If you roast on a Fresh Roast, here's something important: your roaster displays air temperature, not bean temperature.
Why It Matters
A drum roaster's probe sits in the bean mass — 400°F means the beans are roughly 400°F. Your Fresh Roast reads the air flowing through the beans, which runs 30–70°F hotter depending on batch size and fan speed. The difference is higher at the start of the roast, and lower by the end..
In practice:
- First crack shows up around 430–460°F on your display (vs. the textbook 385–400°F bean temp)
- Temperature curves look spikier — air responds faster to heat changes than a bean mass
- Your numbers won't match drum roaster users — and that's completely fine
How RoastSource Handles This
RoastSource knows your Fresh Roast reads air temp. Generated profiles have temperature targets calibrated accordingly. The milestones (charge, yellowing, first crack, drop) are what really matter — and those are universal.
If you later add a probe (like the probe included in the Razzo V5T), RoastSource will use bean temps from the probe, that is much closer to the actual bean temperature.
Practical Tips
- Focus on consistency, not absolute numbers — if FC happens at 435°F on your roaster, that's your number
- Watch the trend, not the reading — is temp climbing steadily? Stalling? That pattern matters more than any single number
- Log your milestones — even without a probe, "FC at 5:30, fan 5, heat 7" is incredibly useful for next time
What air temps do you typically see at first crack? Let's compare notes below.