Author Topic: Inexpensive Hottop upgrade  (Read 1239 times)

Offline ptrmorton

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Inexpensive Hottop upgrade
« on: February 09, 2018, 08:29:26 PM »
My trusty and well used Hottop (JohnF had it before I did) has been struggling this winter and roasting times have gradually been getting longer.  I reduced batch size to compensate, but finally decided to rip the poor beast apart and figure out what is wrong.  I suspected that the connectors to the element were dirty or corroded in some way, but I thought that while I had it apart, I mind as well replace the heating element with a new one - especially as the replacement has a slightly higher wattage.  It turned out to be a great decision as "hard and fast" roasting times have dropped below any I can ever remember even after going back to a 228g batch size.  The connectors were covered with a white/gray powder and there was chaff in odd places throughout the roaster (been roasting a lot of Aaron's cherry/chaff bomb lately), which was probably a contributing factor, but for about $50 and an hour of time, I'm very pleased.
AZ Peter

Proverbs 3:5-6