I wanted to start a thread so we can all share information about Huky 500. I have roasted lots of beans with it and feel like I am getting better at controlling the roaster and consequently able to share some insights.

My roaster is stock configuration with perforated drum. I use that cheap, but effective stove I found on Amazon. I tried using Infrared stove but was not successful with 454g batches I roast. There just was not enough power.

With this other stove though, there is plenty of power and rarely do I have it on full blast. Pretty much for warm up period only.

Since I concentrated on roasting 454 gram batches all my experience is with that batch size. I do play with half pound batches and Infrared stove though but my learning is not very far there...

My drop-in for 454 grams is 480°F. I then manipulate heat so I hit 300°F BT at about 5:00 min. I used to run fan at about 4:00 min till the end of the roast but right now I am experimenting with different technique that if it works out I will be posting about later. I hit first crack between 9-10 minutes from drop-in and then I end roast at 13-14 minutes (from drop-in).

Very important thing that I learned is to control heat applied. If your ET gets out of control there will be roast defects and burnt, ashy tasty in roast. Going easy and smooth on the roast is I feel key to good tasting roast.

I roasted some Guatemala Concepcion Chuito 2 days ago and it came out really good so I wanted to show profile I used. Green apple acidity with nice honey like sweetness. I was really surprised at the excellent results I got. This is roasted for espresso. Pulled at: 18g IN, 24g OUT @ 200°F in 27 sec. Great shot.

I roasted 2 roasts, first stopping at 425°F and second at 430°F. First one turned out to be just a bit too bright for my taste and second one not bright enough. So what do you do? Well, blend them together Very good results. I am very happy with how it turned out.


Here are profiles for both of these roasts:

tekomino wrote:I wanted to start a thread so we can all share information about Huky 500. I have roasted lots of beans with it and feel like I am getting better at controlling the roaster and consequently able to share some insights.

Great idea

tekomino wrote:My roaster is stock configuration with perforated drum.

...and stock 50 rpm motor? (just curious)

Jonathan emailed me three of his most successful artisan profiles, which i will try to replicate by loading them as background profiles into artisan. it would be great to have a location where we can store and swap them. a RPX (Roast Profile eXchange) would perhaps benefit not only huky owners but everybody who is using artisan. i could setup a shared dropbox profiles folder to which i can invite everybody who's interested? that's not very visible to a greater audience though...

icke wrote:...and stock 50 rpm motor? (just curious)

Yep, 100% stock, but not for long

JWilliams wrote:Dennis, one thing I noticed that my successful profiles have in common with yours is the ramp from drying to 1C is not a straight line. It is arced. I have no idea if that makes a difference, but my better profiled coffees are graphically similar.

That was actually intended goal of my profile. You shared with me (thank you!) some thoughts from GCBC on some key times in roast development and there I read that 350F-375F is key to sugar/sweetness development in roast. So to test that in my profile I was trying to just flatten a bit the curve at that point in roast. When I hit 350F BT I turn off the fan to slow the raise, and I turn on the fan back at about 360F. So I run without fan on low heat for about 30-60 seconds trying to just stretch that period a bit...

These 2 roasts I posted came out excellent so I'll keep this procedure

farmroast wrote:Are you all using the same TC locations?

i believe that indeed most of us use the TC probes that the roasters come with. so they're bound to be pretty much in the same location across roasters i'd guess. normally mr Li however would supply an analogue thermometer instead of a digital TC as ET probe. swapping the analogue for the digital one did not incur additional charges when i ordered the huky though.

farmroast wrote:How well does the heat from the burner get distributed to the roaster?

any suggestion how heat distribution can be assessed/measured?

icke wrote:any suggestion how heat distribution can be assessed/measured?

You could use a thermo imager (expensive $7000+) but you would first need to prep the drum or the surfaces you want to check. The shiny metal surface would reflect and mess up all readings. So you would need to coat the drum in something. For example, on my quest, I coated the outer surface of the drum in oil so that it absorbs infrared (instead of reflect it) to increase its performance.

Drums with metal finishes are a poor choice for thermal radiation

I guess the value of doing this type of measurement would be more appropriate for roaster design.

Cheers

Do they have an official website for info/ordering?