gotten sweet, rich, or silky textures notes from any of my roasts regardless of heat application, fan, or development time, or RoR.
I’d like to do a complete overhaul and go over my machine with a fine tooth comb, but I don’t entirely know what things are supposed to be tight tolerances and what parts of the machine are working or supposed to be working etc. and I don’t know how or if the induction could go wrong.
Just wondering if there is any detailed information about these machines so I know if these flavors are just what the Bullet does, or if I can fix this machine and get it to behave more like what I see in the Coffeemind examples.
Thanks for reading and thank you for your comments in advance.
Almost a year late, but read the post today. Could be it the bean? I have had one particular bean that behaved well till First Crack, and almost, invariably, crashed after. It took quite a bit of tweaking of my P values to resolve that crash.
Meanwhile, I also have another bean that behaves well till FC and then takes its own sweet time during development and another that runs after FC.
@mailmattmorgan.DE16 I took a tip from Scott Rao’s second book where he addresses the issue of crash after FC. Following what he had suggested, rather than increasing the P before the crash, I made quite a few gradual drops in power leading to the FC and it resolved the crash.
Thanks @cash0612 that’s a useful tip-- very interesting tips from this book, looking forward to experimenting more with the techniques mentioned.
I am wondering in the roast posted above-- is there a reason that you decreased the power going in to FC, then increased it again? Any reason not to hold it steady until your desired end temp?
I see in Rao’s CRBP he says to NOT decrease power in the first 12%DT (~1 min after FC) to prevent a flick-- but I see that you’re actually increasing it, which increases your ROR at the end.
My batch size is 1.05KGs and I do Dark or Medium Roasts. My target is a Maillard of 5:00mins and Development of 2:00mins for Medium and 3:00mins for Dark. By letting the roast carry on post FC without any Power changes makes it drag on for too long. The only way I can achieve my development target is to increase the P.
That said, I do not do the same for all my beans. I have one that runs after FC and that does not require an increase in power. The above is mainly for my other bean/s that do fine till FC and then slow down to a crawl.
Finally, as a newbie, I did follow Rao’s principle quite religiously. Over the years, I have tried doing things based more on the R1 V2 that I use, the beans that I use and the location where I roast and the results have been good so far.
The main exhaust tube that runs along the top of my Bullet came loose when I was cleaning it with a brush. However, I hadn’t ever removed the tube entirely until a couple months ago. When I did remove it, I noticed that between the drum and the outer hull, there appeared the white insulation did not fill the entire space.
Has anyone else removed their exhaust tube looked inside the Bullet?
I notice that my chaff containers warp pretty quickly, and it could in part be from how much heat would build up and travel directly from the drum out the back, instead of having an insulated barrier, which would force the hot air to go through the exhaust.
I’m not saying this is an issue, but curious if there is supposed to be an air gap or how many people notice this?
I wouldn’t think much about it, but whenever I first replace the chaff collector with a new one, I get better convective results, and then the plastic warps after several batches and then I notice a move towards conductive heat and a change in the roast curve. Or at least that is a possibility or partial theory. So I am not trying to say what the cause effect is, but curious if other people have this air gap or empty space with no insulation, and if it has any correlation to the chaff container warping. (Which then may cause air flow issues)
Have you looked at the insulation inside the Bullet? Does is fill up the air gaps or just partially?
