Don't try this at home kids

[nickr]

I admit it. I have great problems getting it up in winter. When the air temp drops below 10degC my poor old popper just can't get above 210degC.

Last week I tried roasting inside. I was horrible. The smell, smoke, noise and mess just made it really un pleasant. Having a day off with no one else in the house to complain, I thought I’d have another go. I ‘d had a brilliant idea. I’d put the popper in the oven (off you understand). Ovens have fans and lights; it would be great I thought.

The first batch went swimmingly. No problems getting the temp up, in fact it was a bit too fast at 10 minutes. The smoke noise and smell were all impressively contained. The next batch didn’t go so well. I was sitting admiring my set-up. The oven with its light on, my controller box with thermometer and digital timer. The popper blasting smoke into the interior of the oven like some dangerous laboratory experiment, I was happy. This was my set-up for the winter.

The next batch started well. This time I was aiming for a total roast time of around 17 minutes, so I was increasing the power slowly. Then it all went horribly wrong. I noticed that the temperature suddenly started to drop. Before I got to the oven there was a high pitch scream. A scream that long time popper roasters recognise and dread. It’s the popper death cry. The popper had gone critical; it had gone into core melt down. I opened the oven and lifted its spongy remains out. The whole body was really hot; its wires wire frightenly soft.

Having left it to cool down. I applied power. ……………screeeeeech. I’ll take it apart this afternoon. I suspect that either the fan has melted or the whole body.

Up until today I thought my next coffee purchase would be an Isomac Tea or some other expensive box, right now though, I would die for a hot top (Ted)

[zix]

hey, nickr, what oven is that? Not that it matters regarding the popper breakdown, but is it gas or electric, with or without hot air?
If it is electric, you can use the oven to roast in instead (until you get yourself a new popper or drum roast or whatever). Just ask me if you want tips & tricks, I have roasted coffee in electric ovens since the beginning of the 90´s. It is not at all as bad as many seem to think.

[edraket]

Hmmm... My condolences..

Zix.. whats the reason a gas oven wouldn't work? I was contemplating trying to outfit mine with a nice drum and thermometre

[Raf]

A gas oven should work fine: I've got a nice rotisserie in my gas oven, so that should work, if only I could fit a drum to it, a thermocouple and something to dump the beans in. It's just that I'm too lazy. My Imex died on me too, btw, the last time I attempted a roast. Because I noticed I couldn't get the temp up high enough to get it into second crack, my genius idea was to place the exhaust very close to the wall plate of the stove. When I tried to turn the dial to start the cooling cycle, the whole side of the Imex had just melted, including the dial: soft as butter.

[zix]

Hmmm... My condolences..

Zix.. whats the reason a gas oven wouldn't work? I was contemplating trying to outfit mine with a nice drum and thermometre

arrrrrrrgh my browser erased my message! arrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhh

What´s with this incessant automatic logging-out-thing on TMC? Happens to others or is it just me? Oh what the heck, here we go again. It won´t be as good the second time around. rrrrhhhh... *takes three deep breaths, takes a sip of the Ardbeg*

The long and short of it was that I did not mean to say that a gas oven is a bad coffee roaster. And by the way I think that the drum-in-the-oven is a great idea.
I merely meant to say that I don´t know about roasting coffee in a gas oven because I have only used electric ovens.

Advantages and tips below are for electric ovens, again because I know about them. This is not to say that they can´t be said to work for gas ovens or hot air ovens too.

Advantages with oven roast:
- cheap, you can use what you already have in your kitchen
- you can roast bigger batches than with a heatgun or a popper: 400-500g, sometimes more, is possible (but you need a good kitchen exhaust for big batches)
- you can see through the oven glass how the roast is progressing

Tips for roasting:
- use a smaller tray for small batches and a bigger tray for bigger batches. Put the tray on a "wire shelf" (don´t know the english word for it, hope you understand) in the middle of the oven (or whatever position suits you best). NB-->Full size trays are harder to use because of uneven heating in most electric ovens. You will have hotspots and cold spots. See next step.
- to get rid of hotspots (which are probably just air currents forming in the oven), slide an extra, empty full size tray in near the bottom of the oven. This breaks the air currents. Kenneth Davids suggests using several smaller alu foils but I have never tried that. Much more work.
- spread your beans evenly in one layer in your baking tray. The baking tray can be just about anything, but I prefer those cheap thin teflon coated baking trays.
- heat it up. Oven temperature should be somewhere between 210-250°C depending on your oven.
- when the oven is hot, put the bean tray in. Don´t put it into a cold oven as this will prolong your roasting time too much.
- take the tray out once or twice during roasting to stir the beans. Turn it 180 degrees, "inside out" so to speak, and put it back in. I usually take it out at the beginning of first crack (or just before that), and if needed just before second crack. This stalls my roast a little bit, which is why I prefer to roast around 225°-250°C.
- roast times will be around 10-18 minutes depending on type of oven, oven temp, where in the oven you put your tray, how often you take the beans out to stir them, and if you roast tisri style or steve style.

As usual:
too low temperature= baked beans. Bleah.
too high temperature=blackened, oily, uneven beans.

