Coffee Roasting Honed

Stephanie took it upon herself to photo document the entire coffee roasting process a few weeks ago. Both the machine and the process have been highly refined since last time. Andy got an old grill for free so he cut it down and mounted the roaster semi-permanently over the existing burners. We upgraded to a 5/8" shaft and reinforced the shell. It now dons a hopper with a valve, and the fanciest modification is the adjustable drum. This way, we can manipulate the location of the drum on the fly.

Here it is in all of its glory. It will comfortably roast a pound of coffee in under ten minutes.Here is a close up of the fancy adjuster. The end of the shaft is threaded and is free to move within the bearing. The cylinder extending from the bearing is secured to the shaft collar on the bearing as well as the nut on the threads. Therefore, if you hold the shaft and turn that collar, the shaft will be adjusted in our out by the threads. This allows us to adjust for the expanding and contracting of the drum. The weight of the door is the only thing that keeps the beans in while they roast. You can see the chaff resting on the machine. Maybe one day we will install an after-burner, but for now it is just a messy process.While roasting, I continually assess the progress by the sound of the beans cracking, the smell of them roasting, as well as continual visual inspections using the tryer shown below. The difference between a light light roast and charcoal is only about 120 seconds.

Here is an action shot of the beans being dumped! You can see the flame below! They look perfect!

This last photo is of my beautiful mother overseeing the high-tech cooling process. It actually works remarkably well. Note that the fan is blowing down. If it was blowing up, the coffee beans would be everywhere! That's it folks! If you want a pound send an email to bumblesboast@hotmail.com We should have a label soon!

Bring on the coffee!

So, I made a significant investment. I purchased 130 pounds of Kenya AA. At $2.75/lb, it wasn't cheap, but by I saved $.25/lb by buying the whole sack. It arrived at Harvest Moon on Friday, and I couldn't wait for Thor to get up so we could go get the sucker. I underestimated the size of the thing, so a kind man helped me carry it to the car. It came in an awesome burlap sack as pictured below>
Everyone who has seen it, asks if they can have the bag when I am done. The answer stands at "no", so don't bother asking. I plan on selling fresh roasted coffee to friends for about the price of Folger's. This way everyone wins, and I can reinvest the profits into our roaster. In the past week, we have roasted around 5 lbs and it gets better every time.












But, as you can tell by the picture of our roaster below, it is quite rudimentary. The thin scraps of metal welded together to make our frame, as well as the piece of crap stock pot drum do not stand up to the heat very well. They both warp, and expand at their leisure with no amount of predictability. As a result, we have had to adjust the machine--meaning hit it with hammers, and bend it with a crowbar-- whenever something goes wrong. There are two problems that have reared their ugly head.

1. The drum expands, the the box shrinks, so the gear motor locks up. BAD.

2. Beans fall out of the machine like a sieve. ALSO BAD.

These complications have had Andy and I thinking, and today he had a wonderful revelation. it is pictured below. Pardon the quality, I took it with my phone.


What is it? That is the cursed wood burning stove that started the fire that destroyed my in-laws old house... It lay in the ashy muck of a basement for a month after the fire, and has resided in a patch of trees at the back of their property ever since. This picture isn't complete--we had already stripped it down a whole lot. Anyway, it will make the PERFECT shell for our full sized final roaster. Andy thinks he can secure a huge piece of pipe that will become our drum. If he takes care of that, I confidently believe that for less than $200, we can build a roaster that will effectively rival commercial roasters that retail for about $10k. I wish you could have seen Andy and I's faces as we removed the sheet metal sides to expose the perfect answer to our prototype woes. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Nonetheless, our prototype does the trick. So, if you live in or around Canal Winchester, I will sell you FRESH roasted top quality Kenya AA for $6/lb. Of course, you may try before you buy, so give me a call, or pay me a visit. I will roast at your request and to your preferred roast. Thanks for reading!

Coffee Roasting attempt #7?

Coffee roasting has come a long way!  My father-in-law was laid off two months ago, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have benefited greatly!  He is a union plumber/pipefitter and is great with all things metal.  He also is an avid coffee drinker.  All of these things made it easy for him to catch the home-roasting fever.  We fumbled around with a fluid airbed roaster design for awhile but he quickly let go of that and began pursuing a more conventional design.  Before I knew it he unveiled the roaster below.

