What do YOU use to home roast?

[Thundergod]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

The gun doesnt look very close to the beans.

[GrindOnDemand]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

adequate ventilation, was my 1st take ...

then the purpose of the bike ...

then, doin a Jamie Durie & identifying the plants on the barbee ... pre-roast!

[martybean]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

Yeah have lowered the gun a bit but might need a bit more modification, but 25 min not to bad.I think its capable of roasting 1kg or there abouts but I dont use that much in a week.As for heat loss the thermocouple gets right up to 270 c but i think i lose heat through the s/s base on the pot , because its so thick.Oh also that bbq dont operate i have another 6 burner i use you can see it on my popper post in this topic.the plants well they aloe and I think there is some zygo cactus there as well my missus is plants crazy.Ventilation is 2 40mm holes

[Oily]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

Here is my tripod-mounted heat gun and bowl roaster:



- Tripod mount gives total control of HG position - left-right, forward-back, up-down - giving good temp control with a single temp gun.

- The whole unit works well on any surface - bricks, grass, garden beds (so the chaff falls as mulch), and sloping driveways (by adjusting tripod legs).

- The HG and bowl can be raised to a comfortable working height, which is important if youre going to stand there stirring for up to 20 mins.

- The gun mount and bowl platform remove easily, and the tripod folds up, so it can all be stored in a box in a cupboard. This was a major consideration for me as I dont have anywhere for a permanent setup.

- The heat gun is strapped to a block of wood using double-sided velcro strips which wrap around themselves ($10 for 2m in Bunnings).

- The heat gun block attaches to the tripod with a thingummy from a specialist photographic shop (see photo below) - it has a screw which goes into the wood, and a hole which the tripod screws into. Screwing the tripod directly into the wood probably wouldnt be secure enough.

- The dowel rod holds the back end of the bowl platform in place - remove the rod and the bowl platform just slips off. I used dowel so it wouldnt scratch the tripod leg, but any metal rod, or even a pencil, would have done.

- For the thermocouple probe, a hollow metal tube projects up from the wood platform and passes through a hole I drilled in the bottom of the bowl (this also keeps the bowl in position on the platform). The probe is inserted through the tube so it sits at a good height in the middle of the bowl (see photo). Velcro on the under-side of the platform holds the wire in place.

- When beans are done, the bowl is simply lifted off the platform.

- No modifications were made to the tripod - it can still function as an unblemished camera tripod.



So far Ive used this setup while stirring with a wooden spoon, with great resuls, much better than the popcorn popper which roasts too quickly in hot weather. The degree of manual control is very satisfying, and Im enjoying the hands-on low-tech approach. I cool the beans by tossing between colanders, and so far the wind has done a good enough job of removing chaff. Temperature readings can be a bit variable, depending on how much air is getting to the probe, which varies with my stirring and the wind. Itll do for now.

I expect Ill eventually get tired of stirring and want to add a motorised paddle, but that shouldnt be too hard.

[Oily]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

A correction is in order ...

After finishing the above post I did a roast, and the heat gun overheated and automatically cut out ... fortunately not until the beans were about done. There wasnt as much wind as I thought (which could account for all the chaff that settled in my hair instead of blowing away!), and the HG got too hot. It hadnt overheated before, probably only because it was cooler and very windy.

Moral of the story - when other Coffeesnobs advise the use of a fan to prevent the HG overheating, and they have, it is for good reason, and it is wise to pay attention and do likewise.

Next time Ill aim a fan at the heat gun to prevent overheating.

[Thundergod]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

My fan is on low even on cold nights, to keep the chaff away from the heatgun.

[ev]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

Oily, the fan is very important if you want your heat gun to last. Another important step is to run your gun for a minute or so on low before you switch it off. If I switch off my HG right after a roast, it wont start again until it cools.

[RoasterRob]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

Hi fellow Coffeesnobs, my name is Rob and I am a Coffeesnob  (my first post on CSs).  I currently roast on a homemade FB gas air roaster. Max load is 2.3 kg of green with the 6" RC, with the 4" RC it is good for a max load of 650grams. Have been working on a bunch of roaster projects, currently a roast chamber that will do about 5kg, should be finished within the next few days, also have a 1kg sample drum roaster under construction. Will post pics of the FB roasters in the next few days. More soon.

Rob

[Dimal]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

Looking forward to those photos Rob

Welcome to CoffeeSnobs mate..... [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Mal.

[beanz4brainz]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?


Hey CSers,

I finally got around to taking some pics of my Coretto (tm).

I had all this stuff laying around and after reading the Coretto thread, decided I could put one together for not very much money. In all, I spent about $80 on the DMM and RS232 converter, $78 on the heatgun from the Evil One, $2.49 on a cheap bowl for cooling the finished product (drilled own holes) and about $2 on fasteners, oh, and $7 on another agitator from a Breville BB300, as the agitator from my BB420 was one that folded down when the machine agitates in reverse....total $169.49.

So far, I have tried roast sizes from 300 - 600gms and all have been successful apart from a Decaf MJ that I torched from inexperience.

My BIG problem now, is getting off my fat buttoot and doing a roast before the last one runs out!


b4b.


ps. Thanks to Andy and all involved with the production of CS Datalogging Software!

[RoasterRob]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

This is the mark 2 roaster. Still using the furnace section of this roaster. With a bigger RC.

[RoasterRob]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

I am using a RC slighter taller than this one. This one is good for 1.9kg, the taller one is good for 2.3kg. Popper is in the pic for scale only.

Rob

[RoasterRob]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

And last but not least the 5kg RC nearly finished, and the next project beside it.

[gmeddy]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

hi all, well, i did it... had my first roast.
mmm it was good.
after looking through all the photos posted here, Dennis was probably the only one who posted a photo of some equipment equaly impressive as mine...

i did a cup (still waiting for my scales to arrive) of Harar Longberry in an insulated SS cooking bowl, stiring by hand with wodden spoon and heating with a BlacknDecka.
i modded up my own cooling system out of a big Milo tin using a steak knife to cut the precise sized hole for my vacume handle to fit into. see picture below. let me know what you think of my cooler. it worked great by the way, the vac created awesome sucktion, too much to even get the beans to move, so i had to turn it down to about half power to jiggle them...



But i have to ask a seriouse Question...
While i was roasting, the exhilerating sounds of the FC started going off, slowly at first, maybe one bean here and there, then quite loud and all of them together.
by this point it was smoking quite a bit... from the first sound of cracking id heard to now  would have been maybe 3 or 4 mins, and the beans are getting very dark indeed, i recall seeing the darkness chart on the members card... they look to me like they are at the darkest end of the scale... whats going on? is this SC or still FC???

There was no deffinate lot of cracking before then, just one here and there.
anyway, i pulled out and cooled them cos they were looking so dark and smoking quite a bit.
have a look at my pics and let me know what ya reckon if ya can.



greanies in the cooking bowl




and the lovely looking result.


thanks heaps.

glen

[greenman]

Re: What do YOU use to home roast?

They look very oily you may have overdone it a bit, grind them up and the taste will tell you how far you have gone!!!