Hey friends, I’m reaching out to see if anyone has had a similar experience and has advice!
I’ve been roasting on my Bullet for almost a year for my small roasting business. Last week, I noticed that my 1000g Costa Rica was taking longer than normal and stalling around 194C (ITBS). The entire roast took about 22 minutes, when it normally finishes up around 15 min. Aside from having done a deep clean recently, nothing has changed, as this is a regular recipe of mine. The weather isn’t really a factor (like I originally wanted to believe) because I roast inside (windows open, but the temp hasn’t been lower than 65! Ugh, SC autumns). I’ve since roasted about 3 times, different beans, different recipes and all have similar results…longer roast times. I have upped my starting temp, upped my power and have muddled through with decent results but would love to know if anyone has experience this before?
Just to confirm, you cleaned the lens of the IBTS at the same time you did the rest of the roaster? Even if you did, it may be that something (usually chaff) has gotten into the viewport of the IBTS’s IR sensor. So it may be worth a try cleaning that again (vacuum, swabs with alcohol, clean swab each pass).
If that’s not it you will need to get Support involved. Perhaps you have a power board issue- they can interpret the error codes (they’re saved on the server) and guide you via email.
I deep cleaned the rest of the roaster first and then cleaned the IR sensor once this became a problem but still no change! I have since opened the front plate back up to make sure nothing was visibly in the way, but nothing.
Thanks for the response. I’ll definitely give them a shout!
what’s the differential (if any ) between the Bean Probe and the IBTS sensors in these latest roasts? What are they compared to previous roasts (which aren’t 22 minutes in length). This should point you towards the problems. Raise a support ticket and get that ball rolling. Best of luck with everything, hope it’s sorted soon.
I just scanned thru your recent roasts and noticed that most use a preheat of 446°F. However the 3 recent roasts that are the longest have a preheat of 392°F. I’ll guess that may be the culprit. The issue may be that something has changed the preheat setting without you realizing it.
Without thinking about it too much, there are at least 3 ways to change the setting-
with a recipe
with a roaster f/w preset (part of setup)
by adjusting the preheat target as a back-to-back roast
The last one is complicated (after dropping the roast, hit F1, use +/- above F1 to change the preheat setting, hit PRS to start preheating) so that seems like an unlikely sequence unless you changed purposely.
I don’t use Playback so I can’t address something happening thru that path if Playback is something you regularly do.
Anything here give you an idea where something might have changed?
Bruce
Edit- btw, room ambient will definitely affect roast duration.
The two preheat temps are two different recipes, but that’s a good point, I haven’t actually tried a higher temp recipe to see if it is experiencing the same lag! I’ll give that a shot and see if there’s a difference.
As far as room ambient, I would love to blame it on that! I created the bulk of these recipes during the hot summer months so maybe that’s all this is? I’m inside (window ventilation system) but you’re thinking that that could impact the roast significantly? I’ll experiment with my higher preheated roast and report back if that changes anything! Thanks so much for taking time to reply!
I see effects on the order of 1 to 2 minutes in total roast time (15 min vs. 13+ minutes) from changes in ambient in my shop (mid-70s for the first roast vs. upper 80s for the last). I don’t recall seeing anything on the order of 4 minutes- that’s pretty big! I typically use a preheat of 401°F. And the effect is usually that the first roast is the longer one.
Curious- have you recently updated f/w to 605 or 606? I recently went to 606 and oddly my total roast time is more consistent. But then ambient temps are lower now as well. Updating f/w can be an issue with RT3 and has really blind sided a few here- think long and hard before going there.
Bruce
Edit-re: ambients mentioned above, those are summer ambients in SE Arizona with a swamp cooler going.