Corretto & Bean Cooler Set up - First Roast

[Sully]

Hey Guys, thought I'd send you a pic of my set up. I did my first two roasts today, the first one ended in failure when my Bosch HG decided it was too hot and stopped working about 15 mins in with the beans at about 190c....300g of beans down the drain.

So for the next roast I set up a floor fan and aimed it at the heat gun, seemed to do the trick. I think I pulled the beans a bit too early though, I smelt a bit of a burning and panicked, the DMM showed 210deg so I should have just trusted it and kept going. They came out a little light but not to bad for my "first" roast.

Here are some pics of my set up and the roast.

Thanks to everyone for their help/tips in setting up my Corretto, especially to Designing by Coffee, I used one of your profiles as a base to work with so thanks.

[Beanz.]

Hi Sully The roast looks pretty good, I think you should be happy with the result.I am sure it will taste great. You mention the HG shut down after 15 minutes. I cannot say for sure as I cannot tell from the photo but it appears that you have just the one hole in the top of the breadmaker where the hot air is blowing in, take into consideration hot air also needs to escape and by the look of your set up the hot air is forcing it's way past the hot air gun and probaly overheating it causing it to shut down. The other down side of this is that the front of the gun may well melt with the hot air flowing around the nozzle, something you do not want on a new expensive HG. My HG has a melted front section ! I use a homemade lid with two holes diagonally opposite each other one for the HG nozzle and the other is an exhaust, they are the same size but if I was doing it again I probably would make the exhaust slightly smaller to restrict airflow. I use masonite wrapped in a few layers of aluminium foil, cheap and easy.

[Sully]

Thanks Beanz,

There is a small grill at the front of the lid which I opened up a little bit for the second roast (just after I took this pic) If I put my hand around the heat gun during the roast I could feel quite a bit of heat coming back up towards the gun so I might have to make this hole a bit bigger.

[brettryan]

Corretto & Bean Cooler Set up - First Roast

Looks great and well done. It may be the hour I'm writing this but I saw the table and chair first and thought "wow, your setup looks like its for giants" lol.

[NakiChap]

A fan blowing cool air across the top of the BM might help cool the gun also stop any chaff getting inside the heatgun.

[DesigningByCoffee]

Hi Sully
Looking good! That's an industrial tripod :-)
If your gun is tripping out, I think Beanz has made a good point. The hot air from a heatgun is like electricity (and water, sheep … and people!) in that it will follow the path of least resistance. If you have a nice, roomy entry port but a tight exhaust - the hot air will vent out of the entry port, fill the gun with chaff and overheat.

I originally had a lid design I fondly call the 'Skateboard Kick' that had a loose tin-can entry similar to yours, but a really room exhaust (see pics). Worked fine because there was lots of room for the hot air to escape opposite the gun. But when I went to v2 'The Letterbox' (remember those 1980's street machiners!) with the same entry port, the chaff all blew back into the gun.V3 (current) has a really tight entry port (only just allows the very tip of the gun in - which forces all the air out of the exhaust at max speed. Despite the tinkering to get to this point, this works really well, as the high exhaust velocity blows most of the chaff out the garage door!

I'd consider covering the top of the metal pan itself (even if its only in a few layers of alfoil initially for proof of theory) with a gun entry in one corner, and the same sized exhaust in the other. Just gives good airflow direction. I haven't had my gun trip out yet - but the fan across the top is always a good safeguard :-)

And glad the guide helped! I've actually just done some slight revisions on that, which even has all my current gun settings used on it - and as you have the same gun it might be useful ;-)

Matt

[sando]

Hi all

After reading below I thought I would add my 5 cents worth.

HG Cutting out:

I had the same problem and what has evolved is as follows.
• I put a curved deflector (pool light Lens) to stop the rising heat re-entering the HG inlets. This was only marginally successful so I added the small fan above HG, problem solved.
HG fits snuggly into lid hole. +-2mm gap.

Chaff Port:
• I made a lid from another BM to covere the roasting chamber. The lid has a glass viewing port which lets about half the chaff out and the other half sits at the bottom of the BM.
I raised the bucket rim about 20mm with Gyprock corner stuff – stopped the odd bean jumping up and escaping…..
• Incedently I insulating the roasting bucket….Hard to tell if that made a difference as I did it at the same time as the Lid.

The result is that I now roast with much lower temps and HG on lower fan speed.
Less Grilling and more Roasting of the beans, if you know what I mean.

The coffee tastes just as good, with the added bonus of a smaller carbon foot print.
(To keep Julia happy -- Ha ha)

Few other mods in pic.
I have the time and will be needing a bigger garage if this project continues to evolve.
The things we do for what we love!!!

[Beanz.]

Hi Sando
Interesting set up in the photo.
Is the hand held unit in te plastic pipe an IR thermometer ? Is the wooden device in the top front of the roaster a "trier" or a "handle" on the lid ? Looks very interesting would like some more details on what you have done with that as I have thought about a trier on the corretto but not done anything about it yet

[DesigningByCoffee]

That's so cool :-)
That wooden handle is like something out of Dr Who!

