To Wait or Not to Wait?

#1

First Post.

I’ve known about the Bullet for about a year. I first saw chatter about it from a Sweet Maria’s video. So after a while, I’ve decided to make the upgrade. Buying this new V2 iteration is nice because it’s not a new “green” machine.

The decision now is how to get it. Sweet Maria’s has no official ETA. And first come, first served. You can buy directly from Aillio but a little weird with Taiwanese currency.

So, which is the best source? Disclaimer, I live about an hour away from SMs. Thanks!

#2

Interesting timing … Sweet Maria’s says they have a V1.5 available now. Is it worth waiting for the V2 with the induction PCB or not? Thank you.

#3

For me, and I just purchased a V1.5 in March, it would definitely be a Sweet Maria’s choice. They are going to be very accessible and quick about dealing with a defect problem (if you need to swap a unit). In the March order of (130) units that they received, they held back (15) units for customer support.

Getting one from them requires that you be watching their web-page closely around the time the next shipment will arrive. Don’t depend on the “email me when they are in stock” thing because in my case I never got any email notice from them.

But, a couple of days before the Bullets went on-sale, their Bullet web-page shared the exact date and time that the units would go on sale that week. I made sure I was logged-in and ready to add one to my cart the minute the cart status changed to allow me to buy. They sold all (115) units in just 17 minutes, so ya gotta be ready.

#4

I just checked and they are back to an “out of stock” status. These things seem to fly out the moment they come available. There are some advantages to the V2, but that depends on what voltage source you want to use and whether you will typically roast the max capacity. I use 115V and don’t do 1Kg roasts, so if I had the chance to snag a V1.5, I wouldn’t hesitate to grab it.

#5

I actually live an hour from SM’s so I can drive over whenever. I have 110. I assume the induction PCB can be upgraded later? Thanks!

#6

I believe Jacob said the new board was currently only shipping for the 220v but will come to the 110v as a retrofit. So honestly getting a v1.5 now isn’t a big deal based on Aillio’s history of being able to keep the hardware updated (like IBTS).

I believe SM do pre-announce a couple of days ahead of when they will open sales but you do have to be buy-the-new-iPhone slick on the trigger finger it appears…

#7

Well, Sweet Maria’s just confirmed my order for this V1.5. So, it’s mine. I’m going to pilgrimage out to Oakland to pick it up. Pretty excited.

So, how do I download profiles from other users for the few batches? Thanks.

#8

And thanks for all the good advice!

#9

Oh heck yeah…a pilgrimage worth taking and congrats on snagging the one they put up for sale. I don’t have any profiles that I’ve shared (yet) because I’m still in the phase of getting used to this roaster. I’m also a person that roasts without paying much attention to the graphs, but I do like that stuff!

I’d advise (as Sweet Marias does) doing (5) 1lb “seasoning” roasts before you start roasting for consumption. Those (5) seasonings are throw-away beans, but time well spent in “getting your feet wet” with the roaster.

#10

No sweat. I’m not going to dump my Gene Cafe right away.

But one thing I thought was that I can download and then use other user’s profiles for roasting beans at least in the early days. It then lets me learn along with the sights and smells.

FYI, I haven’t heard first crack/second crack for 6 years with my Gene Cafe. So I need to get readjusted again.

#11

Check out this thread (here) that has some home-crafted, inexpensive stethoscopes. I’m now hearing every crack of 1st and 2nd the moment it begins and I have hearing loss.

Crack Sound inventions

It is a beautiful thing to have a Trier for the first time in all these years. Your gonna love the Bullet and I still have my backup roaster too.

#12

I too was one of the lucky few to snag a Bullet V1.5 from Sweet Maria’s after the March sale.

So far all I’ve done is assemble everything and run 4x 400g seasoning roasts through it. I’d planned to roast some Kenya Othaya Mahiga AA through it tomorrow but I may very well do a few more seasoning roasts since I have the dregs of a 10lb bag of sweeps from Mill City.

I’m not certain that this isn’t specific to my laptop and roaster so as always YMMV:

Use RT 2.2. Using the RT 2.3 beta, I never got the login screen and couldn’t connect to the Bullet at all. With 2.2 I was able to log in and connect to my Bullet for the first ~8 minutes of the roast. At that point RT stopped, I assume, communicating with my Bullet (no matter what I did in the software or manually no changes were reflected in RT) and I ended up with a drum high temp error.

I got beyond that and roasted another seasoning batch, number 4 I believe, and everything appeared to be working properly but from one new user to another I’d strongly recommend staying away from anything beta (I should know this) until you have your feet under you.

The Death Star, my nickname for the Bullet, is an awesome roaster. I can, and did, spend a lot of time watching it adjusting power and fan levels to hit my PH temp of 230C. It’s one of those machines that you can just sense has the ability to do really cool things if you can ever wrap your head around the logic it uses to do what it does.

I suspect the coffee rabbit hole has gotten a whole lot deeper now …

#13

If you really feel you need a roadmap to get started I’d suggest joining the Bullet Facebook group. There is a conversation there that gives a very complete, detailed and useful roadmap that will give you a nice medium roast. I don’t typically use other’s profiles but I wanted to test this one on a 500 gram roast and it turned out quite good. I think the only way to really get to know this roaster, and what it is capable of, is to jump in and get your feet wet.