Roasting a Drum Profile On The Hive

[@shanewilson2152]

Hi Mike, this video snuck past me, l really enjoyed it. ☕☕☕

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Glad you enjoyed it Shane. The hive is a lot of fun to roast with!

[@luigicollins3954]

Mike, another very interesting video! As I watched the video, I thought about the simple technology in the Hive: accurate bean temperature. With that one data item, along with eyes, ears, and nose, an absolutely fine roast is achievable. I have a few questions. Is the speed of agitation critical with the Hive? Have you done any testing of various speeds of agitation and seen any significant differences? Others have commented here that roasting with the Hive may yield sore muscles, so it makes me wonder if agitation speed has a lot, a little, or no effect on the roast outcome. And I also wonder if vertical agitation (think of a motion like flipping an omelet or pancake) makes any difference. Do you have any idea? I noticed on your log sheet where it looked like you were keeping track of ROR over roasting phases, particularly Milliard and Final Development. Do you routinely calculate and watch the average ROR in a certain phase(s)? Average ROR is one thing I have never thought about calculating, so I wonder if I might be missing something important. On my most recent roast on the Bullet, I calculated average ROR's during all three phases: 58 deg F/min in Drying; 20 deg F/min in Maillard; and 8.3 deg F/min in Final Development. I am always impressed to see the nice roasts the Hive produces.

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Hi Lou. No tests regarding agitation. My goal is to keep the beans moving so they don't scorch. No sore muscles. There are different techniques to help relieve tired arms including changing from left to right or double-handed. rotating back and forth between these helps. Because the hive is shaped like a donut and has that screen in the middle and because the bottom has the special shapes to roll the beans, i think it makes sense to rotate rather than loft. The open center is really an ingenious feature. The heat not only warms up the metal but it goes up into the center opening and creates air circulation that eventually comes out the top. So between the beans rolling in a circular motion and the heat coming in through the open bottom, it seems to produce wonderfully even roasts. Ahhh, the "average Rate of Rise". Yes, at 12:15 in my video you will see my chart with my average ror for each phase (30/dry - 12/browning - 7.4/development). It was easier for me to simply use the average. In reality, there is a curve so while I'm roasting, especially in the very beginning, my ror might not be spot on. There were some other times like just at dry where i overshot my next temp because my ror had not lowered quite enough to meet my "average" number. All in all I think i controlled the roast and the outcome was really close to what i did with the drum. It is a really fun roaster and if you are interested in roasting 120-170 grams of a special coffee the hive can do it.

[@210doc9]

Steve already asked the tired arm question…how bout the smoke/smell in the house afterwards? Guessing it was a light enough roast that your range hood was dealing with it? Years ago with my Behmor I did one roast indoors with 2 downdraft cooktop fans running full blast, but my wife found the odor objectionable. I’m thinking an overhead exhaust would be more efficient. If you ever run out of topics, you could trick this out with a TC and Phidget to record the profile….thx for an informative video!

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

You are right, the darker you go the more smoke there is. My hood fan can handle the smoke that seems to appear for me during the last 90 seconds of the roast. There is a little smell in the house but it isn't smoke city. No noticeable smoke is visible in the kitchen. I've run my Behmor for years under a hood fan with no problems but again, i'm not roasting dark. As far as objectionable odors go, that is a whole topic isn't it. The better the ventilation the happier your spouse will be.

[@edwardwaterhouse7698]

I do enjoy your videos on the Hive and I will be following this profile this afternoon. Currently using a Colombian bean and I find that with the Hive I’m getting better results for my palette by extending the development phase to about 23 to 25%. This still produces a medium roast but seems to get more flavour out with this particular bean.

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Hi Edward, thanks for being a subscriber. I know my personal taste lends towards less roast and more origin. That is the beauty of home roasting, you craft to your liking. I'm glad you are getting good results on the hive. How long was your total roast time and what time did you hit first crack?

[@edwardwaterhouse7698]

@@VirtualCoffeeLab The bean I’m using doesn’t seem to start cracking until roughly 205°C. First crack was not until 9.30 with total roast time just over 12 minutes giving me 23%. I struggled with temperature management today, probably due to the fact it’s so cold in Scotland at the moment and I have to have the window open to help with ventilation with the camping stove as well as my cooker extractor. Not my best effort but good fun!

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Edward, what colombian bean is it and where did you get it? What is your normal FC temp range. That does seem a bit high. I have a couple of questions. Are you pre heating? Not required, but since we are talking temps i was curious Are you using the 30 second temp chart for your roast to hit events on time and follow a profile? What is your normal total roast time for a roast?

