Assembly Guide Section K.
Adjusted to include General Drum Info, Gear Motor Tips
and Roast Profiles. Recommended Read for new RK
Owners
New
Assembly Guide
containing nearly 200
annotated images with detailed how-to's Finally!
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL
ORDERS! (Continental 48 States Only)
International Orders, please contact me.
Thank you for your support
Ron Kyle
RK DRUMS
Expect 2 weeks for Delivery.
Want to bridge the
gap
between the 1/2 lb
roasters available today, and the pro small
batch roaster, costing thousands of dollars?
The RK Roasting Drum is a great solution.
It's a well built drum, at an affordable
price.
Start your new business without
spending thousands on a new roaster.
It is easy to convert your gas grill into a coffee
roaster.
If you can pop popcorn, you can roast
coffee. This drum will also roast Peanuts, and a
variety of other nuts.
Update
6/17/09
RK
Cooler Update: We have really come
a long way since the last update. We
have finally sourced all of the parts and
material on a long-term basis, which means
thatwe should have consistency in parts and
design for the future. We are now down
to the little simple aesthetic things, like
rubber gaskets and rubber stoppers and wheel
selection, etc. So it's all but ready
for release.
I had desperately hoped to run up to the shop
on Thursday with the 6Lb RK and test the finer points of the cooler, namely the
dumping mechanism and ergonomics of its operation, to make sure it feels
comfortable to use, and examine it's finer detail, get it all buffed out, shiny
and in its Sunday best, but Larry called to say a bracket for the dump door
still hadn't arrived via email as of today, and he expected it in the morning.
So, as it turns out, I've got to travel on
Friday, and I've decided to just let Larry have next week to tweak and fine tune
things, the little details, like the style of the handles and things. So
you see, we know the unit works in just an outstanding fashion, we're now on the
finishing touches. We're almost there!
When I get back on the 28th. One of
those days, I'll go up and test the whole thing start to finish with some 6Lb
and 8Lb loads as we know the 4Lb loads work exceptionally well.
I imagine we may have one or two things to
tweak after that date and then I think we'll be ready to put a full page up here
on the cooler along with some video and details.
You can be assured, that we will have tried
to think of literally every convenience and luxury from the coffee roasters
perspective and I think you will be well pleased with the entire unit. I
honestly expect this to be as good or better than any RK product to date, with
the same reputation of durability and quality. Just wanted to let you know
exactly where we are at. I'll give you another update after the last test.
Update
6/13/09
Update
6/6/09
15 or
20 pound Drum Question:
I really need
some help on this one guys. I think I
could get us a 15 or 20 pound drum within a
couple weeks, but I am not sure it is practical
due to its size and weight. Do me a favor
and throw in your 2 cents! (Even
if you're not in the market for one) Thanks!
Update
6/6/09
RK
Cooler Update:
I know for
some reason I'm going to regret saying this,
invariably something is going to happen to delay
us. In any case, here goes, but don't hold
me to it, I want to get everyone a quality unit,
not a halfway thought through product, even if
it takes us an extra week to get it right.
I think
we can have a cooler ready for distribution
within 3 - 6 weeks.
Still working out a few details with materials
suppliers on volume purchase to allow us to make
a consistent 1st Class product for the next
years to come. Developing something like
this for the masses is harder than you might
think!
Y'all are
gonna have to fight with me for the first spot
in line. It is simply a beautiful piece.
As much a work of art as functional machinery.
I am going to post full high-resolution photos,
features and video of it's operation here, just
as soon as all the QA checks are in place and we
have committed to turning the last corner.
I have some reasons for not spilling too many
beans (ha..I made a funny....) on its design
yet, but trust me... Every bit worth the
wait, and built to the same degree of quality of
all RK products. (Buy it once, own it for
life)
More as I get
it...
