Hallo all,
I would like to give a short feedback about my experience so far with Kaffelogic.
First of all, the roaster which I used since years on a regular base is a Hottop 2K+ drum roaster (controlled by Artisan). I also have some experience in roasting with Ikawa 3 Pro and I am also from time to time involved in roasting on bigger, professional roasters with Cropster. All for fun, I am not involved in any way in a coffee related business.
I did a couple of roasts with the Nano7, a device which I already like so much, since the roasting process is so stressless, fast, clean, straight-forward. I prefer to do some back to back roasts with the Nano7, instead of one Hottop roast, because it's more "relaxed". And I very much appreciate the result in the cup!
Nevertheless, I compare it with other procedures, and feel that some points could be slightly improved, in order to make it even better.
For example, what I struggle the most with by far is: why the KL user must define technical parameters as "preheat power" if the system is PID controlled? Isn't the idea of a PID-controlled system to increase/decrease automatically the parameters (in this case the power), by the software? If the power is too much, then the PID software should cut it down, if it's too less, then boost it up (yes, there are limitations for this!).
All PID based devices, eg. espresso machines, work in this way - eg. the user programmes the desired extraction temperature, and the PID "knows" to care about the offset and to control the temperature (of course according and depending of to the P, I and D pre-programmed parameters, which define the way how the system respond).
Having said this, for me as a normal user would be more convenient to input into the profile the batch size, eventually the ambient temperature (or better, the Nano should measure it), and the system should do the rest, because exactly this is the main advantage of a PID controlled roasting vs. a manual roasting.
(side comment: on Ikawa Pro one defines the profile curve on the smartphone, and you press "Go" - that's it!)
Regarding the profile/ log graph, I would appreciate a dedicated side bar for the RoR scale - I understand that one can use the RoR Y-axis multiplier in order to see a more accurate RoR graph, nevertheless, a dedicate Y Axis (for example on the right hand side of the graph), would help to easily read the values.
Regarding browsing the USB-stick from Studio, i miss free deineable fields, as for example "weight loss (%)" - at least for me an important roast parameter (actually me personally I do not care about "development ratio (%)", but for "total roast time", "development time", "weight loss" etc...
Also, a possibility to delete roasts logs directly from the Studio USB-Stick browsing would be cool.
Regarding the Nano7 device itself, I would wish for the next version, besides controlling it wireless, a more convenient access to the USB-port, and a device handle to easy empty the roasted beans.
Besides this (don't laugh too loud!): illuminated control buttons.
Please take all the above feedback friendly and constructive. I already love my Nano7 so much, that I decided to sell my Hottop - you did a very cool job, congrats, guys, and keep on going like this!
And of course I can't wait to hold soon in my hands the Booster and BT Option.
PS. I forgot to tell that user defineable shortcuts for functions would be nice. For example, the shortcuts for "smooth point" or "smooth all" do not work on a Mac with german keyboard...(I must use the drop down menu for these...)