Too Much Coffee

Theres a downloadable PDF with coffee articles from MAKE magazine (http://makezine.com) featuring amongst other things, a coffee roaster. It seems like quite a good design and reasonably easy to build but what do you guys think of it? Could it roast coffee to a decent standard?

I am gonna build one in late may or june.
well that's not what i wish to build. Not only that i want to use another heating method ,ie semi, but i think this design is gonna be inconsistent in terms of temperature and end products.
it can give nice results i believe, but to fine tune will be a pain in the @$$.

ha haa, we will get our roasters built Neo!!!

I wanna see your plans and see what its going to be like to build a semi heat roaster!!

later chris...I'm having exams, cant even spare enough time to watch movies
i have a draft in my mind but there are a lot of technical and numerical data to be confirmed/planned.

Are there any tried and tested diy roaster plans out there? I know theres been loads built but they all seem to be pretty different from each other.

can certainly see what you mean about fine tuning that roaster thinking about it more neo. Not sure how consistent the temperature is from a cheap camping gas stove either?

Personally i am not worried about the gas stove. I think as long as the LPG flow rate remains the same, the heat given out should be the same.
It doesnt matter that much, I'm gonna pid my machine anyway.

Just a few thoughts from looking at the pic only:
- the flame looks awfully close to the 'open' drum - flames touching beans? good, bad, indifferent?
- as an 'open' system, I guess it's an outdoor roaster? (chaff here, chaff there, chaff everywhere)
- you also have to have some sort of rapid bean cooling thingamajig
- with the flame 'right there' where would you put the thermometer to read bean temps? Will the proximity to the flame affect 'true' readings?
- apart from chaff everywhere, how about 'flaming' chaff flying about all over? and of course, the ash that will land everywhere as well?

I tried to use a small pot to roast and i loved watching chaffs burning

The roaster I've been looking at is based on the Ugly Roast, whereby its simply a perforated drum, on an axle, inside a second drum to support it, with a camping stove sat under it. It's also going to be hinged, with an open end using a funnel so I can dump them really easily!! I'm planning to just use a motor from a fan to turn the drum, and have it set up so I can adjust the speed of the drum to fine tune it!

Chris

Hi,

if you want ideas, type "crazy stir roaster" or something similar in google. That's what I would like to build sometime soon:)

Cheers,
dsc.

dsc wrote:Hi,

if you want ideas, type "crazy stir roaster" or something similar in google. That's what I would like to build sometime soon:)

Cheers,
dsc.

Stir crazy type roasters are a great design.
farm

What's that machine, centrifuge?

For more roaster ideas, do have a look at the homeroasters.org forum.
Several different designs there, easy/complex, ugly/good looking, big/small... I am going to try building one of them anytime this century. A really smart roaster if you ask me, the NZ "halogen roaster".