First, thanks to everyone for all the great advice over the last few months on what roaster to get, how to vent it, suggested profiles, etc.

My BC-2 arrived Feb 1. I had it shipped to my work address (loading dock) and forklifted into my pickup.
Packed extremely well, and no damage to the crate or roaster.
Randy had the black with silver teardrop housing in stock. Initially I didn't like the look in the pics, but decided to get it. In person, it looks great.

Set it on a Harbor Freight 4-drawer cart. Removed a window pane, installed a board, and ran 3" snaplock duct thru it. Ran 5/8" OD copper tube to a nearby outlet, and then 3/8" ID rubber hose to the BC-2. My home is heated by LPG now, so I connected to the manifold. I get 2.6 kpa, so that should work well. I think my 1,000 gallon propane tank will do a few roasts!

This afternoon, I fired it up, and let it warm up good just to get familiar with the controls, and do the airflow cigarette lighter test. Then let it cool down so I could practice another warmup.



First roast complete. Wow, a lot going on compared to a Behmor! But I'll adapt.
Below is the first roast, 600g of Sweet Maria's Guatemala Atitlán Agricultores Santiago, and I'll use this 40 lb supply until I've learned the roaster (or it's gone, which ever comes first).
Plan: Charge at 375F then gas off, gas 1.5 kpa at TP, 1.3 kpa yellow, 1.0 kpa at 350F BT
TP too low, and appears to be not enough energy in the roaster, so I need to fine tune my warm up and charge routine. I got it too hot, then I shut gas off, got too cool, turned gas back on, charged, gas off. So not an ideal start to the roast. This might have been the cause of my low TP, and having to add gas towards the end to get the temp up. Then I dropped the beans too soon. I was wanting ~420F, but chasing gas and RoR/temp and lost track of my target drop temp. Oh well. And I thought Artisan would auto trigger at yellow, but it didn't.


Venting temps - cyclone output never went above 200F. I could always put my hand on the snaplock going thru the window board, but it was warm. And of course, more airflow causes higher venting temps. Oh, and -5 F outside helps keep that steel duct cool! It's a test setup, and I'll build a better system when it warms up.

Hope to do another run later this week. Already have one person and her mom interested in coffee.

Nice setup! You're on your way, now. You'll be swimming in the coffee.

I found out the other week after reaching out to Michael (CarefreeBuzzBuzz) that you can add events, like dry end, afterthe roast. Just right click on the BT line at the event and you can add/change the event. I used to look on the Trier for DE, but they always challenged at 320° for me. Now I just use 320 as my marker.

On my Huky, charge temp doesnt make that much of a difference. Most of my energy comes from turning on and up the gas after a quick soak. I suspect that higher mass roasters really more on getting a charge temp right and could get away from you if you hit it with too much gas. I wish I had more roasters to play with

Good install, Wayne! I really like the finish on your drum housing. Is that like a hammertone finish? Looks like it'll laugh at potential scratches and dings. Mine is black chrome which scratches if you look at it too hard.
What is that thing that looks like a roll of HVAC duct tape hanging off the back by your rear bearing housing? Other than that, and the drum speed control being on the front panel, it looks identical to my roaster.
Looks like you're off to a good start with your first roast. That flick at 1C is a booger bear that's hard to control, but you'll conquer it.
The real issue is... how's the coffee? My first roast, just to season the drum, was some years-old robusta that I didn't mind wasting. Since I had it roasted, I figured I'd taste it, natch. I could not believe my taste buds! It was actually amazingly good.

beanman wrote: First roast complete. Wow, a lot going on compared to a Behmor!

Haha that's the truth. Congratulations on making the committed move with this upgrade. Great looking roaster.

Congratulations Beanman! Nice looking setup.

So you mentioned TP being too low. Looking at your profile, I tend to agree that heat is not ideal. Your charge temp looks high enough IMO. Either your gas is not high enough or you have too much/little air.

Yeah, 1000lbs of propane should do! Ha ha.

I'm doing a similar setup this weekend with my Arc800. For the exhaust did you cover the exterior with a dryer vent?

thanks!