Hi Coffee Gurus,
Does anybody know where I can get a good thermostatically controller gas valve? Either a manual thermostatic controller one or a programmable one?
Background:
My home built bean roaster is an upside down stainless steel bucket that sits on top of a one-burner gas stovetop I got from a camping store on eBay. Two stainless steel back-to-back colanders house the beans that are to be roasted. A rotisserie motor is bolted to the side of the bucket and a drive rod turns the colander housing. A very basic thermometer is mounted on top of the bucket and I add 200 grams of beans (a coffee cup full), and turn the gas on to medium and after five minutes I am up to 210 Celsius - then I turn the gas down to 200 Celsius and 65% to 75% into the second crack it starts to smoke enough and this is my signal to harvest.
At this point (and using a sense of smell tuned through previous failure and successes) turn the gas off - turn the rotisserie off - turn the bucket upright - extract the drive - open the colanders - spill the beans onto my wooden table - cool the beans in a couple of minutes and put these freshly roasted beans into storage (no problems whatsoever with off-gassing issues).
A much more important problem Id love to solve is the ability to fine tune the gas valve to deliver the exact temperatures I need for repeatability. Ive toyed with the idea of pulling apart an old gas stove to see what I could conjure but if any Coffee Snobs know of something out there that is a more "plug & play" device, I would love to hear from you.
Mick
Does anybody know where I can get a good thermostatically controller gas valve? Either a manual thermostatic controller one or a programmable one?
Background:
My home built bean roaster is an upside down stainless steel bucket that sits on top of a one-burner gas stovetop I got from a camping store on eBay. Two stainless steel back-to-back colanders house the beans that are to be roasted. A rotisserie motor is bolted to the side of the bucket and a drive rod turns the colander housing. A very basic thermometer is mounted on top of the bucket and I add 200 grams of beans (a coffee cup full), and turn the gas on to medium and after five minutes I am up to 210 Celsius - then I turn the gas down to 200 Celsius and 65% to 75% into the second crack it starts to smoke enough and this is my signal to harvest.
At this point (and using a sense of smell tuned through previous failure and successes) turn the gas off - turn the rotisserie off - turn the bucket upright - extract the drive - open the colanders - spill the beans onto my wooden table - cool the beans in a couple of minutes and put these freshly roasted beans into storage (no problems whatsoever with off-gassing issues).
A much more important problem Id love to solve is the ability to fine tune the gas valve to deliver the exact temperatures I need for repeatability. Ive toyed with the idea of pulling apart an old gas stove to see what I could conjure but if any Coffee Snobs know of something out there that is a more "plug & play" device, I would love to hear from you.
Mick
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