Well, it was not quite this glorious to begin with.  Having watched many drum roasters on youtube and even studied their blueprints in books, I was able to offer lots of constructive criticism that has led to the current design.  The amazing thing is that as pictured, the only thing we didn't have on hand is the thermometer!  I purchased some bearings and a gearmotor today from Surplus Center.  That site is amazing and has incredible prices.  I bought bearings online a month ago and thought I was getting a good deal.  Well, they suck compared to similar priced ones from that catalog.  Currently, the drum only rotates at about 4 rpm, and the new motor will ramp that up to 64.  I am excited for that!  It easily roasts a pound at a time with good but slightly inconsistent results.  I am banking on the higher rpms to fix this.

So, if you love good coffee, buy it fresh from me and I will cut you one heck of a deal!  God bless.

Updates

Weight Watchers - As I expected, my metabolism is off the charts. For quite a few weeks I followed the program with a lot of determination. Consuming just under 2000 calories a day I was losing about 2 pounds every 3 days. I very quickly dropped to 240 pounds. Then I started to get a little bit cocky. Despite easing off the diet quite a bit I still managed to hit 237.5, but I have been afraid to get back on the scale since. But, we must endure.

Coffee - Andy and I are in the process of building a fluid air bed roaster out of junk from the thrift store. It has been a learning experience to say the least. If you think you know a lot about everything start perusing forums that deal with electronics and you will be quickly humbled. Last week we were able to set up a system that thoroughly agitates around a half pound of beans with only air. Now all we need to do it turn that air from 70 degrees to 400. Easier said that done.

Homebrew - Last Saturday, Earl and I brewed our fist all-grain batch. All we know so far is that it is fermenting. Good news. My homemade mash-tun worked wonders. I also purchased an 8 gallon stainless steel stock pot for boiling the wort. It is a beautiful piece of equipment. Tomorrow, forty-two 55 pound bags of malt will arrive on a semi. Only 4 of them are mine, but I organized the whole ordeal on this wiki to save money. If you live nearby and want to save mad money on malt, join us next time!

Beekeeping - You didn't know about this one did you... Well it is only a dream up to this point, but I do belive I am going to take classes from the Scioto Valley Beekeepers Association in a couple of weeks. I hope to build a top bar hive similar to the one here. The only major difference is that mine will have observation windows so Thor and I can learn all about how bees work!

Spiritual - Stephanie and I are praying together almost every night before we go to bed and this simple gesture does wonders for us. There is something attractive about a praying wife. We continue to attend Bible Study with friends every Wednesday night. I look forward to it more than anything else in a week.

Monetary - Dave Ramsey convinced me that whole life insurance is a waste of money. So, I am cashing out our policy. Add that money to our tax returns and in a short amount of time, we will pay off $6000 worth debt! There are few better feelings in the world. Praise Jesus.

Smoke! (Coffee Roasting attempt #1)

I read that coffee roasting produced smoke, but I underestimated how much! I can hardly breathe! So, today starts what I anticipate to be an exciting wing of my blog. The do-it-yourself adventure log. Today, I roasted coffee.

The coffee roasting idea came to me a week or two ago while perusing beer making websites. One site had a link for coffee roasting, and the moment I laid eyes on those words I was hooked. Since then I have

 read countless webpages and a library book. Today, I got

 my shipment of green Columbian coffee beans. A roaster out of Cleveland and a little coffee house they supply a block from our house were willing to let me buy beans directly and have them shipped piggy back for free. Coffee for $2.50/lb. cannot be beat! The best price I could find online was around $4.00/lb and that was before shipping. I feel like I should buy 150 lb. before the price goes up! Green Coffee beans will store for up to a year, so buying in bulk is a very viable option.

Today's maiden voyage will determine if it is worth building a real roaster with my handy-man of a father-in-law. The rudimentary equipment o

f the day was simply a pot with a lid. There are many proponents of the Whirley Pop method, but since we don't have one, a well agitated pot had to do the trick.  

The coffee looked amazing.  We immediately brewed a pot, in spite of the advice that coffee reaches its peak at 24 hours.  The coffee tasted like water...  I never knew coffee had "body" until I tasted that which had none!  Over time this coffee improved significantly and we concluded that it was over roasted.  We have roasted two smaller batches now, each very light roasts and blended with the original batch it is a decent cup o joe.

Andy and I heavily discussed our plans for a roaster, and my scavenging for parts has already begun.

Lessons Learned: 

-Stovetop roasting is far from ideal and will never give consistent results

-Over roasting coffee does not enrich flavor, in fact it robs it

-Cooling is essential, or else the roasting goes far beyond your hopes