Update 5/30/09
RK
Cooler Update:
After some
Extensive Testing this weekend, the results from
the coffee cooler are in, and I must say we all
are very pleased with the results. After
test roasting 20 pounds through the cooler, we
are consistently getting 4 pounds of finished
coffee cooled from 650 F to ambient temperature
in our target 90 seconds with an estimated 98%
Automatic Chaff Removal with no user
intervention. We are very pleased with the
results of the test and functionality and design
of the entire system. We will begin
working on the fine details of the cooler and
should have a release soon! The final
design will have some rather unique and
functional innovations not yet seen on other
roasting equipment. For this reason, I'm
not showing you any other details yet,
however...
Here is a
very short video to wet your appetite.
Please be aware that this may not represent the
final product or functionality and is only a
small piece of the overall equipment
representing the current state of design and
testing, and we still will be making some more
adjustments before release. (Yes I know,
sorry, can't show you more just yet....go clear
out a space in your garage for a new cooler!)
Regards!
Something of a
catalog of all the RK users, or as many as
we can collect. I know there is a lot
of you commercial roasters out there.
If you are roasting with the RK, send me
your website and I will post it. This
will, not only improve all of our rankings
in Google, but it may increase the traffic
to your website as well.
If you have
pictures of your RK Rig, and want to brag a
little on your setup, send me some of those
pics and I'll post'em in the RK in Action
Pages.
Update
4/9/09
For the life of
me, I can't figure out why this was never
done before, but...finally here are some
pictures of the 8Lb drum. I think Ron
was finalizing the design on the 8Lb at one
point and that's why he didn't post the
pictures. But without further ado....
I'll get some 6 Pound pictures ASAP.
Update
3/28/09
Today Larry and
I spent the day at the machine shop
finalizing the design of the coffee cooler.
I'm pleased to report that we have hopefully
negotiated all of the remaining engineering
hurdles, and the unit should start to begin
trial runs in the next couple of weeks.
I'm really
quite excited about this project, as it
seems that from every angle it will work
better than I had hoped. We made some
drastic engineering changes to our initial
design, which should make the cooler even
more feature packed than what I had
originally anticipated. I think, it
will also turn out to be affordable as well.
So, up this
point, things are looking great, we hope to
begin producing the first units for all of
you in the summer. I will forward
along information and pictures as they
become appropriate to present here.
This will
sincerely give a very professional accent to
your entire coffee roasting operation.
Very soon the days of the Wal-Mart box fan,
and the babysitting of the cooling process
will be an all too welcome distant memory.
I'm eager to share more with you as I get
it.
New
DIY Motor/Drum Combos and Everything Motor/Drum
Combos Available
Here
Assembly
Guide Section K. Adjusted to include General Drum Info,
Gear Motor Tips and Roast Profiles. Recommended
Read for new RK Owners
New
Assembly Guide
containing nearly 200
annotated images with detailed how-to's
Finally! See below for quick
index.
Update 2/02/09
In an effort to continually improve things
here, I have just posted the new
RK Forum.
Share your ideas, ask questions, interact
with other RK home roasters. I think
all the kinks are worked out of it, give it
a go.
Update 1/24/09
After a week and a half of messing around
with our webhost trying to get things back
in order after Ron's yearly web host
subscription expired, we are finally back up
and running on our own in-house web server.
Hopefully this will be the end of the
transitions that need to be made since Ron
left us, and we will be up permanently.
Thanks to all for your patience during this
process. We are in production 100% and
all products are available. Hopefully
that's the end of the website issues!
Update 12/12/08
Dear Friends,
Well, it pleases me tremendously to inform
everyone that we are swinging things back
into full operation here. While, I
still have my day job, things are mostly
coming together.
Ron wasn't feeling well in for much of 2008
and thus had begun to scale back some of the
RK Drums products due to energy levels and
time. Much of what he was working on,
he was fabricating himself and so you can
imagine that can take a bit out of someone.
In any case he always wanted to offer a full
range of products, but had scaled back on
the 6Lb and 8Lb drums.
I had a meeting with the machine shop
yesterday, and we are going to transfer some
of the things that Ron used to do (motor
mounts and mounting brackets) over to them.
I finished drafting up the plans for the
mounts, since those had been lost.
So, I have a few news items that I wish to
share with everyone so that you will know
what the future of RK Drums is. (But please
be patient!) We will be
releasing once again ALL of the RK
Products plus possibly one NEW product.
