Ever since we moved back to Emeryville, California from Ohio, I dearly missed having a full-size shop roaster. In Ohio we had a Diedrich IR-12, basically a 24 Lb. capacity drum roaster from a really great manufacturer. I have little justification for havng a roaster, except that I really like to cup coffees roasted by a variety of methods. I think our dedicated home roasting customers like this too, and I had the thought that some might occasioanlly want to add a pound of roasted coffee to an order to compare the "degree of roast" and cup results with coffees they roast at home. The only change I wanted to make was to avoid the Infra Red burners -they work quite well but just don't have the BTU output to change a roast mid-way through, or to chose faster roast profiles on full batches. Diedrich makes their excellent chasis with a open-flame burner, but this time I wanted to go with a gas-fired German roaster from Probat. The are real workhorse roasters with a big footprint, more overall bulk. They take more maintenance and cleaning, but really give the roaster-operator a wide range of choices in terms of roast profiling.
| How I added logging temperature probes to the Probat L-12: | ||
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This is how I have the datalogging 2 probe thermometer set up in the front of the roaster. Then in the rear I have a non-logging single probe in the exit air flow of the drum. It's a setup that gives me exactly the information I need. My only last addition will be a flow-meter (in water column inches) for the gas so I can see exactly where the valve is set, instead of eyeballing the flame.
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Travels of an L12: Moving the roaster from its old abode in San Francisco to Emeryville, just over the Bay Bridge, was an adventure. We had rented a truck but discovered the roaster was too tall. So we decided to move it in my pickup truck! |
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That's me (left) taking directions from my friend Troy. There were 4 of
us to move it. |
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A roaster on Van Ness, on our way to the 101 |
It was a lot easier to get the roast out of the truck than into it... |
... I really, really appreciate having a forklift: 3 hours to load, 5
minutes to unload! |
Here is the L12 sittin on the shop floor as I prepare to install it. |
The roaster was in great shape, but dangerously dirty. I found the vent
stack was clogged with just a 2" opening! |
We are actually going to have the roaster on the 2nd floor mezzanine,
a "roasting loft. Here's the space after I rand the gas and electric
lines |
Here's the same space looking across from the other side of the mezzanine |
Here's the space after I layed the aluminum plate down -see the shiny
spot from the old Diedrich -a much smaller footprint than the Probat. |
Attaching the venting -really high quality Ampco grease
duct.
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Roasting the first test batches! Actually, I bought several bags of mixed samples to roast up while working out a few probelms, and getting a feel for the burner settings (they are a bit different on each roaster).
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This is how I have the datalogging 2 probe thermometer set up in the front of the roaster. Then in the rear I have a non-logging single probe in the exit air flow of the drum. It's a setup that gives me exactly the information I need. My only last addition will be a flow-meter (in water column inches) for the gas so I can see exactly where the valve is set, instead of eyeballing the flame.
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More to come...
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