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pollywog, Thanks for the link. Did you notice the drum has holes in the back for air control (not enough holes in my opinion)? Also I see this is a gas unit (cool) that may have direct flame contact with the roast drum. This brings up an interesting point. In my testing and repair of gas units of many types, I find some trouble with perf and direct flame contact if the rpm is to slow (especially if the design is such that the beans are pushed by vane design to one end). What tends to happen if the unit has less than full load is the flame rises into the bean flow where mass is lower and can cause anywhere from "tipping" to a random mix of burnt beans.

If I was asked to improve the design you see in the link I would change a couple things. More air control including full perf on the back of the drum. I would improve on burner design (a pipe with many holes drilled in it is poor at best). Chaff will fall from the holes in the back and do two things. 1 plug the burner since this has no flame spreader or protection from the chaff plugging the burner. 2 as the chaff falls out the back and burns on the flame you may have trouble with combustion air loss as the chaff burns up. Since impinged jet is more expensive and not a recommended application on such a small roaster. You need to allow for more, or possibly even forced combustion air in this atmospheric burner situation and this unit seems or looks pretty closed to me. When the combustion area is in situation thats has moisture from the beans flooding the fireplace so to speak it will certainly effect the flame. First the flame will be blue, then as moisture builds the flame becomes inefficent, yellow..For a commercial unit, this one looks like a third grader put it together. Welds are awful and the bearing design is welded into place so as to make it impossible for the average person to replace. I can see why the people a SM decided to not warrant this unit for future repairs. It is a little scary!

I think they could take a lesson from "Homeroaster" his is a better design and aplication. I like yer roaster dude, and forget making changes if it's working.

One of the problems I have is never giving up the tweeking when it works s:8