FOR
IMMEDIATE SHIPMENT:
-4 Pound Drums (Home)
-6 Pound Drums (Commercial)
-8 Pound Drums (Commercial)
-Motor Mounting Brackets
-Mounting Base Plates
-Motors
-Commercial and Home Combos
EXCITING
NEWS!!!!
So here it is.... Are you tired of the
box fan setup, getting heat and chaff blown
in your face while stirring to cool the
beans quickly? We are working on a new
prototype for a coffee cooler to ease the
speed and ease of the cooling process.
Ron was in the design process when he fell
ill, and so we are finishing this latest
project.
I can tell you that so far we plan it to be
automated allowing you to walk away and
attend to your next roast. It will, of
course, be built with the same quality
that you have known with the RK Drum.
You know Ron wouldn't have had it any other
way. The cooler will be no different.
BUILT TO LAST!
We are finalizing the design, and will begin
functional testing soon. No idea on a
release date yet, however....
We still have to calculate the total cost of
labor and materials and make sure that it
can be produced and shipped affordably, and
that it will function as well as we think it
will. Personally, as an avid user of
the 4Lb and 6Lb drum, I can tell you I would
love to get my hands on one of these.
Some would say I shouldn't announce
something that isn't ready to hit the
market, but given the events of this
difficult year, we want you to know that we
are well, and progressing towards a bright
future.
It will make a wonderful addition to every
RK setup. Feel free to email me if you
like.
Please read the
FAQ
page so it will be clear what you will need in addition
to the drum/motor.
Benefits when you Home Roast Coffee
It is a great hobby, that is fun, and produces coffee that is
better then the local gourmet coffee shops offer, at about 1/2
the cost. Your choices of coffee from around the world, are
endless
..
This drum will roast 1/2 to 4 lbs. of green coffee, using a gas
grill, and a standard grill rotisserie. (requires a rotisserie
motor)
The Drum produces great results in the gas grill. It produces a
nice even roast. Test results can be seen on the Review page..
If you have a gas grill, you can easily convert it to a coffee
roaster, simply by sliding your standard 5/16" rotisserie spit
through your new drum and lock it in place with the supplied
collars. Its as simple as warming up the grill, load the drum,
switch on the rotisserie motor, and in about 14 to 20 min.,
depending on the amount of green coffee beans you are roasting,
you will have the best coffee you ever tasted. Instructions and
profiles provided with drum.
Happy Roasting!
Ron Kyle
NOTE:
Does not ship with a
spit rod or rotisserie brackets. This set up
just
replaces the standard low RPM motor that
comes with most rotisserie kits.
If You would
like to see this presentation in high resolution.
Shane-- drum is working
great, developing a very nice patina, if you will.
7 roastings so far, fantastic flavor which to me is
fuller than the fluid air bed roasts. I am getting
to 2nd crack at about 12 minutes. I'd like to slow
it down slightly but that's a good time in my book.
Craig
Jensen-Hammond, LA (Feb 2009)
The drums looked well
built and unlikely to fall apart in a year. Also, since
it used a propane grill, no worries about voltage
issues.
All in all, it is very
direct. You don't have to fiddle with some electronic
program to get it to do what you want it to do. Just
set the temp as you like it. It seems much more direct
and pleasant. I did a range of roasts, from city-ish to
full city to vienna, and am satisfied with all of them.
It is very easy to hear the beans cracking, even though
I had previously only read FAQs about what to expect.
The unit is constructed extremely well. In fact, it is
painfully obvious that the only shoddy construction is
that coming from the grill itself or the rotisserie
spit. The drum looks build like a tank. The motor
assembly is mounted to an extremely thick metal plate
and looks very solid. It all looks like commercial
quality contruction.
(FULL
REVIEW HERE)
Tom
Haigler-Lexington, NC (Jan 2009)
I have been roasting
for 3 years as a hobby and many of my family members and
friends have suggested that I should start to sell my
coffee. Within the second year of sales, my first
roaster could not keep up with the overwhelming demand
of Tom’s Best Coffee. I have since upgraded to the
premium RK Drum Roaster, which allows me to produce my
product more efficiently. My customers can tell a big
difference in the quality of my roast. I not only
recommend this roaster but I give a A+ to Shane for his
customer service.
