Hi all,
I started roasting yesterday with a black and decker hot n pop roaster (same external appearance as the picture/external link below), bought second hand and I think I might be baking my beans!
My initial roast yesterday was with the plastic popper lid on and lasted 22 minutes to about a city roast (as far as I can tell... I can post photos if that would help) and not much seemed to be happening in the last 5 or so minutes. I heard a few first cracks but not anything like a rolling first crack.
Today, I used a can chimney and after a 34 min roast the beans were still not as dark as yesterday! No first cracks were heard.
My palate is probably undeveloped for coffee because I find the coffee I get from the following setup to be acceptable and better than a lot of cafes... well here goes the embarrassing part.
Im using a cheapo Breville BES200 with a blade grinder (soon to be an Hario Mini/Slim Mill) and the beans from yesterday were bitter as a shot but very mild in a latte. I prefer mild flavours in coffee so it didnt bother me too much but Id rather try and get good results out of my beans.
Some of the thoughts I had were:
Perhaps its a combination of all of the above plus more.
Im thinking about trying the following set up with a view to making a more effective style with a chaff catcher, chimney, etc if successful.

From http://www.ineedcoffee.com/01/coldroasting/?page=2
Did anyone have any comments, criticisms, kicks-in-the-backside for me?
(or clips across the ear)
Cheers!
I started roasting yesterday with a black and decker hot n pop roaster (same external appearance as the picture/external link below), bought second hand and I think I might be baking my beans!
My initial roast yesterday was with the plastic popper lid on and lasted 22 minutes to about a city roast (as far as I can tell... I can post photos if that would help) and not much seemed to be happening in the last 5 or so minutes. I heard a few first cracks but not anything like a rolling first crack.
Today, I used a can chimney and after a 34 min roast the beans were still not as dark as yesterday! No first cracks were heard.
My palate is probably undeveloped for coffee because I find the coffee I get from the following setup to be acceptable and better than a lot of cafes... well here goes the embarrassing part.
Im using a cheapo Breville BES200 with a blade grinder (soon to be an Hario Mini/Slim Mill) and the beans from yesterday were bitter as a shot but very mild in a latte. I prefer mild flavours in coffee so it didnt bother me too much but Id rather try and get good results out of my beans.
Some of the thoughts I had were:
- I had started a thread previously about the smell my roasters air is giving off and it smells like a electric bar/radiant heater here:
http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1284984565/0
Perhaps there is an issue in the popper somewhere. - It was around 90% humidity today with a max of about 25 (just a few hours before my roast) and this seems like a potentially big culprit.
- Maybe using the popper lid yesterday kept some of the heat in?
- Perhaps using slightly fewer beans (maybe 10-20g, didnt weigh but the spin was much faster) in this roast meant there was less heat retention.
Perhaps its a combination of all of the above plus more.
Im thinking about trying the following set up with a view to making a more effective style with a chaff catcher, chimney, etc if successful.

From http://www.ineedcoffee.com/01/coldroasting/?page=2
Did anyone have any comments, criticisms, kicks-in-the-backside for me?
(or clips across the ear)
Cheers!


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