KapoK gas roaster

[Ascholten]

Even IF China started mass producing coffee roasters, given the general quality of their stuff and the here today gone tomorrow trend of many of their business' I can't see it really driving reliable manufacturers out of business.  China has earned a rep of putting out lots of cheap crappy products, some may go for it to save 100 dollars but when they have a problem and the 'tech support' is horrible broken ingrish in an e mail that you have to go back and forth 10 times to finally get some semblance of an answer other than YOU are screwed up, then they will see why it is so important to pay the little extra.

Rust belt in the USA coming back, umm I don't think that will ever be a viable option really.  See that IS one thing China does have and many similar countries that the US can never touch, an almost unlimited cheap source of human labor.  Labor costs along will put most US manufacturers out of business unless it's a very small mom and pop operation with very few people.  Patriotism may help a bit, as some people would be very happy to pay an extra 50 cents to see a flag on an item and a sticker saying American Made, however will NOT pay $5.00 extra to see "Union Made" on the same item.  Another problem, is the 'Im Owed' mentality individuals who can't make change at their McJobs without the computer telling them how much, yet somehow thinking they are worth 15 dollars an hour.

I can get a 1 Lb / 1 K roaster 'American' at about 5k or so, or I can get a Huky as an example which is a very robust machine I am told for about 1500 to 2k.  2k --- 5k... both are durable, have a decent user base to help me along, and decent support.  Some of the 'foreign' ones even have parts centers for lack of a better word in the US now so when you do need parts they can turn them around quickly to you... Lets see  2k ... 5k  which one do I want?  America is going to be very hard pressed to compete on a level field with that.

Aaron

[9Sbeans]

Here is the air flow diagram of a typical solid-drum, single-pass roaster. 
AFAIK, BT (blue) and ET (red) probes are usually installed at the marked positions.  A manometer (grey) can also be installed on the exhaust hose.

Replying the previous PM last month reminded me the noise issue of my roaster when drum is not fully warmed-up.  I sent Frank (the owner) an email regarding this issue and Frank immediately answered my question.  This was due to the drum rubbing the faceplate.  He suspected the extreme temperature fluctuation being the culprit, and suggested adjusting the distance between the drum and the faceplate to fix it. 

It took me three minutes reading and understanding his instruction, and one more minute to fix.  I fund the loosen adjustment screw and used my bare hand to tighten it.  Job well done?

No.  My BT and ET readings went hay wired.  I immediately realized that I pulled the drum too far (green) and substantial hot air flowing through a gap had thrown off the readings (orange).  Actually it’s not really an observable “gap”, because the drum was still tightly fitted on the faceplate like a sleeve.  I adjusted the drum in the opposite direction, but this time with my glove on.  Finally problem fixed!  There is no noise during the warming up or in the working temperature range. 

On the user’s manual, it specifies that the adjustment has to be done when the drum is hot, and doesn’t recommend the user doing this adjustment.  Now I understand.  I won’t want to touch the drum alignment nor the main frame since it has been carefully calibrated by the manufacture.

In the past year I had [airflow vs. roasting flavor] discussions on other forums, and I received mixed opinions from users of different roasters.  Now I got it.  Not all roasters were built the same.  And some other roasters may not been calibrated to the same degree as KapoK when leaving the factory.  Various internal airflow paths may cause unpredictable effects on BT & ET readings and it couldn’t be distinguished by the manometer.   

Ps. I use 1-second sampling rate and over sampling in Artisan, via Bluetooth connection.  No spikes in Artisan as of now.  I’ve seen people using longer sampling time (3, or even 15 seconds of sampling time) to circumvent the spike issue.  My complaining about the spike issue may sound like bragging to others.