Huky 500 owners - What's your serial number? - Page 6

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
Kfir
Posts: 348
Joined: 11 years ago

#51: Post by Kfir »

Congrats on your new Huky's, enjoy them and roast lots of coffee...

I really encourage you to experiment a lot and learn first to use your senses to monitor the roast: look, see, smell and don't be afraid to roast darker/lighter with low/high airflow as much as you like - you will only learn from your mistakes and the experience you'll gain is priceless.

Mr. Lee is truly a nice humble guy and he made a great and affordable gas roaster which almost any coffee enthusiast can use at home.

2.5 years with mine and not even a single fault! This is a simple roaster that anyone can take apart easily and fix.
It's an 'open source' for modding as well.

Kfir.

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bean2friends
Posts: 687
Joined: 14 years ago

#52: Post by bean2friends replying to Kfir »

Kfir, I think that's great advice. I was thinking of that when I did my first roast. I had installed roastmaster on my ipad and had the Bluetherm Duo hooked up to my thermocouples and I just had so much going on it was hard, if not impossible, to pay full attention to the roast. Hopefully I'll roast a few today and pay better attention.
Dick

Cammie
Posts: 39
Joined: 12 years ago

#53: Post by Cammie »

Huky 459 in the house...she's set up an ready to go on her first ever roast



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bean2friends
Posts: 687
Joined: 14 years ago

#54: Post by bean2friends »

OOH! And a cyclone to boot. I'll be anxious to learn of your experience with that.

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johnny4lsu
Posts: 775
Joined: 12 years ago

#55: Post by johnny4lsu »

beautiful

Cammie
Posts: 39
Joined: 12 years ago

#56: Post by Cammie »

Even though I was a bit tired after setting up last night, I could not resist trying a roast. I used a one pound load of one of Dave's (Boldjava's) recent Sumatra distributions. With the wide open shed door and the cyclone, venting was more than adequate. There was virtually no chaff mess anywhere around the roaster. I'll have to check and see how much is in the cyclone bucket today. I also bought the extended curved down exhaust pipe, both motors and drums and I will play with the roaster in its native configuration soon.

Last night I used the perforated drum and the slower motor. I did hear a slight scraping sound during the roast and will check and make sure the drum is seated properly today. My brother-in-law built me a custom gas line that included better hose, added a cut off valve near the stove and better fittings on the stove. There were no beans retained in the roaster or in the inlet. The cooler was powerful. It was a slower, longer roast last night as I began figuring things out but the beans look great and I am looking forward to trying them in a few days.

Kfir
Posts: 348
Joined: 11 years ago

#57: Post by Kfir »

Nice setup Cammie, love the that big blue cyclone ...

Perforated drum is a very good choice, works great with both motors.
Use low airflow during the roast and try to keep the heat consistent as much as you can.

Recently I installed e a DC motor speed controller on my Huky and currently experimenting with low RPM drum speeds - results are very good as long as I don't apply too much heat.

I am starting to think that maybe a small diameter drum like the Huky's may not need such high RPM, maybe there is some kind of relation between the drum diameter and motor RPM speed.
For example medium and consistent heat during the whole roast mixed with low RPM (30-35) and very low airflow gave me a great roast (more conduction based roast), very well developed, sweet and balanced.

This is what I like about roasting with the Huky, you can modify it easily and experiment with many variations as you wish.

Enjoy your new Huky!

Kfir.

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LDT
Posts: 242
Joined: 10 years ago

#58: Post by LDT »

Cammie,

Is that an Onieda cyclone? Can you give any details about it? It appears the second fan on top of the cyclone is mounted upside down forcing air up and creating suction on the roaster exhaust tube. Is that how it works? Very nice, neat installation! :D

Cammie
Posts: 39
Joined: 12 years ago

#59: Post by Cammie »

Here's how I am looking at the fan: I view the side with the silver facing as the intake side. In the tradtional Huky configuration, this fan with the intake side up would be up mounted on top of the exhaust bowl pulling air from the roaster. With the cyclone during roasting, I placed this fan with the intake side down. So in the picture it is upside down and I flipped it before I did the roast. It's not securely mounted yet. I'm going to look for a few connectors today to better stabilize that part of the roaster assembly. I got the cyclone from this eBay seller:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bucket-Cyclone- ... 2593dfc044

There's a seal on the inside rim of the cyclone and it's just heavy enough (about 8 pounds) to just rest on top of the bucket. I think the clips on it are sort of useless unless you find a bucket with just the right rim. I like that it is made of steel. It's easy to just lift the exhaust and attached cyclone bucket assembly from the roaster, funnel in the beans and then replace the exhaust back.

ronburleson
Posts: 7
Joined: 12 years ago

#60: Post by ronburleson »

That looks great!! I want to come by and see it in action.

Ron