A while ago, I picked up a "heavy duty" dust buster style hand vac from Home Depot. I think it cost me about $20. I use it to quickly and conveniently vacuum up all my chaff inside my roaster, as well as a quick clean up of the coffee grinds from both my grinders, that find their way all over the counter. It's way more convenient for me compared to dragging out the house vacuum each time, just to use the hose attachment.

When I took it apart to empty it, I pulled the filter and head off, and happened to kick it on and noticed how much stronger the blower power was coming directly out of the bottom of the unit. That resulted in a nice brainstorm, since the flow of air was so strong and focused, I could use it as a bean cooler that's quick and easy and actually effective

2 minutes later, using the stuff I already had laying around, I built a very fast, small portable bean cooler, that is cleaner, easier, and much, much faster than using the passive cooling of my soon to be throw- down- a- cliff Behmoor.

Here's a quick look at the gear. One bowl, 2 wire strainers and the vacuum.



I had the two strainers already, and with the added perk of one being slightly smaller than the other, the two fit together creating a closed off area so that any excess chaff doesn't blow out all over the place. In a hurry to snap some pictures, I accidentally switched the two, with the small one on top, and you can see it creates a gap where the chaff can escape. Having the larger one on top creates more space for larger roasts, and completely prevents chaff from being blown all over.



With the second strainer on top.( Notice the small gap) it's supposed to be the other way around.



All put together.



All told, this is a much easier method for me, since it's completely portable, quieter than a shop vac (that I don't have) quicker than dragging out my house vac and trying to build and tear down an attachment each time, and now, my dust buster pulls double duty.

It cooled a 1/2 pound roast in less than 2 minutes. Then it took about 20 seconds to reattach the nozzle head and vacuum up the roaster.

Works perfectly for me, living in a small apartment and not wanting to do any of this outside on my balcony where it's perpetually cold.

TomC wrote:Works perfectly for me, living in a small apartment and not wanting to do any of this outside on my balcony where it's perpetually cold.

Wouldn't that make it an ideal location for cooling a roast?

not ideally. it's only going to speed up the passive cooling a mild amount. And cold is a relative term, I should have said foggy and damp. I can do all of this from the comfort and ease of indoors, with no mess.

it takes a fraction of the time to dump it straight out of the basket, into the waiting strainer. As opposed to setting up everything on my patio, and walking the batch out there, opening/closing doors with my hands full, etc.. this was effective and much more convenient for me.