Bean cooling - Thinking about a better bucket cooler

[JoshInCA]

Hoping this is the appropriate forum for musing about a Better Bucket Cooler.

In the immortal words of the Lolrus -- I haz a bucket. I roast about a pound of beanz at a go, and cool them using a Home Depot bucket with the upper half of a double boiler mounted in the bucket lid and a very old canister vacuum with the hose jammed into the side of the bucket.

The result isn't as fast a cool-down as I would like, and it leaves the vacuum smelling of stale coffee, so I'm kicking around ways of improving the thing.

The first idea I had was to use a leftover bathroom ceiling fan, but the thing only moves about 50 CFM and I kinda doubt that's any improvement over the vacuum cleaner (quieter though).

I've looked around for a duct fan, but it looks like the people selling them are purposing them for "greenhouse" use ... and charging accordingly. (Yes, that's a euphemism, at least Out Here.)

The latest notion I had was to throw a computer PS into the bucket and use it to power four or five 120mm case fans. From what I've been reading, some of these shift around 80 CFM, and computer surplus gear is in abundance Out Here.

Any thoughts on whether this would (or even just might) work? I'm too ignorant of fans and vacuums and such to be able to make a smart guess. 

[Tex]

Here's what I came up with: http://home.earthlink.net/~abcdef012345/TO-UFO%20Roaster%2001.pdf

Plastic bucket w/end cut off.
Plastic ties to hold it on fan.
s/s colander.

This will bring 1.5 lbs of beans from roast temps to room temps in ~60 seconds. Very simple & very effective!

[J.Jirehs Roaster]

good place too look for blowers is American Science and Surplus  They don't appear to have the 12vdc blower that I bought at this time, it is the same blower that is in the dash of your car... I can't find the link to the pictures (on this site) of my cooler but it is two 5 gal buckets with this blower in between them.. it sits over two buckets high and I plan on shrouding it so I can vent the exhaust out of the roasting shack (garage) the blower moves enough air that you can feel the colander suck on to the bucket rim...  it is not super quiet but I can run both the blower and SC/TO and still hear the coffee cracks during roasting... I like that it is 12v and portable... I think it will max out at 2 pounds of coffee but that is the colanders restriction not the blowers... I suspect I will need to build a better bean holder for my bbq roaster 

let me know if you want more details... I am thinking of getting a stir arm in the mix eventually...

[peter]

let me know if you want more details... I am thinking of getting a stir arm in the mix eventually...

Stir arm(s) in your cooler will double its effectiveness.


Robert has a good idea, but you don't set that up and break it down every time do you?



Josh, are you looking for a cooler that's going to stay in one spot?

[John F]

I gave up on the bucket suction cool system when I went to sub 2# batches.

I can cool 1# of beans very quickly with the system I use now.

I dump the beans into an aluminum pot that has a bunch of holes drilled in it. I think this might have been a deep fry basket originally but what I do is dump the beans in, toss my colander over the top and blow the vac straight into the mass and get it moving all around. I do this for about 20 seconds. That initial step acts as a heat sink and blasts 80% of the chaff away.

Next I dump the beans out of the pot into my mesh colander and they are just a tad hotter than I want to touch for long so I blow the vac straight into the beans and stir them with my other hand. This takes me to cool in under 30 seconds.

After that I blow the bottom side of the colander and agitate to  loose the last bits of chaff.

Leaks in the bucket system drove me crazy for a long time but blowing into the mass with some agitation is always effective.

[Tex]

let me know if you want more details... I am thinking of getting a stir arm in the mix eventually...

Stir arm(s) in your cooler will double its effectiveness.


Robert has a good idea, but you don't set that up and break it down every time do you?



Josh, are you looking for a cooler that's going to stay in one spot?

The bucket & fan stay together. I also use when soldering to blow the fumes away from nose. David Mankin has a

similar setup

with a rectangular colander sitting on a box fan, and it is set up or broken down as needed.

[John F]

David Mankin has a similar setup with a rectangular colander sitting on a box fan, and it is set up or broken down as needed.

I tried that but my box fan must  have been a dud...I did not get enough whooosh out of it.

