New home roaster design? Seen this app before? Thoughts?

[foreRB]

Hello,
 Thought I’d try posting and get some opinions on my new homemade roaster. Be gentle with me guys, I know it’s pretty primitive by most standards.  This may be something you have seen before or maybe not. So far the beta testing is promising. I have been roasting for a couple of years using a Ronco Showtime but it finally died. It worked, but was underpowered and I thought I could do better. As you probably can tell this is a modified Farberware vintage roaster with a second tub purchased on eBay to make the top half. Starting cold, I am getting first crack at about 12-14 minutes and I may be able to speed that up a little bit yet. I have yet to get a piece of sight glass cut to fill the top, currently I am just covering it up.  I don’t have a way yet to check bean or drum temp, but inside the roaster gets up to 600 degrees entering the second crack. I may add a Varic to help with the profile, but still don’t know if I would profit from it. A 14 oz. batch is the perfect size for me, and I can adjust the RPM’s from 20 to 75 with the speed controller. The gear motor is a 1/30 hp Dayton, probably overkill for this app. Any thoughts? Seen this before? Impressions of the roast time or chamber temps? Thanks for any advise you have…….Russell

[peter]

Russell,

Don't worry about being primitive.  In homeroasting, that never counts against you.

With the open end cone, you should be able to rig up a long thermo probe if you choose to.

Some blankets of insulation would help too, I'd think.

I bought one of these Farberware grills at a rummage sale, just never worked with it.  This may inspire me.  The top half looks so much like the bottom half, it makes me wonder what would happen if you used another grill as the top, and had two heating elements. ?

Nice work!  It's obvious you've put lots of thought and effort in your roaster.

[John F]

Just a quick look at it an I think you are right in the ballpark.

You have the foundation already and can tweak for more heat retention (or whatever you want) to get it exactly where you want things.

My experimentation (failed experiments really) tell me that matching batch size to the heat source/roast chamber is the key so if the 14oz is perfect for you and you are completing roasts in ...what approx 16min? I think you are in the game.

Looks cool to me. 

[donn]

That's pretty good for 110V house current.  If future revisions make it hotter, and temperature control becomes more relevant, I wonder if there's some inexpensive alternative to a high wattage variac that would just cycle the element?

[foreRB]

The heating element pulls quite a bit and I have the motor on a separate circut. If I plug them in together the motor speed drops so 1650 watts is max. I think the Ronco was something like 1200 watts. There is some air leakage that I can block maybe later. My next door neighbor has an electrical engineering degree and he says I could even use a reostat to lower the voltage as long as I was careful to get one rated high enough. There's a electrical supply house near by and I may go see what they can provide. The Variac may only be neccessary if you are trying for precise voltage drops.

[foreRB]

Not a big advantage having glass, though I use the smoke to predict cracks and I would have a little more control by seeing inside the chamber. Primarily I have to cover the hole with something and thought the glass would look more finished than stainless.

[J.Jirehs Roaster]

I like it...  (dangerously so, I need to stay out of the thrift stores and rummage sales now)

If you want more control and can get a probe in the beans (peter's suggestion would be my first attempt) than  PID would enable you to turn on and off the heat by automation...  If you want to be more zen about it then get some good inexpensive beans and print out a roast profile chart and start practicing till you learn how to control your beast....

they do have some heavy duty dimmer switches (I never remember that ohms law) they are not cheap but lots cheaper than a variac...

[rasqual]

Elegantly executed!

[Lektrk]

I would try a control switch for a oven. They have a thermocouple you could get fairly close to the beans.

[foreRB]

Thanks, good idea. I will research that........RB