[sando]

Hi Beanz

Yes the IR was my V1 thermo method before DMM software. See Roasting Stations for earlier versions...
I keep it there as an emergency and its good to see whare the heat is going ...anywhere and everywhere.

The Dr Who thing is a handle...

The trier is next to the wooden spoon, you can just see the handle for it...copper wire thing...Got it from an Asian grocery.
It fits through the port in the cover.
They use it in Steamboats for fishing out the food.. see pic of similar.

Roastery works a treat.
Done 73 so far and it just keeps getting better.
cheers

[Sully]

Sando, that's a neat set up but what I like most is that curtain rod "handle"...very resourceful. Seriously though, thanks for the tips. What did you use to insulate the bucket, I know Matt used a fire blanket, did you use the same ?

Matt, can you send me/post a copy of your profile sheet in excel or whatever format you use so I can use it while I am roasting ? At the moment I am using the software with the CS DMM which is great but I'd like to be able to note the adjustments I am making to the HG so my roasts are more repeatable.

Funny you should mention the entry port. In the first roast I was getting a lot of chaff blowing back out and getting stuck in the vents of heat gun. So this morning I emptied out another tin of beetroot and made a new entry port "chamber" this time only cutting a smaller hole to try and stop some of that heat/chaff coming back onto the gun and opened up the exhaust a little too, similar to what you have done. Here is a pic.

I also removed the heat shield from the gun to allow more air flow, do you think this would help or make it worse ?

[sando]

Hi Sully
"What did I use to insulate the bucket?"

I like to use what is freely available and not purchase items...if possible.
So I went to the local tip and found this bute built in oven that someone had chucked out.
Ovens have insulation inside....tons of the stuff.

6 screws loosened and 5 min later I had enough for 3 - 5 buckets worth.

Around the cotton wool type stuff was a thick Alum Foil as well.

Wrapped with chicken wire and sewed it up with wire...patted down and is now only 6 or 8 mm thick, started at about 20mm.

As for the handle - Mrs Sando has not seen that yet....
No doubt the noise level will go up.....
I pinched it off a curtain rod in the spare room, at least I dont get burnt fingers!!

cheers

[DesigningByCoffee]

Hi Sully
That's the ticket! Your gun entry is looking good. If you use some alfoil, you can fill all those gaps around the 'round-peg-in-square-hole' which will further aid exhaust airflow and should keep the heat away from the gun. Alfoil is great - heat resistant, easy to shape and surprisingly hard-wearing when compresssed!
I'd think about leaving the gun shield on there - not for the gun but for you! Bound to accidently grab it one day during the crazy 'get it to the cooler' rush!
Unfortunately I don't have that file in an Excel version - being a designer I don't touch any MS products if I can help it! That was done in InDesign… I'm a bit old fashioned in that regard - I spend all day in front of a computer - so I like logging my roasting with pen & paper :-).
Haven't even installed the DMM software…

Matt

[garyw]

HI guys

I havent figured out the coding for facebook yet, so with your indulgence I will just post the link here. Coffee roasting in a breadmaker - YouTube

In the early days of using a breadmaker for roasting, I would roast with the gun just firing into the open basket. Works absolutely fine but the heat reflection would melt the gun. After wearing out breadmakers and guns, I made a quick lid as seen in the video, and inserted the gun nozzle in tightly so its more or less fixed to the lid. I get no more heat reflection and no more melting of the guns.

This particular setup is in Wales U.K. and is used all year round regardless of weather. I say regardless, when I meant to say even though its cold most of the time. Ive roasted in the rain, in snow and occasionally in brilliant sunshine. As you can see I have an external thermometer which is also occasionally attached to computer software for profiling, but now I know this particular setup quite well, I can work from temperature and from colour and smell of the beans Im familiar with. My usual roast volume is 500-650 grams at a time and takes from 13-16 mins to completion at either just before or just into 2nd crack with a 3-minute rest between 1st crack and to the end of cycle.

The need for further insulation on this machine has so far not been a necessity. I control the rate of heat by either full power or by the lower setting to try and average 7-10 degrees rise a minute. I believe the gun is a 2kilowatt output on high. I always pre heat the first roast of the day to about 250C and then dump the beans in. The first 4 minutes I use as a drying time on low heat as the temp drop is to about 70 or 85C and then rise it through the profiles Ive established for each varietal. Further roasts are not preheated as the basket is warm enough.

This machine is used for my personal consumption when in the UK, and for testing beans, cupping and discussing profiles for the Toper. The smaller amounts allow for this, plus of late I have been roasting some torrefacto and have some really good results from it.

I dont think I have found a better small roaster up to present than using air guns and the breadmaker. In saying that, I have recently stripped one and direct powered the motor, and will be changing the basket out for a larger pan. Stripping the breadmaker - YouTube

This particular breadmaker has been in use for over a year making about 2 kilos a week.