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Guides on coffee roasting software, analytics, and workflow.

Baked Coffee and the Stalled Roast — Why Your Coffee Tastes Flat and Papery

Baked coffee comes from a stalled roast where rate of rise flatlines near zero. What baking is, how it differs from a crash, and how to fix a stalled development.

·8 min read

Coffee Roasting Software for Mac in 2026 — A Complete Guide

A complete comparison of Artisan, Cropster, and First Crack for Mac users — covering real-time logging, cloud sync, bean inventory, analytics, and pricing.

·10 min read

Development Time Ratio (DTR) — The Metric That Separates Good Roasts from Great Ones

Development time ratio (DTR) is the fraction of a roast spent from first crack to drop. What DTR is, how to calculate it, target ranges, and why it matters.

·8 min read

Rate of Rise on Electric Roasters — Why an Elevated, Gently Declining Curve Works

On an electric roaster, rate of rise can hold an elevated, gently declining curve instead of bleeding to single digits. Why airflow, not heat cuts, shapes it.

·6 min read

Guided Roast: Live Coffee Roast Logging in Your Browser

Guided Roast is First Crack's browser-based live roast logger. Type probe readings, tap events, get full phase analysis, no hardware required. How it works.

·9 min read

Kaleido M-Series Roasting Software: First Crack Bridge for the M1, M10, and the Rest of the Line

Coffee roasting software for the Kaleido M-series. First Crack Bridge reads and controls the M1 and M10 over USB or Bluetooth, with cloud sync and free analytics.

·10 min read

Live Roast with Bridge: First Crack's Native Coffee Roasting App for Mac and Windows

Bridge is First Crack's native macOS and Windows app. It connects supported roasters and streams live BT, ET, and RoR into the web app. What it does and how to join.

·10 min read

Migrating from Artisan to First Crack — A Practical Guide

Import your Artisan roast library into First Crack: .alog file import, what data transfers, and how to set up bean inventory from your existing roasts.

·7 min read

Rate of Rise in Coffee Roasting — What It Is and Why It Matters

Rate of rise (RoR) measures how fast bean temperature climbs during a roast. How it's calculated, what a healthy curve looks like, common problems, and the fixes.

·10 min read

The Three Phases of a Coffee Roast — Drying, Maillard, and Development

Every coffee roast moves through three phases: drying, Maillard, and development. What happens to the bean in each, the boundaries between them, and what to watch.

·8 min read

What Is First Crack in Coffee Roasting?

First crack is the audible signal marking the turn from drying to development in a coffee roast. What causes it, when it happens, and why it matters.

·7 min read

How to Read a Roast Curve — A Plain-English Guide to the Coffee Roast Graph

Learn how to read a roast curve. This guide explains the axes, bean vs environmental temperature, rate of rise, healthy curve shapes, warning signs, and key markers.

·9 min read

How to Roast Coffee Consistently — A Practical Guide to Repeatable Roasts

How to roast coffee consistently: what makes two roasts comparable, the axes that drift batch-to-batch, and how to measure and tighten roast consistency over time.

·8 min read

RoR Crash After First Crack — What a Rate of Rise Crash Is and How to Fix It

A RoR crash is a sharp dive in rate of rise after first crack that bakes the cup. Learn what causes a rate of rise crash, the flick, and how to fix it.

·8 min read

Underdeveloped vs Overdeveloped Roast — How to Tell Them Apart and Fix Each

Underdeveloped roast tastes grassy and hollow; overdeveloped coffee tastes flat and dull. Diagnose each from the cup and the curve, and fix them.

·9 min read