hankua wrote:Cleaning chemicals people use are Cafiza, Oxiclean, and I've even tried some dollar store Totally Awesome. For cleaning the inside of the drum, my Taiwanese Feima dealer recommended using un-roasted green coffee. Unless your going to pull the drum out, I'd not use any chemicals inside it.

Maybe the gas system could use some cleaning before the first start-up or startup then see what needs service? You need the electronics on the gas trane to operate normally for start-ups and on/off's. The gauges may still be OK, they could be swapped around; easy to find them on Ebay/Amazon even Dwyer's.

Did the Feima dealer mean to put the green coffee in and tumble it unheated for some length of time? I can see that being the same concept as tumble polishing. Interesting. I'd rather not pull the drum out if I don't have to.

Milligan wrote:Yes, he's a great guy and was a joy to talk to. I have a new appreciation for folks that move these roasters on their own. I bet it was a process getting your drum roaster moved into position.

I moved a 5kg twice and the SF-75 once. Me, a helper and a pallet jack. Crazy. I even got the SF-75 set up and sorted by myself. Talk about cleaning, I needed a hammer drill with a spade bit to chisel all the residue off the exhaust housing and fan blade. It was like glass. I also had to reverse the direction of the exhaust to get the chaff collector on the left side, where it belonged in the first place. The previous owner had a pretty convoluted set up. They made a bridge of the cooling bin exhaust to allow wheeling the chaff bin through. Stupid.



This is how I set it up.



Fortunately, it works well and I have an abundance of airflow, with roasting and cooling.

I hear this product is the ticket for cleaning ducting and innards. Urnex Roaster Sprayz Coffee Roaster Cleaner

Almico wrote:I moved a 5kg twice and the SF-75 once. Me, a helper and a pallet jack. Crazy. I even got the SF-75 set up and sorted by myself. Talk about cleaning, I needed a hammer drill with a spade bit to chisel all the residue off the exhaust housing and fan blade. It was like glass. I also had to reverse the direction of the exhaust to get the chaff collector on the left side, where it belonged in the first place. The previous owner had a pretty convoluted set up. They made a bridge of the cooling bin exhaust to allow wheeling the chaff bin through. Stupid.

Fortunately, it works well and I have an abundance of airflow, with roasting and cooling.

I hear this product is the ticket for cleaning ducting and innards. Urnex Roaster Sprayz Coffee Roaster Cleaner

A pallet jack would have made things a bit easier for sure. I'll likely end up getting one once I get my shop finalized. My wife and I unloaded it from my trailer without issue. It's all about the planning. Glad to see you have your SF-75 set up, I'm sure that was a process getting it moved into position. I find it fascinating that someone would buy such expensive equipment and then not do rudimentary cleaning. The limbo cooling bin pipe on the SF75s previous owner's setup

Thanks for the tip on the cleaner. I'll check out your 5kilo thread to see how you set up data logging. You end up enjoying your 5kg or is there anything you wish it had differently?

Yes, green coffee unheated tumbled for cleaning. Actually when I asked about this subject the answer was "use green coffee". No explanation given. I did try it out, not sure how much it worked. The gunk on my drop door was around 1/8" thick and I ended up removing it and doing a manual scrape/clean. It's worth a try anyway as you need to run thru some green coffee for testing.

hankua wrote:Yes, green coffee unheated tumbled for cleaning. Actually when I asked about this subject the answer was "use green coffee". No explanation given.

It's a similar concept as cleaning the carbon build-up on overhead valves in engine pistons. They use walnut shell grains to blast it like sand blasting but it won't wear out the metal because it's walnut shell instead of sand.

Perhaps more crudely, the old trick of using bricks to clean a concrete mixer

Worth a shot with seasoning/practice greens. Let them rotate for a few hours or perhaps overnight.

Milligan wrote:Worth a shot with seasoning/practice greens. Let them rotate for a few hours or perhaps overnight.

It may help to warm up the drum partially (maybe 1/4 way). It may loosen up the crud little.

This may seem like a dumb question, but where would one buy c grade coffee? I've only purchased specialty coffee and the usual suspects don't seem to have (or at least do not advertise) c-grade. I'd like to get some on the way to have on hand for messing about. I noticed Mill City has "seasoning greens" but they are more expensive than ordering some natural Brazil from an importer.

Milligan wrote:but where would one buy c grade coffee?

eBay. Try a search on "green coffee beans", US seller and list by price + shipping lowest first. I saw Vietnamese Robusta 5 LBS for $24.75 including shipping.

I sent an email to an importer I've been working with for the greens. I assume the shipping will be more than the b-stock beans.

I had some time to break it down a bit and start to get to know it. It has some nice features such as a needle valve for gas adjustment and two gas gauges (service and burner.). It also has some kind of temperature PID as far as I can tell. I'm figuring out a data logging set up for it at the moment. Here is a rough list:

• USB Interface: Phidget VINT HUB0001_0

• TC sensor: TMP 1101_1

• Humidity sensor: HUM1001_0

• Ambient temp sensor: TMP1000_0

Items I'm not sure on yet:

• TCs for BT and ET

• Drum or air pressure gauge

Pressure Thoughts

I know a lot of roasters use a Magnehelic gauge tied to the exhaust piping before the fan to give some representation of the air flow through the system. I noticed Mill City uses a drum pressure gauge which I found interesting:



Can you think of any reason it would be located on the drum face plate instead of in the bean chute or exhaust piping before the fan? I was originally (and likely still am) going to place a magnehelic gauge on the bean chute and T off of that for a pressure differential reading for Artisan, but wondered if the drum pressure would be more beneficial in some way.

Probe Placement



I disassembled the front to clean and inspect. The sight hole was only held on by one bolt due to the PO using a TC for his data logging in one of the holes. The OEM TC hole seems ideal because it is on the side where the bean mass piles against and it is only 1in from the wall. I figure I can try to find a probe that has two leads. One can go to the OEM temperature gauge/PID and the other can go to the BT sensor for artisan. Any issue running a two lead TC?



ET has me a bit puzzled. I could replace the analog gauge with a TC. (Any best practices here? Length of TC matter much for ET? I would think it should be at least an inch into the air flow, optimally to the middle of the chute? I believe it is out of the way of the bean chute flapper.) However, I'm wondering if it would be best to set the ET in a more traditional spot up high on the drum face plate, such as above and to the right of the trier.

I could use the OEM ET gauge hole to do the magnehelic up there on the chute. If I keep the ET location where it is then I may use the proposed blue location for the magnehelic gauge. Any feedback on which way would be best would be most helpful.

Air Damper



The exhaust tube is contained with the drum wrap. The literature says damper fully closed equals 20% flow. There are no detents so setting it to a consistent setting will need a gauge.

Artisan

I wish artisan worked on an iPad. I have an old MacBook but it seems cumbersome to have a full laptop out all the time. I may investigate a cheap MS Surface with a mount. I plan to use all Phidgets to make it as easy as possible.

Hoping to have the data logging kit planned out so I an start ordering parts and get that fitted. The seller accepted my offer on a store front/roastery location so it has been an exciting week to say the least