This manual shows how to successfully perform your first roasts with Cropster Roast.
At the bottom, you will find some important recommendations that help you assign roast profiles and enter the green coffee inventory. This is a basic requirement to get the most out of Cropster Roast, optimize your roast consistency, track production statistics and create efficient workflows!
Make sure Roasting Intelligence (RI) is downloaded and configured and that your computer is connected directly to the roast machine (plug and play integrations) or connected via USB through a Cropster Connector (data bridge). If you need assistance installing the RI, check our knowledge base or contact support.cropster.com.
Roasting Intelligence (RI)
Roasting Intelligence (RI) training video
This video shows you the basics of your first roast with the RI. For more information have a look at the manual below.
- Windows: Look for “Cropster Roasting Intelligence” in your program files.
- Mac: Look for “Cropster Roasting Intelligence” in your applications.
In both cases, you might already have a shortcut on the desktop. Double-click to start.
RI - Pre-roasting
When you start the RI for the first time you will find the following sections:
- Menu
- Production section: Team member (=today's roaster) and today's production history show up here.
- Roast section: Profile and green inventory to be roasted can be chosen here.
- Measurement section: Displays real-time temperature and roast machine measurements.
Troubleshooting - no measurements shown
- Can't see any temperatures or other roast machine measurements on the bottom right?
Go to the application menu and click Account > Preferences > Machine to review your machine settings.
Find the value that is not shown and make sure the channel is enabled and that the value and chart are checked as Visible. - Can't find the measurement value you are looking for? None of the expected measurements are shown?
Log in to the online platform and go to the machine settings, by clicking on Gear symbol > Machines. There you can select the measurements you want to see in the RI.
RI4 - Pre-roast screen
RI - Start roasting
When you use the RI for the first time you will find a test profile Profile #1 and a test lot Green 1 to use for your first roasts. We recommend creating your own roast profiles and setting up your own green coffee inventory as soon as possible after your test roasts.
- Select the name of the roast technician in the production section.
- Select a Profile (e.g. Profile #1)
- Select Green Inventory (e.g. Green 1)
- Enter the Total start weight.
- By doing this the Start-button becomes active. Load the hopper with green coffee.
- Click on Start.
- Within 30 seconds of hitting the Start-button, charge your roaster with beans. The roast starts.
Note: By default, Cropster's automatic start and end detection are enabled so you can start recording the roast first and then charge the coffee. Cropster will detect a drop in temperature and mark the real beginning of the roast. The same is true for the detection of the end of the roast. You can edit this functionality under Account > Preferences > General.
RI - During the roast
RI4 - Roast screen
You can see following information on the roasting screen:
- Available temperature curves and their values on the right-hand side of the chart
- Rate of Rise for all temperature curves (when enabled)
- Available machine inputs like gas, pressures, rotations (machine and connection dependent)
- Modulation chart at the bottom of the graph
- Roast duration in the bottom right corner
- Modulation phase timer (triggered by adding the comments Color Change and First Crack)
- Event buttons
Under Account > Preferences you can edit which of the above information you would like to see on the screen.
Marking events/making comments
- Click anywhere on the graph to open the comments field.
- The comments field pops up. Enter the information you want to log for your roast, either by making a custom comment or clicking the event buttons like Color Change or First Crack. Comments/events are shown as a red vertical line on the graph and are saved for further analysis.
- You can customize the comments field by clicking on the Gear symbol next to the heading Comments in the sidebar. Some of the possible comments are:
- Color Change: Click Color Change to mark the start of the Maillard phase.
- First Crack: Click First Crack and start the development timer and development time % tracking.
- Gas: If your machine does not provide automatic gas tracking through Cropster, you can use this button to track gas changes manually. Just enter the number without the unit (e.g. 40 for 40%) in the comments box and hit Gas to mark the comment.
- Air: Enter the number without the unit (e.g. 20) in the comments box and hit Air to mark the comment.
- Comment: For other information simply type text in the comment box and hit Text Comment.
If you are roasting with an existing profile, information like gas comments are pre-filled so you always know what is coming up.
Note: You can also add comments after the roast is done. Simply click on the small timer to edit the time you want the comment to appear at and then enter your comment.
To learn more about how to set comments in the RI.
RI - Stop and finish roasting
There are two ways to finish your roast:
- Open the flap: Cropster RI features an automatic start and end function. After opening the flap, cool air will trigger the end of the roast (automatic start and end detection must be activated).
- Hit the Stop button and click Confirm (within 3 seconds).
When you have entered all relevant information, click Save to synchronize the roast with your Cropster online account C-sar.
RI4 - Post-roast screen
You have successfully tracked your first roast with Cropster Roasting Intelligence. Well done!
Stop and finish a roast - Between batch protocols (BBPs)
Note: Learn all about Between batch protocols and how to enable the feature, visit the article: What is a Between batch protocol (BBP)?
Consistent starting conditions are key for consistent roasts. To help you with consistency, after stopping a roast, you can track the time elapsed between roasted batches with the help of the Between batch timer**. This will help you stay within the time boundaries of defined between batch protocols.
A Between batch protocol (BBP) is tracked from the moment the roast is stopped, upon which you can view the beginning of your roast machine's cool-down phase directly from the RI's Post-roast screen.
After having Saved the roast, the recorded BBP will continue to display in the BBP window* from the RI's Pre-roast screen for up to 15 minutes.
Aborting a roast will result in loss of the Between batch timer** count. Upon abortion of the roast, the timer will disappear until another roast is stopped and BBP data will not be tracked for the aborted roast. The BBP window* will be updated after the next roast is recorded.
After aborting a roast, you cannot Restart the BBP via the "Restart" button available from the BBP window.
C-sar - Manage your roasts
After your first roast we recommend logging in to the Cropster online platform C-sar to review the roast, set a reference curve and set up your profiles and green inventory.
C-sar - Review and set reference: Direct Method
- Click on Roasts in the menu bar.
- Click on your finished roast.
- A new window with all the details of your selected roast opens.
- To set the roast as a reference roast, click Mark as reference. A yellow star indicates you have successfully set a reference curve.
C-sar - Review and set reference: Using Roast Compare
This function will be your primary tool as soon as you want to look at more than one roast and compare them.
- Click on "Roasts" in the menu.
Shortcut from within the RI: "Links > Roasts" - Select the finished roasts you would like to compare from the list by checking the box.
- Click on “Roast Compare”
- The Roast Compare report opens. You can now see all the details of your selected roasts.
- Click on “Gas”, “Show Comments” and the roast curve for more details
- To set a reference curve, click on the "Star" symbol on the left side next to the Lot ID or on the right side next to the chart.
Return to Roasting Intelligence
Open the Roasting Intelligence
- Click “Account > Synchronize with server” to fetch the reference curve information and review your ideal roast before your next batch.
All tracked and relevant weights, times, temperatures, gas changes, roast events, color and sensorial values will show here if you recorded them during the roast.
Repeat the roast with a reference curve
- Click "Start" to begin with your roast.
- The curve of your reference roast will be shown in the background of the roasting screen.
Congratulations! You have successfully tracked roasts with the RI and set a reference curve using our test data.
Now it is time to set up your own green coffee inventory and prepare your own profiles so you can create your own roast production data, establish profile references, track quality consistency and optimize your roastery.
Thank you for being a Cropster customer! If you have feedback, questions, or concerns, please feel free to reach out by submitting a support ticket directly from support.cropster.com.
We design and make alterations to our software based on user feedback, so we look forward to seeing what you have to say!
