It’s no secret I’m cheap -or frugal, if you’re kind. I’m also not opposed to using equipment for off-label uses. Then there’s the fact I don’t mind a bit of danger.
So lets start with the cheap part. Decent coffee roasters have gotten too freaking expensive. There used to be some nice hot air roasters for a reasonable price. Not anymore. The relatively inexpensive ones fall apart. Instead of buying a roaster I’ve been using a Nostalgia brand popcorn popper.
That’s the off-label use. You aren’t supposed to use a popcorn popper to roast coffee. In fact, it violates safeguard rule #11 in the manual. Roasting coffee is definitely not a recommended use. If you copy me it’s definitely at your own risk. I don’t use the plastic top as it overheats when roasting coffee. The coffee chaff blows everywhere so my roasting is done on the open porch. The chaff just blows out into the yard.
So now to the danger part. After about a year the old popcorn popper gave up the ghost -in a spectacular fashion. My niece noticed it was making a lot more smoke than normal. Flaming coffee beans were spewing out of the machine. It was on fire and melting down. Fortunately the fire went out when I unplugged it.
Since it died in a dangerous and spectacular fashion the only thing to do was to order a replacement.
-Sixbears
A frying pan with a lid too low tech?
ReplyDeleteI often use a cast iron dutch oven with a lid. It takes a lot more attention to keep it from burning. I'm lazy.
DeleteI use a bread maker from the thrift shop that I rewired to run the paddle 100% of the time, a coat hanger wire to extend the paddle to the width of the pan for good stirring, and a hot air gun. Made a sheet metal half-lid that goes over the pan /w hole cut to the size of the hot air gun's nozzle (to keep it a fixed distance from the beans). Also keeps the chaff blowing out of the pan. Then I can roast a pound of beans per batch. A colander + shop vac + a foam box /w hole cut to the colander's size acts as my cooling. Makes for some very tasty coffee. What's your choice for green coffee shop?
ReplyDeleteMost likely it was the chaff building up inside the popcorn popper that caused the fire.
The fan was getting weaker so probably the chaff wasn't blowing out quickly enough. I like your set up. A friend did a pretty good job with just a heat gun and stainless steel bowl.
ReplyDeleteI get my coffee from Dean's Beans. I like that it's organic fair trade. Often it's the farmers who don't make enough money to live on and fair trade is a solution to that.
I've been using Sweet Maria's. Most of their stuff is fair trade & organic (some aren't organic, but I believe all are fair trade), bought directly from individual farms or farm collectives. They have notes about the farms and the people that own the farms. And a very wide variety of origins.
ReplyDeleteI remember the cast iron skillet method you used.
ReplyDelete