help please with BBQ roaster

[doveguy1]

I am using a BBQ Roaster and not happy with it. The BBQ is a Vermont Castings Home Depot larger one and cannot find the BTUs for it. The Drum is a 1lb coffee roasters club drum.
The issues that I am having are it takes about 20 minutes before the first crack. It is very hard to roast with any consistence. It seems to be a listen and smell program.
The air temperature in the BBQ can go up to 600 degrees and it still take 20 minutes and sometimes more to first crack.
I have burn just too much coffee. Other times I end up with a cinnamon roast that I don?t care for most of the time.
How do you guys monitored the temp. With the BBQ roaster you can?t get to the bean bed. I have posted an idea here for a keg o roaster with an open end that you could monitor the temp and sample.
What is the BTU of your BBQ?
This is a very helpful group. I have found to be the nicest of the many forums I monitored (motorcycles, woodworking wood turning)
In advance thank you all

[doveguy1]

come on guys help

[mp]

come on guys help

Hey doveguy1 ... I would love to help but my only experience with a BBQ roaster was one that goes into a Showtime rotisserie.  I didn't have too much luck with that as both the BBQ roaster and the Showtime were new and not spinning too well.  Now I have some stale beans I am going to see if I can experiment with it to see if I can get a good roast going on with it.  If not ... no waste ... pooched coffee anyway.

If you wanted to take a more scientific approach you may want to invest in good thermometer with a probe as BW was talking about in another thread and measure the true bean temperature of the beans inside the BBQ roaster while they are roasting.  This way you would know when to make temperature adjustments.

Just a thought.

 

[Hoodie2]

I use a Char-Broil from Home-dump, it is the 36,000btu model.   When I first put it the whole thing together, I was using a small 1# drum.  The rotisserie motor was the stock 6 rpm Char-broil, included in the kit available at Home-dump.  My roasts would take about 18 minutes to get to first crack, with the second at about 21-22 minutes.  It would depend on the bean and intended use where I would stop the roast.   I would monitor temps during the roast, but I judged the degree of roast by sound and smell.   With the setup as it was, most/all of my roasts came out f/c or darker. 

I then started to experiment with the amount of beans being roasted, and found that the ideal amount for my setup was about 1/2#.   Using this amount, it would reach first crack by about 13-14 minutes and finish at about 17-18 mins.   Everything also seemed to be much more predictable and repeatable.

I am now using an RK drum, and have upgraded the motor to 60 rpm.  The RK has a 4# capacity, but I have found that it does the best with 2.5# green, which gives me about 2# finished.   The roast times are about the same: 13-14 mins to first, 17-18 to second.   

You might also get better results by using less beans, but as always YMMV.

Hope this helps, Gary

[donn]

Mystery to me.   I don't know the rating for my grill, but it has plenty of overhead.  I turn it up full blast while I round up the other stuff, to get it heated up, and then turn it down maybe half way at most during the roast.  First crack 8-10 minutes.

My grill is a common old model, the Weber style with the somewhat angular lid with enamel or ceramic coating, often red or green.  3 burners.  I got it for $20 or something like that at a yard sale, and did not add any insulation, ceramic tiles or anything.  The thermometer is mounted very roughly half way up on the front, as usual, but on the side, and typically reads ca. 400F during roast.

I'm using a 4 or 5 pound drum, and roasting only 1 pound in it.  I agree with the previous poster's observations about rated size vs. optimal size - a 1 pound drum probably isn't large enough to do a good job on 1 pound of green beans.

Faster rotation might help, especially if you're using a standard rotisserie motor.  People seem to like speeds as high as 60 RPM.

[J.Jirehs Roaster]

I suspect the issue is too small a drum in too big a BBQ... if their is lots of empty space between the top of your drum and the lid of the BBQ than the heat you want in the beans is above the beans... I have a portable gas grill and a drum for a Behmour and it works out because the grill is almost too small...

I just measure the air in the grill at the side of the drum... it takes a few roasts to get a feel for the temps because they are different than bean mass temps.

best I can do is a fairly strait ramp... not a lot of stretching the time between 1st and 2nd... or hovering in the caramel zone... maybe wih more practice or a finer valve...

[John F]

I suspect the issue is too small a drum in too big a BBQ... if their is lots of empty space ...

That is my thought as well.

I will add this:

I did not have any luck trying to roast 1# batches on a drum/grill. I can roast 2-2.5# batches very well but when I tried to step down to 1# batches it was a disaster. The relationship of drum size/grill size (air space), and batch size is a balancing act and you need to alter the parameters to get the results you want.

In your case I think J.J is right you have too large a grill for that drum/batch size.

[doveguy1]

thank you guys the motor went south the 3rd in about a year, so I tried acouple of smaller roast with a speed controler and my drill and a better roast.

I would still like to get a better temp on the bean bed, don't know how to do that with the grill closed and the durm closed, one of these days I will make a roaster that address this issues, thanks

[John F]

I would still like to get a better temp on the bean bed, don't know how to do that with the grill closed and the durm closed, one of these days I will make a roaster that address this issues, thanks

One thing you know (without knowing the temp) is that it's too low/slow.

How about stuffing the top of the lid with some insulating material?

[peter]

How about stuffing the top of the lid with some insulating material?

How about scrapping the whole thing, and starting with a roaster that will do what you want?  The SC/TO is fool-proof (I'm proof) and since you don't need the larger batches of a BBQ/drum, why mess with it?

[doveguy1]

i would like to do 5 lbs at a time many friends and co workers are interested in buying. and I like doing, get some ideas on a low cost durn that should do what I am looking for just that old time and money thing. Seem like I never have both at the same time

[John F]

i would like to do 5 lbs at a time...

Then you are going to have to test a 5# batch.

1# batches are not telling you anything about how a larger drum/batch size is going to perform in that grill.

[ButtWhiskers]

i would like to do 5 lbs at a time...

Then you are going to have to test a 5# batch.

1# batches are not telling you anything about how a larger drum/batch size is going to perform in that grill.

Word.

[ira]

One thing you know (without knowing the temp) is that it's too low/slow.

You might also pick up some fire bricks and force more of the heat to go past the drum. No clue if it would help, but I'd guess it would and it's cheap to try.

Ira

[J.Jirehs Roaster]

Then you are going to have to test a 5# batch.

When designing a coffee roasting drum... how does one determine the size of the drum??

I am thinking the drum should be no more than 1/3 filled with the volume of green beans I want to roast since they expand durring roasting.....