Wow, you claim that nobody knows enough to comment, and then you comment on it.

JohnM wrote:Wow, you claim that nobody knows enough to comment, and then you comment on it.

Perhaps you might reread what I wrote and then you would actually understand what I was trying to communicate?

I have no way of knowing how this mod would effect the results, never having tried it. It does, however, look to me like a possible way to increase the quantity of beans that can be roasted in each batch in this roaster while maintaining a good roast quality. It overcomes the limitations of the heating elements present in the roaster, and also increases ventilation. Exactly how the results would play themselves out would have to be tested (and tasted). One could guess that the roast product would become something in-between what one expects to get out of a drum and also what one gets from an air-roaster, but that would just be an educated guess.

But it is unreasonably dismissive to say that this isn't a good mod because it changes the airflow. There is no basis upon which to say that changing the airflow in this roaster in this way (adding a heatgun in the tryer hole) will hurt the roast results, until one has tested the idea and finds that the results are worse than before.

If you have constructive criticism to make of what I have just posted, I am eager to read it.

ken

The flavors come out better than ever. If I use a higher air temperature (like 800 to 1000F) for a short periods of time, the batch comes out like melange (uneven in a good way). I think that by using faster times I also get richer tones of color (but that sounds biased even to me).

Instead of using an air based ET, like in most roasters, I use the drum temperature as ET (thermocouple is very close to the drum surface away from air movement). Don't know why people did not use the drum temperature before. It makes a lot of sense to me. It works like an adjustable frying pan. That way I can set the max limit where it counts. The idea of placing the thermocouple where I have it now came from AnotherJim. I set the drum temperature with a PID and I use the heat gun to 'draw' the graph of the profile (etch a sketch). The heat gun also allows to have more control in the finish phase and may shorten the initial warming time (roaster empty).

As far as capacity goes, I went from roasting once a week to roasting once every two weeks. I do ~ 1300 grams in one hour which lasts me for two weeks. Don't want to increase capacity because it would get boring (eating steak every day can get boring even if it is good). I do two cups of green beans at a time (one batch), which fills up to the top of a .7 liter vacuvin canister. So in one hour I end up with four canisters (I use two per week).

Next week I start printing the profile of each roast (network printer) to place it with each canister. That way I can look at the profile and taste it at the same time. I hope to learn something that way.

Cheers

Arpi, is the point of the heat gun mod so you can do bigger batch sizes? Ive seen you post times of 4 mins for drop to drying, and drying to first, and it those times(at least on my quest) are possible with out the heat gun. But i mostly do 100 gram batches.

Hi.

The point was to make it more powerful by using convection (higher heat transfer). Selecting the temperature of the air and keeping a "cold" drum temperature (450F-500F) helps sometimes. I usually roast by volume. I've been doing 2 cups at a time but lately I've switched to cup and half. Maybe the air around the bean makes a difference.

Cheers