Items tagged with LATCH

I owe you a big thankyou for your advice Shane! That drum is really starting to work for me. Some time in the future I will have to send you a documented time and temperature profile on what is working for me with that srum. One of the bigger hurdles is the barbeque. It doesn't regulate it's heat very well but I have put a bank of 4 thermometers on the front of my barbeque that I use to moniter the heat. This helps me keep an even roast along the full length of that long drum. Your suggestion of preheating the barbeque to 600 has really helped, I also am preheating the drum a little. What really has helped is the times that you projected for me. When I followed those times I started learning when the second crack was happening. this has made the difference. -Jason

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:

Hey Shane-- just did my 50th roast last night.  I am really excited about the outcome.  The 1 and 2 lb roasts go a little fast, since my grill puts out a lot of heat.  But the 5 pounds are going about 15-17 minutes and the flavor is fantastic.  Great product.

Eureka!  2 pounds of Mocha Kadir at 500 degrees.  1st crack at 11m30s, cut back to 480 -  second crack at 14m - finish roast with a nice Full City + at 15m 30 sec. - no signs of divots.  Thanks for the suggestions.  It does baffle me though.  It seems that everything I read on the subject suggested that somewhere in the process I was too hot and that was what caused the divots - some suggested too fast into 1st crack - others suggested too hot (therefore too fast) going from 1st to 2nd.  Whatever it is, this seems like a nice profile.

Thanks again Shane.
Dick