Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

[badogrude]

Hello All,

I have been lurking for about a month now and soaking up the information , thank you!

My first post is a question about the capacity of the semi-commercial size roasters, 5, 10, 15, 25 Kgs.

For Example, a roaster is called the XYZ 10Kg .

Does this mean that the max amount of green beans you should put into it is 10kg resulting in about 8Kg of roasted beans,
or can you put 12.5Kg of green beans into it safely and produce 10Kg roasted.

I would assume the first, but a lot of roaster specs imply that the hourly output is 3x10Kg = 30kg instead of 24Kg.

Hope someone can set me straight.

Cheers

Paul

[TC]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Does this mean that the max amount of green beans you should put into it is 10kg resulting in about 8Kg of roasted beans,
or can you put 12.5Kg of green beans into it safely and produce 10Kg roasted.

Yes- green capacity and then with many roasters, they are at optimum at more like 80% of that.

Coffee Roasters Australia has a NSW agent- Cuppacoffee.  Both business are CS site sponsors and can be found <<<<<<<

You may like to visit Cuppacoffee to watch a roast and chat with Dennis. There are many happy CSers roasting on Has Garanti and they roast comfortably at full green capacity.

Good luck!

2mcm

[badogrude]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Thank You 2mcm, That helps alot.

[Dennis]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Hi Paul

If and when youre ready, give me a call on 0404 049 812. Always happy to provide a demo and give an insight into roasting.

Cheers
Den (Cuppacoffee)

[DiBort]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Hi Paul,

I would recommend to look at the Roastmax 5kg roaster. We just got one ourselves, a shiny orange 5kg one for the shop in Bondi Junction and cant wait to start roasting!



Roastmax Standard features include:

   * 4 motors for true simultaneous roasting and cooling for continuous roasting
   * Adjustable gas and airflow
   * Thick insulation around drum housing to reduce heat loss and lower gas consumption
   * Digital temperature controller
   * Countdown timer & alarm

Youre welcome to drop by the shop for a chat and a browse. Roasting should start in about 2-3 weeks, you can then see the beast in action!

Give us a call on 02 9389 9892, skype me on: dibartolicoffee or send us a tweet on @dibartoli if youd like to know more about how to source one, prices, etc.

Ofra

[Dennis]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Hi Renzo and Ofra and congratulations on your new roaster - how exciting for you!

Yours is the first Roastmax Ive seen and Im not really familiar with the brand, so perhaps you could tell us a little more about it...

Is it a rebadged Yucel?
Is it modified in any way once it arrives here?
Are there are any Pro-Roasters using one?

Thanks, and good luck learning the process!

Den

[badogrude]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Thanks Dennis and Ofra,

I will definitely contact you both when im a bit further along my learning process.

Cheers Paul

[micro]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

I dont profess to be an expert, however...
Yucel roasters was a reasonable roast, but not a great build quality roaster from my experience... Has Garanti & Toper good value roasters - Ive seen a few in action and roasted on a couple (5 -30kg) US Roaster Corp - Great mid level roasters Probat (Never had the chance unfortunately) = Rolls Royce  

[ccc2]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

The original question is.......
"does the roaster capacity mean green or brown"

It means green.

You cant rate a roaster in "brown" as this value is governed by the 2 primary factors of green bean type and roast end-point. It is also affected by roaster efficiency - one brand of roaster can be more efficient than another.

As an example, my 10KG drum roaster was running at about 16.2% yield and my 15kg drum roaster (a different brand) runs at 14% yield - same beans, similar roast profile.

Yes, thats right, there is 20kg per ton difference. Hard to imagine given the same moisture loss and end temperature should create the similar end weight of the beans.

[>CoffeeRoasters]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Agree with the previous poster. It usually means green and is set by the manufacturer based on the volume and dimensions of the drum. It is the ideal maximum batch size rated for that roaster. How you have the roaster configured will determine whether or not it will efficiently do this amount as as burner, gas, fluing, airflow, material will all play a part. But the manufacturer has rated it at this so you should be able to achieve a full batch roast even if you have to get some fine tuning done.

Some really good info from the previous poster on yields that should help with any business plan where you want to work some roasted volumes etc. The variation between their roasters is normal, in fact the axact same roaster in a different location will almost always produce different results most commonly due to the variation in the fluing that causes changes in airflow. The main heat that draws the moisture out of the bean is applied via air so typically if you apply more dry hot air over the same time period in the same roaster you will lose more weight.

[Fresh_Coffee]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Hello Mark,

this if strictly off topic but I didnt start it  . Your last comment is the accepted norm but of course most operators dont have the equipment or set up to be able to vary the amount of air flow (or type of air) from roast to roast to be able to check any differences that may occur as a result.

I am lucky to have such equipment and can vary both
a) the air flow at any particular time and
b) the amount of recycling of hot air back through the system on any particular batch roast.

The more you recycle the dryer the air becomes, the more moister it strips from the beans on its way back through again.

Only for academic purposes, you may be interested to know that a few months ago I ran  a very quick test by varying the point of recycling to 3 subsequent and otherwise "identical"  roasts.

The theory as you have pointed out, was that on the batch that was allowed to recycle the air for longer,  there would be a lower yield and conversely, for the batch where the recycling was stopped earlier, there would be a higher yield (because after the shorter recycling period there is a longer period of use of fresh air that has not been stripped of moister before entering the system).

There should have been a higher yield as the amount of recycling was cut back.

It didnt happen and left us scratching our proverbial heads!

The change in the amount of recyling across this simple test was large...ie we were trying to get a result.

This was not a scientific experiment, stats and standard deviations were not applied, and I am sure that if we started to play around with the actualy roast profile used in addition to the changes in recycling, then at some point we should be able to get a more significant result.

Also after all that, you would need to start cupping the results from the different batches to see which is........"better".

As I said, just for academic purposes  

So as to stay on topic:

If I bought a roaster and it could not efficiently roast its rated capacity within the accepted parameters, I would be asking serious questions of the commissioning engineers / suppliers,  eg if you buy a "5 kg" machine it should be capable of roasting 5 kg green input WITHIN THE RANGE  OF BATCH TIMES generally accepted as constituting "coffee roasting".

Regardz,
Attilio
very first CS site sponsor.

 

[beanflying]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Hi all,

without wanting to get off topic to far but is weight the only factor or does bean volume from say a peaberry to a large bean type play a part too when picking a nominal full charge level?

[>CoffeeRoasters]

Re: Does Roaster Capacity mean Green or Brown Beans?

Yes totally agree with you Attilio...its needs to be within the appropriate times that the customer prefers. Some want longer roasting times, some shorter, some want a quicker climb temps at full batch. It can all be calibrated to what the customer wants and usally some more fine tuning needs to be done on site once flued but having a burner that can handle a larger range of gas flow definately helps with the fine tuning.

Some very interesting findings from your experiments...great to see you actually have the time to play around and experiment, it would interesting to hear what results you got in the cup. Most roasters will suck air though (pnuematic) so the air inside the drum is being drawn in then pulled out quickly. Any moist air from the evaporation of water in the beans is pulled out through to the flue. You can only really roast with the moist air if you cut the airflow and the air remains in the drum. It doesnt really surprise me that you got that result. With a bigger roaster which I assume you have you would need decent airflow to apply enough heat to the beans anyway so it is probably not going to make that much difference, also especially if you have a packed burner setup....cheers