Green Coffee Buying Club
Coffee Discussion boards => Hardware & Equipment => Topic started by: hottop on August 21, 2020, 07:41:06 AM
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Considering purchasing a 2 lb Sonofresco to use instead of my 4lb drum roaster and hottop. Curious as to the 2lb machines ability to roast at less than full capacity. This would be a propane based machine and would have to be a portable (meaning driveway) setup. I currently use a shop made 4 lb drum roaster that uses a propane grill and a total rig job shop vac cooler. My typical roasting session consists of doing two 3 1/2 lb roasts back to back. During the holidays or when I am gifiting coffee it can be many more roasts back to back.I am using the hottop for smaller specialty batches such as Kona or JBM. I want to know if the Sonofresco is flexible enough to do the smaller batches. The idea is that the sonofresco would supplant my other roasters thereby saving space. Thoughts? Are there alternatives to the Sonofresco at their price point? I've read some of the posts about bright roasts being a problem.
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Give them a call and ask how small of a roast it will do.
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Give them a call and ask how small of a roast it will do.
If it is like the 1 lb then it it’s really 2 lbs all time
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That is too bad and I figured that was case; being a half pound would really launch the beans.
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How small a batch do you want to do? And what's keeping you from doing that on your drum/grill?
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To answer my own question and after a very helpful chat with them...
The 2 lb roaster can only do 2 lbs. The 1 lb version can do a "sample" roast of 1/4th of a pound. My RK drum roaster can do smaller batches, but I am looking for a roaster with a smaller footprint than my RK drum propane grill with redneck cooler does. The cooling system on my propane grill roaster setup uses a shop vac that pushes air up through a metal colander. This also helps with chaff removal AND unlike when pulling air through the beans and colander, doesn't result in melted hoses.