Vacuum Bean Cooler

[Ian]

During a spring clean in my garage, I came across a cylinder vacuum cleaner that I’d forgotten about. The only reason it hadn’t been chucked out is that we received it brand new as a gift and had never used it. You sometimes find a use for junk if you keep it long enough and this is a prime example. On with the modifications:

Firstly, I removed the top hinged part that the hose attaches to and also holds the dust bag in place. This simply involved removing a couple of pins. The dustbag also got binned as it just impedes airflow. There was a plastic carrying handle sticking up which prevented the sieve from seating down fully but a few strokes with a panel saw cured that problem.

Pros: Several minutes saved doing the colander to colander shuffle, 20 seconds in the vacuum bean cooler and the beans are cool enough for bagging up (approximately body temp.) Less washing up to do – aforementioned colanders and cooling tray. You can stop the roast closer to the point you require due to the faster cooling facility.

Cons: Uses electricity. Noisier than the colander shuffle.

That's about it.


Ian

[AlanP]

Very neat idea
I'm impressed

[jumper]

great thinking!
so that is a colander always thought it was a round steel bowl

[Gouezeri]

Actually, that's a sieve. A colander is kind of a metal bowl with holes, and often with handles.
see :
http://shrunk.net/86467e66

I think Ian was saying that he used to move the beans from one colander to another, but found that placing this sieve (which would allow for better air circulation than a colander) on top of his Mark 1 Air Powered Bean Cooler, works better and is probably much quicker. One advantage of a device such as the I-Roast though, which blows air up through the beans is that the chaff is blown away (actually into the chaff collector), whereas sucking wont have the same effect. I wonder what would happen if you used a vacuum cleaner that had a "blow" setting instead (obviously you would want it to blow too hard!)?

[simonp]

Most of the chaff gets blown out during roasting anyway, so I don't expext it is a big problem, and at leat fresh cool air gets pulled straight onto the beans.

Nice job Ian, that's my kind of coffee equipment, modded old junk

[Gouezeri]

Whilst I agree that most chaff comes off during the roasting process, in my experience not all of it gets "blown away" (and into the chaff colector) with the I-Roast until it starts its cooling process (when the fan is consistently rotating and thus blowing much harder/faster). I wasn't really suggesting that it was a major problem, just a minor advantage
Ian, you didn't say how many grams it was rated for...
All of a sudden the idea of a dyson and a whirlwind of beans seems like a good idea

[simonp]

Using a popcorn machine, or the Imex, the fan runs flat out all of the time so there is very little or no chaff left by the end of the roast. I forgtot the I-roast fan varies.

[wang]

I was thinking of something similar with a garden vaccuum/blower. I also remembered a time where I was hoovering up near the fireplace and there was a fire going the last night. Turned out that the bag started to catch on fire

[michel]

a bit of topic... but Wang... look what this guy made to roast his beans :
here

(edited by Phil to clean up the layout)

[Ian]

I think Ian was saying that he used to move the beans from one colander to another, but found that placing this sieve (which would allow for better air circulation than a colander) on top of his Mark 1 Air Powered Bean Cooler, works better and is probably much quicker.

Correct.

...you didn't say how many grams it was rated for...

Well, I roast 125g per batch which is what you see in the sieve and I suppose there's no reason why you couldn't go to the capacity of the sieve although I expect the cooling time would be increased somewhat.

I'm considering constructing a drum roaster for my ideal batch size of 200g and I'm expecting the VBC MkI to cope with this easily. It'll be interesting to see how it performs as ambient temps increase over the summer.

Cheers

[matts]

Hi Ian

Nice one. Once the batch size gets bigger you might have a problem with the plastic impeller blades and the thermal motor cut out, I managed to trash an old vac that 'sucked' but that was 600g batches. Can you reverse the polarity and make it 'blow'?

Cheers
Matt

[wang]

I need to get a proper cooler too. I used to do 145g batches, but now I'm doing 250-400g batches in 10-14 minutes roasted full city or so. Can't stand the carbon ashy bitterness that second crack brings. But I find that beans simply don't cool quick enough if I just toss em between sieves at large roast levels.

[Ian]

Hi Matt, it did cross my mind before I started about something melting inside but the batch size is small enough at present that it's not much of a concern. The exhaust is warmish but no hotter than you typically get after a few minutes hoovering.

I really don't know if it can be reversed, interesting idea but that's a question for the sparky experts.

Cheers

[Gouezeri]

Ian. (or anybody else for that matter)
If you do try to reverse it (for some unknown reason memories of Ghost Busters and "don't cross the beams!" springs to mind! ) I'd put another sieve on top... I dread to think what it would be like seeing 125 grams of freshly roasted beans shooting up into the air and off in all directions!
D