my first roast with a heatgun

[jumper]

just finished it an hour ago and i am worried i screwed it up.
i used a black&decker heatgun 1400w and couldn't here first, second well any crack at all the roast seemed to go pretty well until i noticed that some off the beans never changed color from jellow on.
at the end i got a hole bunch of chaff for the second time and about a minute after that i started cooling the beans.
i noticed that some beans still had a lot of chaff in them but i opened one up and it looked very even colored all the way.
oh and i used guatamala antigua beans.
did i do anything stupid ?
mark

[wang]

Well the main factors are - time, heat, distance, bowl, amount of beans, and stirring. It would help if you listed your equipment/technique.

It should take between 6 and 15 minutes, depending on how you want to roast it, and to what degree. Heat and distance are opposites - if you alter distance with the same heat setting then you heat the beans less, and vice versa. I have a 2000W heat gun, use it at about 2/3 heat at a distance of 2-3 inches above the beans themselves, hovering over and almost never touching the beans with the head of the gun. The bowl should probably be steel - a good stainless steel saucepan will do fine, glass/ceramics are generally less durable and bring in another factor. For the amount of beans I would fill the saucepan bottom to about 3 or so beans high when laid flat and spread over the entire saucepan evenly - make sure that when the beans expand they won't fill the container too much. Stirring would definitely even the roast up - I use a wooden spoon, or a whisk with an oven mitt later in the roast as it gets quite hot.

I would say you probably under roasted by a LOT and didn't stir enough if you didn't hear cracks, had a lot of chaff in them, and roasted very unevenly if you got yellows. I get almost no chaff in my beans when I'm done - my stirring and heatgun makes all the chaff fly into the air and around me!

I recommend that you roast a batch or two all the way to when you see oil on the surface of the beans so you can definitely notice the cracks. From there, take it back to a bit after second crack, and then you can go lighter with more experience.

[jumper]

aaah thanks i held the heatgun at 5-6inches i did stir with a wooden spoon and used a saucepan as i said i use a 1400w heatgun with only 1 setting i did get chaf flying around but not nearly as much as i expected it took about 30 min and i had to change hands all the time cause of the heat the ovenmit makes good sense
tnx

[wang]

It should take about 6-8 minutes to do a very quick roast to burn the beans past 2nd crack if you held the gun directly in the beans. Just make sure you're about 2-3 inches away from them, 30 minutes is WAY too long. Aim for about 9 minutes for 1st crack, and about 11-12 for 2nd crack. The heat isn't so bad if its a quicker roast, it's only on the stirring hand anyway. I use my right hand for stirring as I'm right handed and it's easier to control

[jumper]

i just tasted my first shot and it's actually a decent shot very nutty and a great looking crema it seems a bit to dark though ill try another roast tomorrow.
the guy at work who gave me the beans gave me 1kg guatamala, 1kg santos and 1kg colombia so i have a lot of roasting to do a lot of free beans to burn up.
p.s i'm right handed too but im missing a fingertip(freak grinding accident) so its a bit sensitive to heat.

[PeterAG]

Jumper
See Moccafaux's article on how not to do it in the recent articles on the home page.

Regards
P