how to connect a Behmor roaster with Artisan software to track your roasts
how to connect a Behmor roaster with Artisan software to track your roasts
a small batch profile roasting breakthrough! roasting (and the chocolate we make with it) just got better
A really exciting breakthrough for makers roasting using the Behmor roaster! Whether you are using a Behmor for production, or for test-batch roasting.
The background
Nicole of The Chocolate Passport attended our in-person Roasting Workshop last month, roasted 6kgs on the San Francisco roaster (if I recall correctly, she chose the new Chiapas, Mexico origin from Osito Coffee and Cacao for her roast), and as she roasted she experienced in-real-time data tracking using a software program. She then went home and brilliantly figured out the how-to’s of attaching a computer to her Behmor roaster’s internal thermocouple.
Part of the beauty of using an actual roaster (as opposed to an oven), besides even heat application, is that by using a thermocouple inside the drum/bean mass, we can accurately read, and track, the second by second temperature changes occuring in our roast.
Details and a download are below. Many (x a zillion) thanks to Nicole for so graciously sharing the how-to’s and creating the Artisanscope pdf for us.
A roasting re-cap (read this is you’re new to roasting, or need a refresher). If you just want the integration details, scroll down.
Roasting is the single most important step of the bean to bar process that is solely in the chocolate maker’s hands. We take flavor possibility—all the hard work that goes into an origin—and bring it to life, expressing it (we hope!) through our unique palate, and palette, of preferences.
This is truly where art + science becomes the pursuit of our craft.
If roasting cacao mystifies you, scares you, worries you, or confuses you, you aren’t alone. Not only are many makers often freaked out by it, but the majority of chocolate experts, educators, sommeliers, and awards judges have, understandably, minimal, if any, understanding of it.
A big part of the confusion is possibly because, unlike specialty coffee (a roasting-focused craft from the get-go), there is no universal consensus in craft chocolate about roasters vs ovens OR about which equipment targeted to craft makers is actually a roaster, and which is an oven fitted with a drum. Some makers opt for oven-baking, an approach that can yield acceptable results: what it doesn’t yield though, is roast data. I share the quote below because it describes all ovens, including the most expensive commercial convection models.
Baking, the most precise endeavor in the kitchen, is powered by the most imprecise source of heat: the oven...The amount of time the oven actually spends at 350°f is negligible. If your oven is miscalibrated—most are—then 350°f could mean anywhere from 300° to 400°, before the heating cycle begins. It’s all mind~bogglingly imprecise.
~~Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
A roaster, fitted with a drum that allows even heat application, with controls used to increase or decrease the amount of fuel that creates the heat, allows the user to “apply” more energy exactly when they need it, or slow it down when they don’t, much like the way a car allows a driver to apply more fuel (give it the gas) and speed up, or back off the gas pedal and slow the speed.
If a maker uses a roaster to roast cacao and also tracks their roast—by making note of the speed at which the roast progressed (the rate the temperature climbed) and the points in the roast it reached important temperatures (volatile activity is heat-dependent), plus the length of time in the flavor development zones, and then the end roast temperature and overall roast time, they can use this data as a guideline the next time they roast the same origin. This data is a roast profile. It’s the only way we can not just make subtle or broad changes to our roast at the exact time and temperature of the roast, but have an understanding of “what happened when,” and the difference any changes made in the final outcome: the chocolate.
In other words, we can ask “do I like the flavor I achieved?” and then repeat the roast (getting the same happy results) or, we can make the adjustments needed to get a different flavor result.
This is how, for the many makers who track the profile of their roasts, roasting can become a joy, and roasting skills become a tool to improve our chocolate.
PSA: If anyone tells you they have the quick-fix go-to/how-to for roasting, they’re probably trying to sell you a piece of equipment. And that means, they aren’t actually roasting for making chocolate as a chocolate maker, meaning, sourcing the beans, deciding a game plan for roasting (a profile), roasting the beans, then making chocolate from those beans, selling the chocolate, repeat.
How roasting works
As the roaster’s temperature begins rising, the beans begin warming. This happens because as the roaster’s heat increases, it transfers (gives away) its energy to the ambient/room temperature cocoa beans.
As the roaster gives away its energy to the beans they absorb it (and begin to get warmer), the roaster needs MORE energy to keep doing this. Momentum is what happens when the roaster gets the fuel it needs in order to keep applying heat at a steady, increasing rate. The ability to control how much energy, and when it is applied, is how we control how fast the beans warm up, how long the roast progresses, and how long (or not) the beans have heat applied at the important phases.
When a roaster has an external digital thermometer attached to an internal temperature probe set into the bean mass, during roasting when energy transfer occurs, we can read the changes in temperature.
As the maker operating the roaster (confusingly we’re called the roaster, too), what we “do” during a roast is respond to how fast or slowly the temperature of the roast rises. As the time progresses and the temperture rise, the roast (our beans) passes through a series of phases: warming/drying phase happens from start until 212f/100c, as volatiles are first released at boiling point 212f/100c the roast the flavor change phase happens, at 240f/116c we begin to make our final decisions about end temperature and end time length.
If we capture (write down or track using software) the roast data (time + temperature) we have the data that is a roast profile.
Why having the roast profile is useful
Simply, we can then pinpoint exact flavor notes and use the profile that best brings these out in an origin.
Ever since John Nanci hacked a Behmor to add an internal thermocouple attached to an exterior digital thermometer, bean to bar makers have had a way to track a roast profile exactly the way it’s done on big roasters…with the exception that, when using a big roaster, the data doesn’t have to be written down, but can be watched, managed, and captured by software designed specifically for roast profiles.
What roast software does for us
There are two commonly-used roast software programs—Cropster (this was what we used in the Roasting Workshop), and Artisan, which is free, and what is used in the how-to. The Artisan website has a lot of info, including tutorials. You’ll notice that under “supported machines” (machines = roasters), Behmor isn’t listed. This is because Behmor does not come with an internal probe/thermocouple. This can be added; there’s info below. Yes, it’s safe: the hack was invented by John Nanci (Chocolate Alchemy), who has partnered with Behmor on various coffee projects.
Artisan is an open-source software that helps coffee roasters record, analyze, and control roast profiles. This software can automate the creation of roasting metrics to help make decisions that influence the final coffee flavor.
BTW, that list of roaster manufacturers is handy if you are planning a roaster size upgrade.
How to integrate Artisan software with a Behmor
You must first have hacked your Behmor for use with a thermocouple and exterior thermometer. Here’s a pdf download, and a basic video.
Here is the very detailed guide Nicole created for linking your Behmor to Artisanscope, the free software provided by Artisan.
Here’s to happier roasting, a better understanding of targeting flavor, and crafting the kind of bean to bar chocolate the origins we work with (and the folks who enjoy our results) deserve!
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Mackenzie
Thank you for this!
I am confused about one thing; is this strictly for monitoring and recording only? I find that the most frustration with my Behmor roaster is in controlling the programming.