I bought a Milwaukee dual temp heat gun last Friday and picked up my order of two pounds each of Espresso Monkey and decaf Espresso Donkey I'm already on batch #6. I really enjoy being close to the process. I have been doing 3 oz. or 84 grams at a time until I get more experience, no sense wasting larger batches. I think when I get a roaster I'll have a better idea what I'm doing or what I want to do. Sweet Maria's had some roasted Espresso Monkey when I ordered so I bought a pound to use for reference. So far I only tossed one batch as I didn't roast it quite enough. I roasted a pretty decent batch of what I would define as French roast with the decaf. I'm beginning to "get" the 1st and 2nd crack of the roast. I look forward to trying what I roasted last night. I've been letting it rest ~24 hours but notice it is better the next day but my batches are quite small and don't make it beyond 48 hours.

The next phase of the fun has begun. Thanks for all the great information.

jw

Batch size can have a big effect on the roast - you might try 150g, or even 250g. Larger batches are also more likely to be around long enough to get a little rest

Glad you're enjoying the process.

allon wrote:Oh, another point - cooling is important. Don't roast more than you can cool quickly! Before the percoolator, I roasted around 250g. With the percoolator, I can do a whole pound, though it pushes the capacity of the fry basket. I usually lose a few beans after they expand.

+1 on the importance of cooling your beans

I use a Behmor, and most of my beans go into drip coffee. Initially I was a bit disappointed in my results. I kept reading all these exotic descriptions from the coffee tasters, but the coffee from my roasted beans simply was not very exciting.

I read a lot of discussions about cooling the roast:
The most overlooked part of home roasting
Cooling the roast and sweetness
Alternative cooling techniques with the Behmor

Initially I resisted, because I was lazy. I wanted the roaster to do everything for me ... but it really can NOT. The roaster is at 400 degrees by the end of the roast, and it takes several minutes to cool down.

You must stop the roast process, and cool the beans when they get to your desired roast level. Otherwise, the beans continue to roast for several minutes (during the roaster's cooling cycle), and you get a "flat tasting / boring" result.

After I dumped the beans out of the Behmor and cooled them myself, I found a BIG improvement in the coffee. Now I can taste those nuances of flavor as described in the coffee tasters' notes.

I'm new at this too and have built a heat gun/bread machine (HG/BM) roaster and a cooling tray with fan. Have had good results with both. But the cooling tray is impressively effective, cheap and easy to do. BTW I tried this with experienced roasters here for the recent San Francisco South Bay get-together and was able to cool about a 1/2 lb. very quickly, within a minute or so. Later I easily cooled a pound. The surprising part is the fan doesn't need to be strong, just strong enough to pull the hot air away and fresh air to the beans. Here's the thread that shows the cooling tray. Go to the bottom part of this post. How to Modify a Bread Machine for Home Roasting?

Here are the parts it took:
1. A large splash guard for frying. I removed the steel mesh from that and used it as the screen
2. The screen is fitted over the top rim of a 5 gallon plastic paint bucket
3. The bottom of the bucket is cut out to hold a medium-sized office fan
4. The paint bucket sits in a plastic milk carton to give it some clearance

I've also aimed the heat gun at beans in a large aluminum salad bowl and did fine with that too. One thing others haven't told you is with that method you get lots of chaff flying loose. I mixed the beans with a wooden spoon. One of the threads I read involved taking two large steel dog bowls and fitting them together with a thermocouple soldered at the bottom of one of them to track temperature. Pretty clever.

drgary wrote: One of the threads I read involved taking two large steel dog bowls and fitting them together with a thermocouple soldered at the bottom of one of them to track temperature. Pretty clever.

Don't think I'd solder the thermocouple, but taping it with Kapton tape might work. I'll have to try that, as my previous attempts of thermocouple tracking with heat gun didn't work so well.

But I'll have to roast directly in the bowl, not in the fry basket, which complicates the whole stirring thing.

Good catch, Allon. I now recall he spot welded the thermocouple to the dog bowl so the metals were truly joined.