slickrock wrote:What is the issue exactly? Too much heat in the kitchen?

F.U.D. mostly.

If the hood can adequately exhaust the smoke, then I suppose its no different than any other stove top cooking.

slickrock,

I can't thank you enough for this post, the more detail the better!

I was eyeballing the HotTop... then Quest M3... but as I do more research (how I stumbled upon your post) I'm now fascinated by the Huky 500.

• I may have missed it, but I didn't see which modifications you requested. I think this was being saved for part 2?
• Did the Huky 500 come with digital BT, ET, and MET temperature instrumentation? I'm planning on using Artisan to log roast profiles.
• This is probably obvious since I didn't see one in the photos of your box contents but I'm assuming one must provide their own burner? Kuanho offers a infrared stove with a needle valve switch & gas pressure gauge

I'm attempting to contact Mr. Kuanho Li to gather some more information about what he offers. Contacted!

Information on Huky machines seems to be hard to come by in english from what I can dig up. Thanks again for your detail and I'm greatly looking forward to reading part 2... and 3! Don't hold back!

(This is my first post!)

Yeah, I'm also waiting on the list of modifications slickrock requested, and, his completed evaluation of the machine. We know slickrock opted for the solid drum, but, we don't know what he put the handle that operates closing/opening the vanes on the bottom to use for in particular.

From what I've gathered from Kuanho Li and posts is that it comes with an analog thermometer for ET temperature and has a BT thermocouple installed. From my email, I got this:

The standard fittings include (one digit-sensor,one analog-sensor)
Digit thermometer(attach) is choose appurtenance,50 USD
You can choose another dual display thermometer 68 USD (http://www.yc-tech.com/en/pro_dt_yc821.html)
If you choose YC-821 I can offer two digit-sensor.

I'm not too sure what the two digit-sensor means... is it a better thermocouple?

I suggest getting perforated drum, on reasons why click on the link in my signature.

By two digits, he means thermometer with dual input so you can have both BT and ET on digital thermometer. I took the ET probe as thermocouple and it is extremely useful to have that precise readout.

You're not making this decision easier for me tekomino! Do you generally roast with the grates fully open for more responsive ET manipulation?

In your pictures, you still have the analog thermometer... did you have to manually ask for him to include a secondary ET probe, or, did you pull out the analog thermometer?

I was also curious for the sake of roast automation, could the default IR roaster respond to any sort of external control?

I have right now settled to roasting with grate open at all times. I experimented roasting with grate completely closed but one runs into problems as I have described. Roaster was simply not designed for such operation. You can do it, but I found roaster harder to control and chaff could not be sucked out due to lack of air flow.

I had originally analog thermometer but later I ordered thermocouple. I say just get thermocouple right away.

I could not get default IR roaster to perform for me. I got 20,000 BTU stove to run Huky and that is working great. I use pressure gauge and needle valve on my stove for precise control and repeatability. That works very well too.

Tekomino

Thank You for posting. I looked at your site and have now decided to go with the perforated drum. I do have a question for you though. What was the problem you had with the IR burner? Just not enough heat or was there something else? The profile you posted on your site has a drop temp of 260 F with 450g. The profile looks great but Mr. Li suggests a much higher drop temp. What stove are you using?

I'm going to be using an Omega 802u with artisan, but i have been struggling with ordering the Huki due to the high drop temps that are recommended( 572 F) with a 500g bean mass. That just looks like a recipe for tipping and scorching problems, but I really don't know.

Thanks Again!
JW

Kuanho Li has mentioned these two things to me that may be of interest to someone:

• The infrared stove he offers can use natural gas, he just needs the diameter of the gas pipe.
• When I inquired about a method to use a duct hose for ventilation, he said though made it this way in the past airflow issues forced him to no longer do so.

A question for the community about roasting with the Huky 500 indoors. Without hose ventilation as mentioned above I would imagine one needs a decent kitchen range hood vented to the outside. Would you think a vent under the microwave (no hood) to the outside would be alright for the amount of smoke a 1 lb. batch would produce? It feels nice and strong.

For me it's either venting as described above or taking it outside in the winter and use my propane burner. I have no idea if this is a good option in very cold or very hot weather.

I'd appreciate any experiences you may have.

How well does it retain heat? It looks to be built similarly to the Quest in that the drum is not housed in any real insulation. Also wondering about tipping and scorching issues. Read a couple comments here that remind to say once again that drum roasting uses conductive, convective, and radiant heat all in concert. Air flow is very important to drum roasting besides just removing chaff. This is a really nice looking roaster, and the fan unit looks smart. Having front of drum exhaust means that increasing the airflow will increase the speed of the roast (but could also lead to tipping issues).

JWilliams wrote:What was the problem you had with the IR burner? Just not enough heat or was there something else?

Not enough power. I could not get to 1st going full heat earlier than 11-12 minutes.

JWilliams wrote:something else? The profile you posted on your site has a drop temp of 260 F with 450g. The profile looks great but Mr. Li suggests a much higher drop temp. What stove are you using?

My drops are 475F these days. I could drop lower there is plenty of power, but this just "feels" right and roast runs nicely with this drop. There is no tipping or scorching. I read that some roaster drop much higher than this and it does not create problems so...

If you try to push IR stove you would have to drop at almost 600F. It just does not put out enough heat. I use this stove, cheap and effective. Height of it is just perfect for Huky. You just need to prop the fan up about an inch with something so everything fits nicely.

bkronline wrote:The infrared stove he offers can use natural gas, he just needs the diameter of the gas pipe.

That's the one I have, and as I said, I could not get it to work for me...

bkronline wrote:A question for the community about roasting with the Huky 500 indoors.

I see this as very hard to do if you are using built-in fan which sucks the air out. Once that smoke comes out of that powerful fan it just goes everywhere. If you were roasting inside you would have to have very powerful hood-vent to take this out... I just can't see it working well.

chrisschooley wrote:How well does it retain heat? It looks to be built similarly to the Quest in that the drum is not housed in any real insulation. Also wondering about tipping and scorching issues.

Don't know how I would express heat retention. It works for roasting, its fairly easy to control. There is no insulation inside and putting some in will mess up airflow and performance of the roaster. No tipping and scorching as long as you control it, but that's like with any other roaster, right?

chrisschooley wrote:Air flow is very important to drum roasting besides just removing chaff. This is a really nice looking roaster, and the fan unit looks smart. Having front of drum exhaust means that increasing the airflow will increase the speed of the roast (but could also lead to tipping issues).

Airflow very important on Huky to control roast. Also ET thermocouple is indispensable since when you start the fan you have to stay on top of the power and airflow or temperature will raise a lot...