I took delivery of my Santoker Revolution 500 Friday and finished off my shed and installed it.
First seasoning roast last night and I'm glad I took the plunge.
My big problem was that I couldn't figure out how to get around Artisan software's not recognizing com 4 on the usb so I had to roast without the software ...
Way too much power the first roast and hit first crack at about 8 minutes ... so "Nordic roasting" is possible with it.

Some comments ... (from someone who is new to gas drum roasting - coming from a gene café)

Amazingly quiet ... had to open the bean dump panel and look inside to see if the drum was rotating.
The drum does have a variable speed on it.
Trier is very nice.
Nice control of airflow ... the lever on Dustin's machine is now a round knob.
Nice door with hinge to clean the chaff out of the cyclone.
Beans are amazingly clean of chaff compared to the way they come out of the Gene café
Auto ignition and relight if you turn the gas down too much ... just turn the volume up and it relights.
The readout on the panel is temp in degrees centigrade and it has a max setting that will shut off the heat if you go above it ... tried it out and it works. (haven't figured out all the settings it has yet)
Also has a timer to watch on it for recording roast time.
Can't speak to how it looks under Artisan ... but has 3 probes in it (BT, ET, and MET)
Fit and finish is pretty good ... It is heavy but I can lift it if I'm careful ... but it is a bad Idea.
I did check the drum out ... it seems 6" deep by 6.26 inches in diameter and cast iron with grate venting holes in the "back wall" for airflow.

Here is a pic ... I got the fancy bean cooler with spinning arms .. kind of fun ... separate cooling fan which is nice.
Buttons on panel from left to right ...
on/off ... starts drum turning and fan in cyclone
ignition ... lights the two heating burners
cooling ... starts cooling fan
Arm ... starts the paddles in the cooling tray

Above that is a simple timer ... start stop and resets

The panel above is a read out of the temps

Next to that is the gas pressure gauge with controlling knob under it.

Behind the roaster on the back side is an on off switch and variable speed knob for drum speed rotation

on the right side is the arduro box to plug in the usb / power plug / main on off switch / two separate plug spots for the cyclone fan and the cooling tray fan.
The Roaster came with a 120 to 240v converter ... works no problem.

Will try to work out my windows problem tonight (will try my other laptop) and see how it goes ... Happy to answer any questions ... glad I took the plunge and can't wait to get to feel comfortable with January's group bean roasting trial. And anyone in the Seattle-Tacoma south sound area who wants to see it ... let me know.

Steve Egge
Puyallup, WA

She's a beauty. Enjoy it!

Question.....how well does the spinning arm for the cooling tray move beans away from the edge of the tray to make sure all get some airflow?

The beans do tend to move to the outside of the bean tray, but not excessively ... nice if you want to "drop the chute" and have the arms move the beans to the "exit ramp" ... The tray has a separate cooler which is quite adequate and with the airflow and it doesn't matter if there are a few gaps without beans here and there... the beans cool down FAST. You could also turn the "arms" off and just cool (fan and arm movement are separate buttons) ... and turn the arms back on when you want them to sweep the beans out of the tray ... Either way it works well.
Steve

JavaMD wrote:You could also turn the "arms" off and just cool (fan and arm movement are separate buttons) ... and turn the arms back on when you want them to sweep the beans out of the tray

I've heard from a couple of pros that this is how they prefer to do it.

The arms are needed for very large batches of coffee where the middle layer is much hotter than the lower, even with air flowing thru them. It's only to redistribute the beans, for even cooling of very large batches, not speed up cooling of small batches.

If the batch of coffee you've dumped into the cooling tray doesn't completely cover the bottom of the perforated tray well (in a thick layer), you'll actually impede fast cooling, since the air will take the path of least resistance and suck right down thru the big swaths of empty space behind the sweeper arms.

Also, simple physics, the massive amounts of coffee roasted on commercial drums hold a lot more stored heat energy that you want to get rid of. If the coffee on the bottom of the pan is cooling faster while the coffee sandwiched in the middle is still blazing hot, you'll likely overshoot your desired finish temp and alter your resulting roast.

The rotating arms are better used for easy unloading the cooling tray into a waiting bag or bucket/container and if the batch is big enough, to quickly level it out evenly. They also are nice for blending different roasts prior to packaging.

Keep em coming guys! We want to hear all about this machine!

My Revolution 500 arrived yesterday afternoon, and after a little fiddling with pressure regulators, I got it up and running today. Here is a little photo tour of the experience so far...

The massive crate barely made it through the building door and into the elevator. It's big. Never mind the messy kitchen. I wasn't about to stop and clean!


After prying the top off with a hammer (by the way: get yourself a crowbar), I found this glorious sight!


I got it all unpacked and setup on the balcony for initial testing. I need to still find a little table for it to sit on by the window inside.


The roaster runs at a max pressure of 5 kpa (0.73 psi), so a 1 psi propane regulator seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, the 1 psi regulator must not be rated for high enough flow. The roaster wouldn't get above 1 kpa. I was anxious all evening wondering what the problem was. After some discussion with Dustin and Steve, I gathered that it was indeed the regulator. So today I went searching for an adjustable 0-10 psi regulator. You just have to be careful you don't accidentally turn it past your set point and blow the gauge. I didn't want to wait for an online order, so I found a turkey fryer stove at Bimart for $36 that included this regulator. Then I went to Home Depot and bought a few adapters and a gas line. All is groovy now!


Little burners pumping it out.


And the inaugural roast! Just 200 grams, and spit balling all the settings. I set the airflow right in the middle, heated to 150 C, dropped, turn around at 100 C, first crack at 7:30, reduced the gas and increased the airflow, and dumped when first crack ended at 9:30. I was very pleased with how easy it was to control. Especially coming from only ever having used a BBQ to roast! I'll taste it tomorrow and try another 200 gram batch.




That's my report for now. Maybe I'll have some more to share tomorrow. I couldn't be more thrilled! A huge thanks to Dustin for making this happen, and a big thanks to my wife for allowing it

EDIT: For reference: Dan directed me to this page for dealing with iPhone photos uploading sideways: IPhone rotated picture work around This fixed it, but made the file size much too large. I guess I will just have to go back to using a real camera!

Exciting stuff!! Look forward to more comments on this roaster!!

Thanks for posting photos....the more the better. On the cooling tray, does the slotted cover remove easily so you can stir the beans?