Chert wrote:Welcome back, great to see you applying Huky lessons to such a fine roasting machine there.

Thank you Flint! It feels good to be back. I can tell you that although all those years roasting with the Huky certainly teached me a lot, translating all of that to a the Loring is a giant challenge. And indeed, it's a fine roasting machine.

Brewzologist wrote:This thread is a Huky owners forum reunion! I learned a lot from that forum and I'm still cranking roasts on my Huky 7 years later.

I have to say it was a melancholic moment, the day I disassembled my Huky setup. Hundreds and hundreds of roasts put through it.

My wife asked if I was going to sell it and I said no way! That little guy is going to sit on a shelf for display at the roastery.

I had some thoughts of using it as a sample roaster, but quickly changed my mind to something more practical and mobile. At first I looked into the Ikawa, but was convinced to try the Nucleus Link, which works very similarly but is almost half the price. I'm very happy with it so far

As an ex-volunteer firefighter and home roaster, I noticed the dry chem extinguisher. Do you also have an H2O can? A chaff fire or burning beans go out quickly with water and a relatively easy clean up (mostly). The dry chem is usually a code requirement, but cleaning up that stuff takes many days. Many, many days.

Hey Randy

Thanks for the attention! Yes, the extinguisher is there mainly for code requirements. This roaster comes with a chaff barrel quench built in, so in the event of a chaff fire, it should be extinguished immediately. It's also activated for a few seconds after the end of each roast to cool the chaff barrel down. notice the exposed blue water line on the wall. That's the roaster water supply.

As for burning beans, this is less concerning and the recommendation from Loring is to simply let it burn inside the drum. The machine is designed to handle it and the fire will be contained until it's over. In addition to that, as dark roasts are not going to be part of this roaster's life, this one is extremely unlikely to happen.

So I ordered the three caffeinated offerings from Hypergoat. All three roasts are light and laid back, so the sweetness outweighs the acdity and there are no green, grassy, or cutting notes.

The Peru is a lovely coffee, almond blossoms and marzipan, and won my blind cupping (it really wasn't all that blind, since the origins are super distinct and the dry aroma was an easy tell. But I've had a lot of roast whee the origins got obscured by bad technique. Not here). Great cup for anyone who wants an intro to high Andean coffees.

The Ethiopean Hambela is wet processed, so more delicate than the over the top team of anaerobic DPs. Also a lot more clean. The Brazil is a DP and stood out for the sheer variety of undertone flavors, mostly very nice, but with the usual DP edge. I liked it for its volume; but the contrast with the two classic wet processed coffees was stark. The Ambela was a focussed peach flavor, the Brazil a more tipsy apricot, with caramels and a hint of smoke underneath.

When cupping, I like to check out the potential for espresso when the brews hit room temperature. If you are looking for a very distinct and sweet light roast, the Hambela and Brazil at 50/50 is a standout. I confirmed that by doing a few shots as a follow up.

My congrats. These "graduates" of the home roasting forum are well worth checking out for fans of light, relaxed roasts.

We were so busy these past days with sample roasting and cupping that I missed this entirely.

Thanks for the nice review Jim! From the three, the Peru is my favorite as well. In fact I have roasted a batch that is even lighter than the one we're selling, which I particularly loved, but thought it would be too adventurous for these early days.

I have tried the same espresso blend here - I actually go 6:4 - and what I can tell you is that it will get better in a few more days. Yours was roasted on the 20th, so this Sunday you're probably getting a nicer shot for your morning espresso

And speaking of sampling and cupping, here's what's keeping us busy lately. Notice the sample roaster on the table - it's a Nucleus Link, an Ikawa competitor. I'm very happy with this little guy. Excellent workflow and fully configurable. I've used it for sampling exclusively, but for our next offerings it will help me on the roast profile development as well.

As we're working on recounting our coffee story, I was going now through some old photos and found some that show better how my original setup was. Fun times!

Here's my old Huky catching some sun at the patio:


And here, already in the garage, after I realized I needed some more precise control (with a variac for the airflow and a needle valve and gauge for controlling gas pressure):


And on this one, testing air velocity with Susan's anemometer. This device traveled the country while serving the nerdy Huky Forum community!!!

Aguirre wrote:And here, already in the garage, after I realized I needed some more precise control (with a variac for the airflow and a needle valve and gauge for controlling gas pressure)

I love this up-to-safety-code setup

Alexandria, VA -- you should do a cupping (yes, I hate 495)