Hi Everyone,
Man, I never would have thought I could get addicted to roasting coffee beans, but how cool! Seeing the chaff fly off, the gradual change in colours, smell, etc, and then ending up with something you can grind, drink and enjoy...
I found a Breville Crazy Popper on Gumtree for $20 and used that today to have a go at my first roast. I fashioned a little chimney from a corn tin and that seemed to work. Now the frustrating thing is that I am quite methodical and I ended up with beans that (I think - please correct me if I'm wrong) look OK, but was pretty much by accident.
It was 12º in Melbourne today when I had a go. I put the popper with chimney in a large bucket as it was pretty cool. 80 grams (2/3 cup of the Peru beans from The Shop on this site) into the popper. The beans slowly changed colour but I didn't get to 1st crack until about 13 minutes and even then I only heard about a dozen pops. I couldn't discern a 2nd crack. I got smoke at 15 minutes and the popper shut off automatically. It was luck that I got out what I did. A couple of questions:
1. I'm assuming the 1st Crack should be quite audible even above the sound of the popper. How long on average would you hear the cracking for?
2. I've heard the second crack described like crinkling cellophane - not as easy to hear? Maybe I really need to get my ear down to the machine and listen better.
3. How common is it for the popper to shut off (it's obviously a safety issue at a certain temp threshold)? I'm not confident enough with electronics to pull it apart and do anything.
Thanks,
Paul
Man, I never would have thought I could get addicted to roasting coffee beans, but how cool! Seeing the chaff fly off, the gradual change in colours, smell, etc, and then ending up with something you can grind, drink and enjoy...
I found a Breville Crazy Popper on Gumtree for $20 and used that today to have a go at my first roast. I fashioned a little chimney from a corn tin and that seemed to work. Now the frustrating thing is that I am quite methodical and I ended up with beans that (I think - please correct me if I'm wrong) look OK, but was pretty much by accident.
It was 12º in Melbourne today when I had a go. I put the popper with chimney in a large bucket as it was pretty cool. 80 grams (2/3 cup of the Peru beans from The Shop on this site) into the popper. The beans slowly changed colour but I didn't get to 1st crack until about 13 minutes and even then I only heard about a dozen pops. I couldn't discern a 2nd crack. I got smoke at 15 minutes and the popper shut off automatically. It was luck that I got out what I did. A couple of questions:
1. I'm assuming the 1st Crack should be quite audible even above the sound of the popper. How long on average would you hear the cracking for?
2. I've heard the second crack described like crinkling cellophane - not as easy to hear? Maybe I really need to get my ear down to the machine and listen better.
3. How common is it for the popper to shut off (it's obviously a safety issue at a certain temp threshold)? I'm not confident enough with electronics to pull it apart and do anything.
Thanks,
Paul
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