Built for all roasters

First Crack started with a straightforward problem: the tools roasters use to log their roasts don't always talk to each other. Artisan is excellent for the session — that's what it's built for. What tends to live elsewhere is everything after the roast: bean inventory, analytics across batches, cupping, and sharing a curve with someone else.

The platforms that pull all of that together are built for commercial roasteries, and priced for them. There was less out there for everyone else: the home roaster on a sample drum, the hobbyist dialing in a popper, the small-batch operation that wants a complete workflow without an enterprise subscription.

First Crack is that tool — whatever you roast on, however you roast.

What it is

First Crack is a web app and a desktop bridge that work as one. Bridge (a native macOS and Windows app) connects supported roaster hardware (Kaleido M-series via USB or Bluetooth, Croaster over WiFi) to the platform. During a roast it streams live bean temperature, environmental temperature, rate of rise, heater / fan / drum state, and event markers into the web app at one-second resolution. The web app handles everything between roasts: analytics dashboards, bean inventory, cupping workflow, recipe management, and community sharing. Both sync in real time.

No hardware? The web app works on its own. Use Guided Roast to drive a live roast from your browser — tap events, type probe readings, get the same phase analysis Bridge-captured roasts produce. Log a roast by hand from the notes you jotted on paper, milestones and all. Or import existing profiles from Artisan (.alog files) or JSON and skip straight to analytics.

Bridge access is in private beta. We approve requests by hand at /beta. Small numbers, high care.

Who it's for

  • Home and hobby roasters who want their data to be more than numbers on a clipboard
  • Small-batch roasters who don't need a commercial platform's scale or subscription
  • Artisan users who want a cloud layer on top of their desktop workflow
  • Pros who want roasting, analytics, cupping, and sharing in one place
  • Anyone tracking roast quality across batches and wanting to improve over time
  • Roasters who want to share profiles with customers or the community

What's included

The web platform is free. No subscription, no credit card required.

Live roasting with Bridge(Kaleido, Croaster, TC4 + Phidget, macOS + Windows)
Guided Roast in the browser(no hardware required)
Manual roast logging(key milestones from paper)
Artisan .alog and JSON import(web + Bridge)
Recipes & auto-roast(Bridge fires your setpoints automatically)
Analytics dashboards(RoR, DTR, drop temp, weight loss)
Bean inventory management(freshness, cost, yield)
SCA cupping workflow(per-roast scoring)
Bean SCA quality scores(green coffee grading)
Agtron color scoring(standardized roast color)
Public roast profile sharing(full curve + analytics)
Shareable side-by-side comparisons(any two roasts)
Community browse(filter by origin, process, level)
Cross-device sync(Bridge + web, real-time)

Platform

The web app runs in any modern browser on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, including Guided Roast, which lets you log a live roast from your laptop or tablet with just a timer and a probe.

Bridge (the desktop app that talks to your roaster) runs natively on macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, and Windows 10 build 19041 / Windows 11. Supported roasters: the Kaleido M-series (M1 and M10 confirmed) over USB-serial or Bluetooth, Phidget thermocouple boards over USB (monitor-only), Croaster over WiFi (monitor-only), and TC4 / aArtisan rigs over USB-serial (monitor-only). More roasters land as the voting roadmap on the beta signup page fills out.

The web platform is free. Bridge is currently in private beta and access is granted by hand — request it at firstcrack.app/beta.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or just want to talk roasting — contact@firstcrack.app