RK Misc

Hi Ron
 I couldn't be more pleased with my drum. I finally got it set up last
 weekend and have only run 5 roasts through it, but I'm already quite
 pleased. You have a great product. Thought I'd send you a picture. you're
 welcome to put it on your website. I went with the brinkmann 45k btu grill
 from walmart. Great grill. It will hold a temp steady with very little
 adjustment. I haven't needed to roast in cold temperatures yet, but I'm
 sure it has the power. I keep it at 500 with the three burners at med-low
 in ~50 degree ambient temps
 -Chris
 in Arlington, VA

I'm an engineer--the drum is a work of art and the motor and mounts are terrific and the whole kit is well thought-out and it makes GREAT COFFEE!  I've done several roasts using your suggested profile for 1lb batches and I'm getting the hang of it!  I will graduate to larger batches when I decide what kind of beans I want to order in quantity.  The only bad thin.g about this setup is that I want to roast all the time and you need lots of beans in your inventory to have all that fun!

Thanks for your great products, and even more for your superb customer service! Keep up the good work

 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.

1st crack hit at 15:50 minutes.. 50 seconds of a pause & beans went
into a slow start of a rolling second crack /......Time 19:30 (complete)
dumped 4 lbs (3&1/3 lbs Roasted) into a good 12+ seconds of a 2nd crack
(Rolling) and slammed the brakes on 2nd crack when the beans hit my cooling
fan.... let see if someone could do that with a roaster under $750.00.....Excellent+ Roaster you got there Shane!

Craig Jensen:
(Posted at www.coffeegeek.com)

I have been looking at coffee roasters for well over a year, but have been disappointed by the current options.  Basically, most of the current crop of home-use roasters (with possibly the exception of the Behmor) seem somewhat flaky and poorly constructed.  I looked at more than a few of them, and they just didn't seem likely to last out the year.  It seemed to be stretching things to pay the amount of money that many cost if I wouldn't get that much use out of them.  Also, all of the posts about voltage problems in houses with these roasters had me pretty alarmed.  I read posts about people needing variacs and line voltage problems with the roasters, and that combined with the construction problems I had seen were just too much of a red flag.  So I put off getting any of the roasters.

But then I noticed www.rkdrums.com and it seemed like a very good solution.  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.  My only concern with rkdrums was assembling the thing.  This was solved very easily though when Shane Lewis (see buying experience below for more details) agreed to assemble one for me.

I have done 6 roasts with the unit so far, and that seems to be enough at least to get a review started I think.  Using the unit is very easy: