Categories starting with O

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:

I bought one of Ron's drums years ago.   It is drum #7  .  Out of curiosity, do yo know (ballpark) how many of these have sold so far?

I checked on the "reviews and found an old post dated 2003. See below.

"This was a unsolicited post on Sweet Marias forum by Adam Jahiel on 11/2/03"

Just wanted to check in. My roaster has been sitting outside for close to 6? years now here in Wyoming, sometimes covered with snow and ice. Can't believe how well it has held up.

Adam Jahiel.

-Wyoming

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

Mike Simanyi wrote:
 Just had to post. I received my RK drum and 50rpm motor setup last
 week and fired it up for a few small roasts (1 to 1.5 pounds each). I
 slightly over-roasted the first batch while trying to dial-in my
 thermometer readings and reconcile them to the instructions I found at
 Ron's site, but the next batches went like clockwork.
 Three words: Oh. My. Gosh!

 The scent of the roast is amazing. Using the I-roast, 2nd crack was
 always exceptionally subtle. With the drum it's like firecrackers.
 And darn near the most entertaining part is pouring the smoking mass
 of beans into the sifter and holding them over the fan for cooling.
 Within about 75 seconds they were almost to ambient temp... and
 smelled AMAZING! One of my neighbors came

Hello Ron,
 
 I can't tell you how pleased I am with the new drum/motor combo you sent me. Installation took about 45 minutes and after that I was up and running. I've got the Charbroil Quickset grill (35k) and installed the big thermometer from Home Depot.
 
 My grill seems to like 480 degrees so here's what I've been doing:
 
 Preheat to 500 degrees
 
 Put 1 lb beans in the drum while