Ive recently acquired a Black and Decker Hot n Pop (1200w) and Ive been thinking about giving the home roasting thing a go. Ive been perusing the site, and trying to get a good feel for it, but theres a few questions which Ive not yet found answers to.
Firstly, I live in a unit, and dont have an open balcony or yard, so Im wondering if its possible to do a roast indoors?
How much smoke/chaff is generated by the process?
If Im clever with the design of the chimney on the popper, (like this: http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1174699442/34#34 ) could I catch 99% of the chaff?
Secondly, I was wondering if I could modify my popper to be both the roaster and a simple bean cooler. Everyone seems dead set on tipping out the roast into a cooler of some form as soon as the roast is complete, and while I understand the reasons behind this, why not just switch off the heating element of the popper, and let the cool air blown through the machine do the work, with a lot less effort?
I figure this could be achieved with some simple rewiring of the popper, adding in a switch to bypass the heating element.
Advantage to this would be that it would be less messing around with the beans, and less chance to spread chaff around the house! Only issue I could see with this is that the cooling air will effectively have to cool the whole popper before the beans start cooling... But with no practical experience in the field, Im unsure of whether this would actually be an issue.
What do you guys think?
Cheers,
Dave.
Firstly, I live in a unit, and dont have an open balcony or yard, so Im wondering if its possible to do a roast indoors?
How much smoke/chaff is generated by the process?
If Im clever with the design of the chimney on the popper, (like this: http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1174699442/34#34 ) could I catch 99% of the chaff?
Secondly, I was wondering if I could modify my popper to be both the roaster and a simple bean cooler. Everyone seems dead set on tipping out the roast into a cooler of some form as soon as the roast is complete, and while I understand the reasons behind this, why not just switch off the heating element of the popper, and let the cool air blown through the machine do the work, with a lot less effort?
I figure this could be achieved with some simple rewiring of the popper, adding in a switch to bypass the heating element.
Advantage to this would be that it would be less messing around with the beans, and less chance to spread chaff around the house! Only issue I could see with this is that the cooling air will effectively have to cool the whole popper before the beans start cooling... But with no practical experience in the field, Im unsure of whether this would actually be an issue.
What do you guys think?
Cheers,
Dave.


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