(This a review by Thomas Owen from Sweet Marias. I sent Tom 3
sample roasts, roasted in a gas grill, with the RK Roasting
Drum. Below are Toms remarks.)
Hi Ron - thanks for sharing the coffee! In
short, I am incredibly impressed. The roasts really appear
to be professional drum roast quality without any sign of
scorching or tipping, and on the City + and Full City you
really nailed the degree of roast on the head. The cup
quality was excellent on these two. Again, I am impressed.
This is better than a lot of small-batch roasters produce.
What I imagine, (and I am not a bbq person) is that it takes
some mastery of the machine paired with some experience with
the coffee. The darker roast blend would be, I guess, a
faster roast and it cups as espresso with a lot of tang to
the roast taste but a little more smokey-carbony-pungent
than I would have expected. There is a big difference
between the lighter ground coffee and the surface color, so
that's why I think it was a little fast and might benefit
from some more roast time ... specifically to back off on
the heat a lot after
1st crack and really ease the coffee slowly into 2nd crack.
This tends to preserve more sweetness in the cup. Once
again, this is another indication that this drum paired with
a good bbq gives the roastmaster a lot of choices in the
outcome, whether that be faster
or slower roast techniques, and that level of control is
something no
other home roaster machine can offer!
If for any reason you want to use my comments as an
endorsement, please do! I think whatever you have learned to
produce these great City and Full City roasts in terms of
monitoring temperature, and judging smell, sight, sound of
the roast, you should try to share in
a tip sheet too. I am going to try the dark roast as brewed
coffee tomorrow am and see of there is more sweetness etc
this way...
Tom
Curtis Scheelke
This is a note to let you know I have been having
great success with my drum. Thanks for the
effort you put into its design and construction.
David Ross
Just did my first two roasts using
your profiles. The results are beautiful!
Thanks for a great product!!
Raid Asfour
We've just received our roaster.... THANX .... very
impressive service and
product!!!!!!!! will recommend you anytime!!
REGARDS
Katherine Murray.
Picked it up this evening and we just roasted our
first batch – WOW! We are very impressed with the
result. Can’t wait to do more :)
Brad &
Jeanette
Nice unit. This is built sturdy and
should last forever. Unfortunately
I dropped motor unit while installing and crushed
the plastic fan. I will epoxy it
together and see if it runs without shaking.
You did a wonderful job on the parts no sharp edges
and even the drilled holes have no burs.
You must have been a machinist or an engineer or
just one talented guy. I am not used to
seeing quality with everything made in china now a
days.
Thanks, Brad
Brian Bircher
I've been meaning to write but I've been too busy
roasting! The drum is
working great and you were right, once it gets
seasoned and "settled in"
it just keeps getting better. I've also become more
adept at controlling
the heat and of course the movements of getting the
drum in and out
quickly become more second nature as you go along.
I've been turning out
some excellent roasts and have been able to hit the
roasts just where I
want them whether it's for a dark roast or a
beautiful City+ or Full
City on an island coffee.
Taking the ceramic briquettes out made all the
difference in the world
as far as being able to reach roast temps faster,
bring my roast times
down to where they should be and to better control
temps during the
roast. It's funny since I had thought it would be
easier to do all that
/with/ the briquettes. I haven't gotten the steel
plate made yet and am
still using the cookie sheet. It's working fine so I
may just leave it.
Anyway, I'm thrilled to death with your drum and am
wondering why I
didn't do this sooner! Regards Brian
Bo out in Montana....
Well, 700+ lbs of coffee roasted in the last year
and a half since purchasing my Drum....and still
banging out some of the best coffee to be found
anywhere.
(if I don;t say so myself) My friends, family, and
even a couple dozen "Customers"?....people who have
adopted me as their coffee supplier will attest-
good beans, fire steel (the RK ) and man it makes
some good coffee,
thanks much again,
Bo Maiuri
Glacier Coffee Roasters.
