Roastero

Over a year ago I got the FreshRoast SR700 coffee roaster, which has a USB interface for controlling the roasting process.  It came with an application to do that, but from what I read it’s not very good…so I never ran it.  Instead I found Roastero, an open source alternative that provides an even finer level of control over the roasting.  The application is written in Python, and should be completely cross-platform, but I was never able to get it to actually run.  I tried in Linux, OSX, and Windows with varying degrees of failure.  So for the last year I’ve just roasted my coffee manually, like some kind of sucker.  But finally I noticed that they did have a few pre-packaged versions available under the Releases tab of GitHub, at least for Mac and Windows.  And sure enough, it installed and ran on the first try.

Pictured above is my first roast, following the included “Diedrich Style” recipe:

This profile simulates the Diedrich drum roast slow start / fast finish concept.  The idea is to get to 1st crack at about 11min of heat, and then finish the roast 2-3min later

It’s a completely different style than I usually roast…much more subtle.  My normal roast runs at high heat from the start, and sometimes I drop it to medium after first crack before going back to high to finish.  And my roasts are normally done to second crack within 8 minutes, where this one ran (per the recipe) for 18 minutes overall and never even got close to second crack.  I’m generally a fan of darker roasts.

But the beauty is that now that I have the software working I can fine-tune my recipe to produce the exact type of roast I want, every time.  No more inconsistencies with some roasts coming out lighter or darker than others.  And now that I can more or less guarantee that I have the same coffee I can start experimenting more with different brewing styles to hone my skills in that arena too.