[@edwardwaterhouse7698]

@@VirtualCoffeeLab it is a Munchique Los Tigres Washed Arabica. Purchased from a very good green bean seller in England. My usual routine is to follow your hive profile that you published back in April. I usually pre-heat to about 160°C using 150 g of beans and following that profile I usually get first crack between 8 1/2 minutes and nine minutes. I purchased 3 kg of the beans and have been practising with different development times to see how the taste varies. The last two batches were 2 1/2 minutes development for 23% and three minutes for 25% both of them tasted really nice.

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

I have no idea why your FC is taking place at that temp. When I see higher temps at first crack it is usually because I am pushing the coffee with a lot of heat. The probe tends to pickup the heat from the roaster as well as the beans. You didn't say if you probe was laying horizontally in the bean mass. If your probe is pointing directly down from the dome and not bending and laying in the bean mass that could be causing these increased temps.

[@conradcrisafulli8269]

The Hive digital dome coffee roaster is out of stock. How would you approach getting the profile you demonstrated without the temperature probe. Does the probe really measure BT. Would the Hive dome temp be very close to the BT?

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Hi Conrad. Yea, the digital dome is out of stock, hopefully not for long. It really is a game changer as far as controlling your roast with the hive. Roasting without the digital dome in a video is a good idea and i'll have to do that sometime. The probe does sit in the bean mass and the temps seem to be really really close to my drum roaster bean probe. Because of it's small size and batch size, there will be differences in charge temp and drop temp but all in all i trust the information it provides. If you are industrial enough, you could try and install your own probe. Notice his probe bends so there is more contact with the bean mass.

[@conradcrisafulli8269]

Wonder if the same probe used in the Hive can be purchased on line. Thanks.

[@edwardwaterhouse7698]

Hi Conrad , I don’t know if it helps you at all but I purchased the basic hive and then wished I’d bought the temperature probe to get more control. Because they were always out of stock I decided to fit my own and attached a thermocouple to the dome and linked that to a inexpensive thermocouple temperature display. It wasn’t that difficult to do and the thermocouple Bends to shape for the hive, it was just the stress of cutting through the dome initially!😀

[@conradcrisafulli8269]

@@edwardwaterhouse7698 Hi, Edward. I will have the same stress you had. How did you cut trough the dome? What is the specs on the thermocouple; length and diameter? What did you use to bend thermocouple?🙂

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

I'm assuming if Matt (the owner of Hive) could do that, he would. I'm sure it is related to supply issues like everywhere else.

[@taz1877]

Hi mike can u give me ur advice for this ,( I roasted like 5 times El Salvador washed but the acidity so strong my roasted time like 10:36 )

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Hi Taz, what are you using to roast? how much coffee are you roasting per batch? What time do you reach first crack? Answer those questions and I may be able to help.

[@yourcoffecup]

Did you try to connect hive roaster to artisan?

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

No, i never did. I only used the Temperature display version. That was good for me.

[@thecoffeehand]

Hey Mike, do I see scorching @ 18:20?

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Thanks for watching. Looking through the beans I did see a couple of beans that had some dark spots. In the beginning of my roast during charge and in the first 15 seconds I stopped moving the beans for a brief moment and that could have caused those. That little amount didn’t impact the cup. I used that paper funnel and the hole wasn’t big enough so the beans didn’t go into the hive as quickly as I would have liked.

[@valerywiksman4704]

What kind of roaster behind you?

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Thanks for watching. The 500 gram drum roaster behind me in my intro is a Mill City 500 Gram i bought in 2017.

[@triston574]

Hey, I have been roasting on my Behmor for a while. I was wondering what would be a good next step in roasters. I am moving toward small business and not as much "home roaster". If you or the community have any suggestions please let me know :D! P.S. I do not have an unlimited supply of money haha.

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

Thanks for watching and for being a subscribor Triston. I did a video with a friend of mine who roasted and sold coffee for a couple of years using a couple of Behmor roasters. Then, once he found himself roasting all day just to keep up he invested in a 2k roaster. He bought a used one. He outgrew his 2k in a year and then bought a 12k. So, don't spend a lot of money getting a 1 or 2 k roaster if your business is growing at a decent rate. You might outgrow that roaster quicker than you think. Here is the video of my interview with Trevor: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIq5Z6yQmdmNoJI

[@Stevesbe]

How tired does your arm get? I'm sure an unmarried guy would do much better

[@VirtualCoffeeLab]

That’s funny. Roasting with the hive produces great results. Physically it isn’t that tiring . While roasting, changing to both hands helps. You will notice that in my video.