Paul Jolly:
Thanks to all who steered me right after my poor
experience with the Ronco 4000. A genuine RK drum
arrived in the mail today. It's a beefy rig---no
joke! I headed out to the local welder's supply
store for a pair of good gloves, then returned home
to test the drum out. I fired up the BBQ, burned off
the oils etc. from the drum for 15 minutes, and let
it cool. Once it was safe to touch, I got the grill
back up to heat, added a pound of the Zambia AA to
the drum, and was off. A bit farther off than I'd
hoped, as it turned out...took 22 minutes to get to
second crack, but the emptying & cooling went E-Z.
And man, those beans taste great! Thanks, Ron!
--Paul
Laura Micucci:
Hi,
I whole heartily agree! I bought a motor off of Ron
and what a difference it makes. the shipping was
super fast and all questions were answered promptly.
I am really enjoying BBQ roasting!
Jamie Shepherd
Your drum is awesome! I just roasted my first batch of beans on
my new
RK drum and they came out great. I feel like a kid at Christmas!
Oh
yeah, it is Christmas and this is my present to myself! I
roasted 1 1/4
pound on my first try and chose a bean that I do not really care
for so
that it did not matter what happened. My grill did a great job
of
getting to temp fast and I was able to maintain temps even in
the 45
degree weather with a little breeze blowing. I hit first crack
at 9:11,
cranked back the heat some and it lasted till about 11:00
minutes. I
normally stop my roasts at a C+ and rarely ever reach 2nd crack
but I
wanted to gauge things so I kept on going. At 13:40 I hit 2nd
crack and
at a 14:00 I shut it down and pulled the drum. I don't have a
cooling
system yet so I had a little difficulty but I will get that
squared
away in a day or two. I got a quick lesson in how much heat is
generated in even a pound of beans. It took me a few seconds on
a small
fan to get second crack to stop. I can't wait to try again.
As to my bowed rod issues, things seemed to level out some when
I
heated it all up for the first time and even more on this first
roast.
I think some of my "thump" may have come from the fact that I
can't
seem to get the coupler that mates to the motor to secure to the
end of
the rod squarely. It always wants to have a slight tilt, just
enough to
make things a little uneven. Nonetheless things went great, even
with
my 80 year-old mother watching and talking to me the whole time!
The
beans came out at a very nice FC+ or so and were probably the
most
evenly roasted beans I have seen in a long time. Thanks again. I
will
send some pics of my setup and success later. I've got to go
now; I am
supposed to be roasting a turkey for dinner tonight, not coffee
beans!
Marc Dupuis:
Ditto and more. Fantastic product, but more importantly, great
service before and even better after. RK for President!
md
Eddie Dove
I just wanted to let everyone know that dealing with Ron Kyle
was a pleasure. He patiently answered every one of my questions,
made some recommendations, told me when it would be shipped and
it arrived as he stated. Not only did I enjoy dealing with a man
of integrity, Ron's craftsmanship is a work of art.
Thanks, Ron!
Sincerely,
Eddie
Bob Boseman
Ron,
It's such a pleasure to roast on your equipment! I want to sell
my Hot Top but end up recommending your drum to perspective HT
buyers. :)
Bob
Adam Jahiel (drum #7 3.5
years ago, udated review))
Hi Ron,
I wish the forum had dates, so I could remember when I bought
your
drum (#7 IS a lucky number).
Anyway, I'm still roasting away in Wyoming, and am still
thrilled at
the roaster and results I get from it.
Bought a real espresso machine this summer, and maybe that is
where
the rubber hits the road, because I probably have the best
espresso
and regular coffee in this whole state.
I hope you are selling lots of these things, I'd hate to think
others
are missing out.
Thanks again for having such a great idea.
Ryan Glover:
Just roasted a pound of that Columbian peaberry you sent with my
order
(thanks btw :) ) .....this roaster rocks!!! I am still waiting
for my
buddy to get my a 2x1 sheet of 20gage to use as a heat diffuser,
but I
had to try her out anyways. Man that was very easy!!! Very
impressed
with your product. I'll send you pics of the setup in the next
couple
of days.
inks
