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Hottop Profiles / Q&A / Tips & Tricks

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staylor:
Hahaha, don't worry too much about the Houston temps (since they are generally the same as Team Sugar Land) it will never get cold enough here to worry about the temps. I used to put my Hottop in stamped down snow (in Canada) and take it up to pre-heat temps of approx 170 and drop the beans in, I could see when things were getting to pre-heat temps based on the radius of melted snow. ;-)

If it got below -20 I would still roast outside and would just choose a windless day and add a few more degrees of pre-heat. I've found wind affected things more than temps, once things get a bit cooler outside. If I needed beans and it was a windy Canadian winter day I would roast in the garage. I've roasted in temps below -40.

As for filters, for the top filter I don't track it by number of roasts, I just look at it top-down while the roaster is roasting and if I can see the roasting element through obvious gaps in the filter material then I reorder a new one, I'd say they last for approx 100 roasts. For the rear filter the Scottish blood in my stretches the life cycle out on that bad boy for A LOT of roasts, once I see an obvious build up of residue on the filter material I boil some water, put a little bit of Cafiza on a deep plate, pour the water on the Cafiza, mix it up and then rest the entire rear filter assembly in the Cafiza'd water. I agitate the water a bit to help release some of the particulates and a couple of minutes later I take the assembly out and use a low pressure jet spray from the sink to get rid of the dirty water - be sure to use really, really low pressure or you will tear the black filter material. Set the whole thing outside in the sun to dry. Wallah, an almost eternally lasting rear filter.

cfsheridan:
Interesting...

After a few roasts with my hottop, I decided to test out a bit more preheat.  I liked the results, and have stuck with a profile designed around me dropping the beans in at 250? F.

The only annoying thing is that the machine insists on having to go back down to 165?F before starting another cycle.  Every time I roast, it makes me want to install a new control system, but I know where that rabbit hole leads...

staylor:
I got distracted the other day and missed the pre-heat warning beep and ended up pouring the greens in at 220 or so, I didn't even blink an eye, I don't sweat that stuff too much now, there's thousands of roasts still to come. ;-)  I bet in a year I'll get all OCD about finding "the perfect drop temp for each bean", poor John.

It is a bit annoying having to wait until it gets below 165 so you can start a new roast cycle, I just put the nozzle of my industrial wet/dry vac on top of the green feed chute and reverse blow all the hot air out of the chamber, it gets the temp down pretty quickly as compared to just letting the ambient air do it. Give it a try.

Pyment:
Are we talking about F or C?

With my Toper I am using Celsius. It has a lot of metal to heat (it weighs in the 130-150 lb range). So if I don't preheat pretty well, I get pretty long profiles because I am heating the steel besides the beans. If I drop at lower temps (under 200 C), I get really long profiles- up to 25-30 min. I haven't scorched beans with temps up to 250C. My first step is to find the drop temp for various beans.

I have come to realize that my bean probe isn't really measuring bean temp with a 1 lb load (what I have been using so far). I think  that early in the curve, It runs closer to environmental and later it is closer to actual bean temp (presumably as volume expands). I am still using visual, smell, and sound to track the roast and am still trying to adjust the probe placement. I want to get it into the bean mass but not touching the drum surface. I may have to sneak a second probe into the bean mass.

I can vary the rate of heating by restricting air flow. I am starting to use pauses at critical temps, but this slows the roast. When I do that, it is hard to regain momentum. I worry about baking the beans.

cfsheridan:
All my temps are ?F.  I've dropped as high as 300?F in the hottop with good results.

I put a fan on in front of the machine, and I am usually down to 165?F by the end of the cooling cycle.  Blowing out the chamber with compressed air to clean out the chaff also helps.  That said, it seems silly that I have to go that low, when I'd rather just take the roaster down to 250-300?F for the next roast. 

I remember that the CCR (Computer controlled roaster) hottops that some folks produced took care of this "feature", which is one (among many) of the reasons I'd like to convert this machine (if the bug to get a commercial roaster doesn't give me the tactic to convince my wife first).

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