Notes
Real roast records, not recipes.
A browsable archive of Gene Café CBR-301 roasts, machine-state observations, cup results, mistakes, repairs, and learning checkpoints.
How to read these notes
These pages are records of what happened on a real machine, with real batches and real judgement calls. Treat them as evidence, comparison points, and context — not as universal profiles.
The useful pattern is usually the loop: batch size, start state, target temperature, total roast time, weight loss, cup result, and what changed next.
Useful entry points
Project checkpoint
Roast 120 to Roast 148
The point where the project became much more clearly about machine state, tools, logging, and the limits of simple profile thinking.
Archive
2026 roast notes
The main working archive of roast records, comparisons, calibration attempts, repair notes, and learning posts.
Small batches
Sample roasts
Small sample roasts are useful for observing machine behaviour, recovery, and whether a tiny batch can still produce useful learning.
Browse the notes archive
The cards below are generated from the live WordPress notes archive, so new published notes can appear here without rebuilding this page by hand.
From Roast 120 to Roast 148: When the Gene Café Project Became a Machine-State Story
The last proper website update was around Roast 120. At that point, the Coffee | One Roast at a Time project was already well beyond the earliest “what…
RoastAid: From Raspberry Pi Recorder to Roast Companion
RoastAid did not start as something I intended to use while roasting. In fact, it really started somewhere else entirely. Before RoastAid there was RoastSignal: a fairly simple…
Learning What the Gene Café Sounds Like
When I first started experimenting with audio around the Gene Café CBR-301, the objective seemed fairly obvious. Could I detect first crack more reliably? The Gene Café is…
A Slightly Overdue Project Update: The Roaster, the Data, the Sound, and What I’m Actually Learning
First, an apology. It has been far too long since I wrote a proper update here. That is partly because the project has been busy, and partly because…