Some people claim that oven roasting gives a flat, uninteresting roast. I don´t agree with this at all - but I do agree that heatguns or poppers bring out more of the subtler varietal tastes. If there are any to begin with... With a many beans, though, I probably wouldn´t notice the difference.

Edit: Oh, and another thing that I forgot to write the second time around. I seldom roast more than 300-350g. Too much smoke, to much stirring to get the roast even.
And I still prefer the heatgun+bowl even though it is more inconvenient, demands more of me during the roasting process and is more time-consuming. This is because I think I get better results from HG+bowl, of course.

[phil]

What´s with this incessant automatic logging-out-thing on TMC?

Not supposed to happen. Your session should last 7 days as long as you check "Remember me". If this isn't happening you need to check your handling of cookies, as that of course is how sessions are persisted.

If you're convinced your cookie settings are correct, please send me a copy of the settings and I'll discuss them with our pet Safari expert.

Thanks for the very useful comments on oven roasting btw. I don't know anyone else who does this, and I would have gone to my grave thinking it a useless idea without reading your words of wisdom on the subject (and no I'm not taking the see-rap either).

Cheers

Phil (who's heading off to get a nice glass of malt as he feels he needs it...)

[zix]

Thanks for the tips, Phil. I´ll start by always making sure of "remember me" for a couple of days and come back to you if things still don´t work.

Phil (who's heading off to get a nice glass of malt as he feels he needs it...)

mmmmm... lovely. perhaps something worthy of its own thread: good coffee and whisky combinations...

[Raf]

Mats, I wonder: have you ever tried roasting beans under the grill of your oven? If I were to try oven roasting, I think I would use the gas grill (heat + radiation heat) instead of the hot air function (heat) of the oven.

[pault]

I admire Phil's restraint on this one - but you all know he's itching to shout ...

GET A HOTTOP!!!

[Ian]

Something else you might like to try if you have a gas cooker: http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/homeroast/18255


Ian

[Raf]

Looks interesting. A bit like the old skool sample roasters that my microroaster has (basically a very small drum that you install above a gas cooker).

[edraket]

Thanks for al the info guys!
The gas stove is the only thing I own that has adjustable temperature so it seems logical to go that way.
I am not so good with all the electricity stuff. My knowledge more or less stops with the fact that holland has "220 volts" So modding my popper with dimmers and such isn't going to work for me.
I have access to an enormous metal workshop since I am in an artschool. With cheap materials. So I can play around there.
I've been toying with the idea of eventually building a whole roaster with a gas burner so I can roast outside
Or a small oven with a drum that can sit on top of my stovetop and utilize two burners.
Or just a drum for in my gas oven. Which seems to be the simplest solution.

As a quick solution I have thought about constructing some sort of drum from two sieves attached to each other at the rim.
The chaff wouldn't be able to get out though. Will that have any effect?

[Raf]

Ed, that's exactly what Ian linked to in that coffeegeek link: two sieves attached to each other.

[nickr]

I took the popper to bits this afternoon. Apart from being a bit brown and smelly, it was non-the worst for it’s roasting. The wiring, which was almost sticky seemed to have recovered.

The noise was generated by the fan, which due to the heat had dropped in its spindle and was rubbing on the casing. Levering it back up was difficult, it was very tight and I didn’t want to break it. I tested it and put it back in its casing. I managed one batch before it dropped again. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.

Looks like a visit to Monmoth is called for. I’ll try and fix it with a couple of washers sometime, but to be honest I think I’ve outgrown popper roasting, it’s for kids.

I’m trying to avoid buying a Hot Top, basically because I can’t afford it. Anyone know were I can get a very cheap Alpenroast working or non-working?

[zix]

Mats, I wonder: have you ever tried roasting beans under the grill of your oven? If I were to try oven roasting, I think I would use the gas grill (heat + radiation heat) instead of the hot air function (heat) of the oven.

Interesting idea! Our oven doesn´t have the grill heaters visible, so that´s not an option for me, but I have been modifying an infra-grill with a drum for a while. Not working just yet, I have to move the heaters first... and probably get some more.
It would probably be more effective in the oven, but if one roasts in a baking tray I suspect the roast may become too uneven. Better to try that with a drum, perhaps, for those that have a rotisserie in their oven. Will probably work really really good - if you can get rid of all the smoke ...you could probably roast a kilo or more that way. If only I could borrow someones oven i could try that... we´ll see if someone of my friends is game.

Edit: nagging along about this oven thingy...
By the way, I may have misunderstood the term "convection" in convection oven. To me, convection is natural air movement in regions where hot and cold air meet - as in an oven. The oven I use does not have a fan to blow the hot air around (we call those ovens "hot air oven", I don´t know the english word), it only has heating elements top and bottom. I use "top and bottom" heat, the symbol looks like a bold = sign. Ovens with hot air fans/ducts or whatever you say are supposed to be good for coffee roasting too. If you ever come to Gothenburg, "Mauritz kaffehus" roast their own coffee, in a common electric oven. Inside the café right behind the desk! That place smells lovely all the time...