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Advice needed for type roaster to build.
Skyhawk4
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Posted on 11/29/2023 10:37 AM
I am new to roasting. I have been using a cheap air roaster I purchased. It is extremely limited. It has only 2 buttons to choose either "Medium" or "Full" roast. You put in a max of 70g of green coffee beans and press one of the two buttons and it roasts your beans. The results are not consistent which is frustrating.

I do like to build DIY things. So I thought I'd try to build a roaster. Ideally I would like to build a roaster that would produce a quality and consistent roast of 300g of beans. I would never need to roast more than 500g. I would like to be able to control the roast process. So it would need to do a good job allowing me to manually control the heat and fan to adjust the temperature of the bean roast. I want to be able to repeat roasting profiles, so I would like the ability to save roasting profiles to use for another roast.

I have been looking at the options for DIY roasters and it is a bit overwhelming. But the heat gun, bread machine roasters look like something I'd be interested in building. Can this type of roaster be built to allow me to do the things well, that I am looking for though? If not, then what would you suggest that I consider? I am so new that I really need help/advice. Thanks in advance for help with this.
 
renatoa
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Posted on 11/29/2023 2:01 PM
All your control requirements implies focusing your build efforts more to electronics rather than mechanics of such machine.
I would take a look at TC4 thread, it's the standard in this field.
Worthy alternatives to BMHG could be:
- flour sifter based roaster, check Larry Cotton design
- turbo oven lid based roaster, look for SCTO or KKTO acronyms.
 
Skyhawk4
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Posted on 12/04/2023 12:59 PM

Quote

renatoa wrote:

All your control requirements implies focusing your build efforts more to electronics rather than mechanics of such machine.
I would take a look at TC4 thread, it's the standard in this field.
Worthy alternatives to BMHG could be:
- flour sifter based roaster, check Larry Cotton design
- turbo oven lid based roaster, look for SCTO or KKTO acronyms.


Thank you for helping me think through this. And you are right that I am focusing on electronics as an important feature. Since your post I went back and spent a lot of time (Internet and YouTube videos) looking over my options. I came to realize that there is no perfect option for me... there were positives and negatives to every option. Especially balancing what I wanted in a roaster, with a reasonable budget amount (LOL, reasonable to me anyway).

I came to the conclusion that for what I'm wanting in a roaster, my particular needs would probably be best met with just buying the Fresh Roast SR800 with the extension tube - and pairing it up with the Artisan roasting software. I ordered a MS6514 Digital Thermometer, and a uxcell K Type Thermocouple Temperature Sensor Probe 4x300mm (for the longer extension tube). I have an old computer laptop that I dug out from the back of my closet and loaded Linux Mint on it and the Artisan software (free). That laptop is old but it should work well for this type of application.

The roast size that the SR800 is perfect for my needs, as I wanted to roast from around 170 grams up to 1/2 pound batches.
 
renatoa
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Posted on 12/04/2023 1:22 PM
Looks balanced indeed... and minimal tinkering, just plug and start roasting.
 
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