Mill City vs Buckeye BC Roasters - Page 2

Discuss roast levels and profiles for espresso, equipment for roasting coffee.
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keno
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#11: Post by keno »

Both are great roasters and offer excellent customer support. The challenge is that few, if any, people have experience with both. Roasters are large expensive items and people don't typically own more than one. And since these are similar machines people aren't upgrading from one to the other. So you may just get a lot of speculation and opinion. For example, my BC-2 has a variable speed drum, but I'm not sure about the BC-1. But based on experience I can say the mass of the BC-2 is plenty for the batch size it roasts, unlike the Huky I used to roast with.

My recommendation is to put together a list of questions about specs and features and call up each distributor. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to provide answers. Randy at Buckeye is one of the friendliest and low-pressure people I've dealt with. You could then report back here with what you find out for others to benefit. Good luck!

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turtle
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#12: Post by turtle »

Balthazar_B wrote:Just checking on if you truly meant 1000 lb in machine weight.
One too many zeros (typo)
Mick - Drinking in life one cup at a time
I'd rather be roasting coffee

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Felice
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#13: Post by Felice »

For a 1 lb (half kilo) roaster you want close to 1000 lb in machine weight as you do not want great temp fluctuation while roasting (add beans heat drops for too long).

So I can take those bricks back off the 066? Which I have and think is a really, really nice machine.

Tonefish
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#14: Post by Tonefish »

I've been looking at these lately too. I think there is another one, the Sedona Elite that is in this category. I believe it may have been called Santoker previously. One other thing I like about the Mill City is that they are 110V. I think it's kind of silly to have to pay a few hundred to an electrician to wire a 220V service for a GAS roaster, just because its made for international versus US.
LMWDP #581 .......... May your roasts, grinds, and pulls be the best!

mbenedet
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#15: Post by mbenedet »

Buckeye supplies transformers to step the power down to 110. Super easy

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keno
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#16: Post by keno replying to mbenedet »

Yes, they provided a step up/step down transformer with my roaster. So no need for an electrician. BTW it is used in step up mode to convert line power from 110v to 220v for the roaster.

Tonefish
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#17: Post by Tonefish »

mbenedet wrote:Buckeye supplies transformers to step the power down to 110. Super easy
keno wrote:Yes, they provided a step up/step down transformer with my roaster. So no need for an electrician. BTW it is used in step up mode to convert line power from 110v to 220v for the roaster.
That's great. Thanks!!
LMWDP #581 .......... May your roasts, grinds, and pulls be the best!

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drgary
Team HB
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#18: Post by drgary »

Mill City's comes with a transformer also.
Gary
LMWDP#308

What I WOULD do for a good cup of coffee!

archipelago
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#19: Post by archipelago »

I roasted on a TJ-067 for a year and now roast on a BC-300. In both cases, my primary use was for profile development for scaling to production (to a Loring), though I did also occasionally sample roast on them (though the Ikawa is what I use for sample roasting these days).

I hear fit & finish of the North roasters has improved - the BC-300 was more polished in that regard. I also like that it's direct drive (vs. chain drive). Both have insulated drums and hold temps well. For an out-of-the-box solution, the North roasters are a bit more robust because they come with a Phidget and smaller diameter thermocouple for bean probe. The BC-300 comes with a USB interface that records BT but the probe is thicker and placed too high in the drum to be useful with small (100g) charges.

Both provide ample power and control over aiflow + gas, though the TJ-067 and up models offer drum speed control. I haven't missed this feature on my BC-300.

jjk232
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#20: Post by jjk232 »

For the step up converters for those roasters, what is the wattage needed on the converter?