Too Much Coffee

For the past few days, I have been searching and reading old threads for information about the various home-made bean coolers that have been featured on the boards from time to time.

It looks to me as though a lot of people have employed cylinder vacuum cleaners and colanders successfully. Other notable exceptions have been Coffee Maniac's UFO looking deep fat fryer conversion using a computer fan for cooling, and another, details of which have slipped my mind, in which a computer fan was also used to expidite the cooling process.

Anyway, I wanted to ask people for more details, and possibly photos, as we are looking to fashion some sort of cooler of this type.

We looked at bagged and bagless cylindar vacuums and wondered what people have found to be best. Any tips about mounting the colendar would be gratefully received.

It doesn't have to be a vacuum cooler. We would love to know about all solutions.

Whatever we do in the end, the final contraption must be able to cope with around a kilo (pre-roasted weight) of beans. It will be used in a garage, so noise and storage are not issues. It would be nice if it could remove as much chaff as possible by either sucking or (perhaps less desirably through mess if it has no 'bag') blowing.

Many thanks



Edit: Typo

Buy a HotTop, set it to cool and dump the beans from your Gene into the tray. There's no better cooler available.

bruceb wrote:Buy a HotTop, set it to cool and dump the beans from your Gene into the tray. There's no better cooler available.

You know he's right.

It's not our Genie that is the problem

Pray tell cake boy what roaster would that be then

Yes Cakey, have you finally decided to upgrade your roaster?

I think a kilo of beans requires a different, more substantial, solution than the more usual 300 grams with home roasters. My own vacuum cooler does an excellent job cooling 300 grams in about 2 minutes from 240 C down to about 30 C. It is simply a stainless steel steamer from ASDA (about£9.95) as below.

I estimate that the maximum air temperature reaches about 100 C and after the two minutes the internals of the vacuum cleaner are quite hot to the touch, probably about 60 C. The steamer is adequate for 1 kilo of beans but I would not recommend cooling 1 kilo in this arrangement using a domestic vacuum cleaner. It may be possible to find an industrial cleaner with metal internals but I doubt they would be designed for these temperatures. I use a very cheap vacuum cleaner dedicated to the job and if it lasts a year I will be happy. As the vacuum cleaner internals temperature increases so do the safety and fire risks.

I would expect the same argument applies to the Hottop cooling fan which is a plastic computer fan. This would probably be in trouble if you tried to cool a kilo of beans even if they would fit in the tray.

Blowing rather than sucking solves the problems of overheating the fan/vacuum motor but as you say results in much more mess.

Is anybody cooling 1 kilo or more of beans using a vacuum cleaner?

Mod's Edit: Photo(s) resized to fit page.

GreenBean wrote:I would expect the same argument applies to the Hottop cooling fan which is a plastic computer fan. This would probably be in trouble if you tried to cool a kilo of beans even if they would fit in the tray.

Blowing rather than sucking solves the problems of overheating the fan/vacuum motor but as you say results in much more mess.

hi gb,

the hottop is blowing. i guess the heat is one of the main reasons for that. apart from that, all the chaff that would get sucked into the chassis would create quite a mess i guess...

Steve wrote:Pray tell cake boy what roaster would that be then

lol ........ the one stuck in the car boot .........

GB, that is a neat solution. I like the idea of the all metal structure and had not really thought about the vacuum being plastic internally when I mentioned the colendar method. As you say, there are some cheap vacuums around these days. Argos have them for under £18 and under £26 respectively for bagged and bagless. I suppose a bagless is less of a heat/fire risk. The fire blanket is already en route .... just in case (!), and the electricity is going to be ring-fenced in the 'roasting area'. I wonder if a larger stainless steel container might be okay for a kilo of beans? It would be good if something could be employed that moved the beans as they cooled

hi gb,

the hottop is blowing. i guess the heat is one of the main reasons for that. apart from that, all the chaff that would get sucked into the chassis would create quite a mess i guess...

So it's official then the Hottop blows! I knew there was a good reason to stick with the Gene Cafe.

lol ........ the one stuck in the car boot ......... Wink Laughing

Oh come on we are dying to know.

GreenBean wrote:

CakeBoy wrote:lol ........ the one stuck in the car boot ......... Wink Laughing

Oh come on we are dying to know.

It's been in the sig all week

CakeBoy wrote:GB, that is a neat solution. I like the idea of the all metal structure and had not really thought about the vacuum being plastic internally when I mentioned the colendar method. As you say, there are some cheap vacuums around these days. Argos have them for under £18 and under £26 respectively for bagged and bagless. I suppose a bagless is less of a heat/fire risk. The fire blanket is already en route .... just in case (!), and the electricity is going to be ring-fenced in the 'roasting area'. I wonder if a larger stainless steel container might be okay for a kilo of beans? It would be good if something could be employed that moved the beans as they cooled

I am sure that the ASDA steamer is adequate for 1 kilo of beans. I stir it after a minute with a spatula but it seems to cool fine without stirring. If you want to take a chance on the vacuum, bagless would be fine to collect the chaff. I have added a crude distribution pipe to mine as per the photos but I know now it is not really necessary, the pressure drop over the beans ensures even air distribution. The other thing I should mention is I now use only metal and polypropylene piping which is more suited to the temperatures than the cheap plastic piping (pvc?) that comes with the cheap vacuums.

It's been in the sig all week

Oh I am so jealous! You must tell us all about it.

Is it possible to buy the metal/polyporp tubing easily GB, and do you think it might be cheaper overall to look for a vaccum with metal/polyprop accessories?

PP piping in about the right diameter is available very cheaply from DIY stores as high temperature drain pipe (the correct stuff has ‘polypropylene’ printed on it . Metal tubing can be purchased as spares for more expensive vacuums that use metal tubing. I chose a cheap vacuum and pp pipe (as I wanted to plumb the vacuum in) but you may well find a cheap vacuum with metal pipes.

One further thought, you mention considering using a colander. If this is the usual type with a curved base it will be much less satisfactory than a flat bottomed container. Ideally you need a reasonably uniform thickness of beans in the container. This ensures uniform air flow and hence uniform cooling rates. If you use a curved bottomed colander almost all the air flow will be around the outside edge where the bed of beans is thinner thus the beans in the centre will cool much more slowly. If you have efficient stirring then this may not matter too much but if the bed is of uniform thickness you will not really need to stir it.

GreenBean wrote:So it's official then the Hottop blows! I knew there was a good reason to stick with the Gene Cafe.

not really strong enough to cause considerable chaff mess though.