Using a handheld fan to control heat during a popcorn roast

[tcab]

Thanks so much for the advice and photos.
Making holes and exposing the main cooking metal sounds like a brilliant way to control temperature.

I'm still waiting for my popcorn maker to arrive from Good Guys - meanwhile I've been cast iron pan roasting... not sure if a popcorm maker is a better technique than cast iron pan roasting or not? Have you tried cast iron pan roasting?

[deegee]

I have done many popper roasts with a lot of different poppers. From stock standard units to the heavily modded "frankenpoppers" that I use now.
As flynn said above, blowing the air across the top would be better than trying to force fresh air into the chamber against the hot airflow coming out.
You also need to have the fan on right from the start, not just towards the end of the roast. In cold weather, if you can't get to the start of second crack with the fan on, the roast may be stalling and you may need to turn it off to avoid stalling the roast and 'baking" the beans.

I've tried several variations of external fan cooling, and only two made a noticeable difference. One was a fan blowing air through large holes in the upper housing, the other was removing the top half of the case and blowing air directly onto the exposed roast chamber. The bottom half of the case still covered all of the electical connections, so it was safe.

Here are pics of some examples

[flynnaus]

Might be worth a try. When I was using a popper 10 or so years ago, I used a fan to blow air across the top rather than into the mouth of the popper. I thought this might suck the heat rather than blow it out. Did it work? Not sure. You would need to measure the roast temperature to verify. However, many popper users have successfully roasted without using a fan.

You preferably need to reduce the heat at the onset of first crack otherwise you could find the roast going straight 2nd crack after 1st. You don't want to stall the roast though.

[tcab]

Can a handheld fan, blowing cool ambient air onto the top of the beans, slow down heat and extend roast times during a popcorn roast?

I’m waiting for delivery of my Sunbeam popcorn maker and first shipment of green beans and have been reading about popcorn mods - and really don’t want to get into electrical wiring changes- yet! Surely a handheld fan might be enough to slow down a roast a little? Perhaps applied after 1st crack?