[peter]

I dump the beans into an aluminum pot that has a bunch of holes drilled in it. I think this might have been a deep fry basket originally but what I do is dump the beans in, toss my colander over the top and blow the vac straight into the mass and get it moving all around. I do this for about 20 seconds. That initial step acts as a heat sink and blasts 80% of the chaff away.

Next I dump the beans out of the pot into my mesh colander and they are just a tad hotter than I want to touch for long so I blow the vac straight into the beans and stir them with my other hand. This takes me to cool in under 30 seconds.

After that I blow the bottom side of the colander and agitate to  loose the last bits of chaff.

Good for single batches, but if you want to get cracking on the next roast, you want a cooler that doesn't need attending (or hands).

So we have two more questions for Josh;

Multiple, back-to-back roasts?

Cooling outside, so chaff can blow up and into the area, vs. sucking cool air down and containing the chaff?

[JoshInCA]

Well, let's see ...

• I roast outside, and chaff can blow up and away. Most of the chaff gets trapped in the bread-machine anyhow; there's very little left in the roasted beanz when I dump 'em (I use a lid on the bread-machine, an idea I got here, I think maybe from Peter?)
• The fan and the bucket and the colander or sieve or what-have-you could probably stay cable-tied together permanently (although I've been moving the gear back indoors between roasts and probably will keep doing that)
• Back to back roasts are a rare occurrence -- maybe once or twice a year -- and I roast at most 1.5# and usually less, around a pound at a time. I doubt that'd change significantly anytime soon.

I'm a *big* fan of American Sci & Surplus. (Their site reminds me just a bit of the old, old, Johnson-Smith catalogs. I'm talking OLD here.) But I'll probably make Goodwill and the Sally my first stops, fan-shopping.

Thanks to all!

[peter]

Another thing to keep in mind is to match the surface area of the screen, colander, whatever to the size of the roast.  If you have a large screen area w/ small bean area, the air will follow the path of least resistance and not through the beans.

[John F]

Tex...

What did you roast that batch on?

[J.Jirehs Roaster]

Well, let's see ...

• I roast outside, and chaff can blow up and away. Most of the chaff gets trapped in the bread-machine anyhow; there's very little left in the roasted beanz when I dump 'em (I use a lid on the bread-machine, an idea I got here, I think maybe from Peter?)
• The fan and the bucket and the colander or sieve or what-have-you could probably stay cable-tied together permanently (although I've been moving the gear back indoors between roasts and probably will keep doing that)
• Back to back roasts are a rare occurrence -- maybe once or twice a year -- and I roast at most 1.5# and usually less, around a pound at a time. I doubt that'd change significantly anytime soon.

I'm a *big* fan of American Sci & Surplus. (Their site reminds me just a bit of the old, old, Johnson-Smith catalogs. I'm talking OLD here.) But I'll probably make Goodwill and the Sally my first stops, fan-shopping.

Thanks to all!

the heating supply people will have a small squirrel cage blower for a gas fired steam boiler that will move a lot of air...  (just thinking)

[Tex]

Tex...

What did you roast that batch on?

That was some IMV I roasted on the UFO/CO. The beans wouldn't roast evenly so I took them into a Vienna stage. They tasted good as espresso after a week's rest. Funny thing - with the Sonofresco they roast nicely???

[John F]

I wondered what you had going there....

[4thJohn]

 I was on a job and we were checking the rocks to see if they made spec.The way they did this was to stack a series of different size sieves on top of a 5 gallon bucket and see what rocks stopped where.The bottom sieve had about an eighth of an inch gap between the wires,and made a very tight fit in the top of the bucket.The whole time,I'm thinking what a great addition to my bean cooler this would make.The bottom is completely flat so the beans would lay in a nice even layer and cool rapidly.
 I have made my own cooler,very similar to the one in the first post,with my own poorboy sieve which is a: 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut out leaving about a 1" lip completely around the edge for a piece of perforated aluminum to sit in the bottom(attached with screws).
I have this contraption attached to a shop-vac and sitting on a shelf where the window unit A/C blows directly over the top of the cooler.When I turn on the vac.cold air is sucked onto the beans and the roast process is stopped almost immediately.
Here is a link to a moderately priced sieve.
http://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/Product_275355?srccode=cii_14934801&cpncode=24-56741944-2