After Tije made a
custom BT probe for the Coffee-Tech FZ94 roaster which fits in the spot of the trier, I have been using that probe almost exclusively because it shows the BT better during the initial phase of the roast (no "Turning Point" as the hot probe cools and meets up with the warmed up beans) and it measures a higher temperature towards the end, thus allowing greater display precision.
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| Two BT probes: one inserted in the "trier" location, one next to the looking glass |
Recently, when roasting small samples of 200g together with Arnoud of
Hoofdkwartier roastery, we observed that it was less easy to read a stable BT and we thought that the default lower placed probe could be a better one to monitor small batches.
Yesterday Tije came over and he added a little switch to the control board allowing us to decide, before or during a roast, which BT probe to use:
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| Up/down switch installed to select Beans Temp probe location to read from, the lower or upper probe |
If the upper probe is used I can still temporarily swap it for the trier to inspect beans but I use the trier very rarely.
Also, opening the release door just slightly to have some beans escape works to land some beans on the cooling basket below it if I want to get a better look.
Mostly though I decide when to end the roast based on looks and sounds and smell from the machine, the Artisan screen displaying Area Under Curve number (current aim around 300), development percentage (aiming for 25%, a little under 4 minutes) and any significant deviation from the planned curve.
Taking beans out and sniffing them does not add much information to all of that for me. My nose would mainly tell me "VERY HOT".
A large volume roaster who visited me this week to check out the possibilities of Artisan, told me they do not even watch BT closely, mainly focusing on having ET develop along the planned curve.
PS 26 may 2017
Javier Reto asked for more close up details about the wiring on the switch and the BT PID so I post those below. Do keep in mind that this is not a 'paint by number' exercise and it is essential that you fully understand what each component does, how the switch works, what color codes apply to the parts you have in the FZ94 and what color codes apply for the specific parts you ordered.
I took the panel off, turned it upside down for the pictures so keep in mind it's upside down. On the front panel the switch is below the PID.
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| Yellow tiewrap holding the wires bunched together. I'm taking it off for these pictures. |
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| Green-white wires to the new Trier probe. Yellow-Red wires from the existing BT probe. Red-black wires from the switch halfway connected here to transparent wires. |
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| On top, wires to new Trier probe. Bottom, wires to existing BT probe. This picture to show where the middle connectors of the little switch go on the back of the upside down PID. |
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| One extra picture |
PS: in April 2018 I disconnected the little switch after finding that extra wires can cause unwanted noise during experimentation with beta software. To make sure the switch can't be causing this, I disconnected and isolated the extra BT probe pair from the dual probe and connected the lower BT probe pair directly on the BT PID inside the FZ94.
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