New semi-permanent coffee roasting bench
First of all, here's the new bench:

Second, here's a referencable picture:

I realized that the mudroom build in the edge of my garage would be a great place to leave my roasting setup, well, set up. So here's the essential ingredients:
1) The Poppery II. (Still un-modded by the way. I have considered it, but for now am following Christy's advice: Since we like the coffee it roasts, don't mess with it.)
2) A bowl to catch the chaff in. Anyone can use a bowl (or the floor.) I prefer to use an antique hand-turned butter churning bowl, which still has the butter making spoon. I actually even have butter color in a box nearby. Also, this setup (the Poppery and this bowl) is great for making a whole bunch of popcorn!)
3) A 1/2 cup measure.
4) A large plastic cup to pour the cooled beans into before transferring them to jars.
5) An old tin can for tossing 'bad' beans into (mis-shapen, exploded, too light, too dark...)
6) Various jars to store roasted beans in. In this pile I have 2 jelly jars (hold 1 batch each) and 1 cork-capped jar and 1 antique Ball jar with glass lid and metal clamp. I have others I rotate in and out.
7) Beans. I'm storing them here now. But I've realized tonight that it is more likely to freeze there than the pantry, so I need to research if that hurts green beans.
8) A pad and pen. I keep track of every batch in the Poppery. I record ambient temperature, origin, how long it took to start 1st crack, end 1st crack, start 2nd crack (if I go that far) and when I stopped.
9) A timer. I've used a simple clock, but I prefer to use the stopwatch on Christy's Nano.
10) A hot pad. Since you have to take the top off the Poppery, and since the beans roast in the 500f range, a hot pad helps keep the blisters and 1st degree burns to a minimum!
11) The table. When we got the house, this old table with cracked, peeling paint and a metal top was sitting in the shed. I rescued it because it was pretty. I use it because it is the perfect size, and the metal top is hard to damage.
12) My home grown cooling method. A box fan sits on a few old pieces of styrofoam, blowing up. On that sits a 2x4 frame with a screen bottom stapled on. Pour the hot beans on the metal screen, keep them moving, and they are room temperature in under 60 seconds. And since it sits under the table, all the chaff blows up to there and stops and falls to the sides, reducing the amount of chaff in the air (and everywhere else.)
The one thing I forgot to note is that behind the Poppery sits a dog bowl and a wooden spoon. I still try that way every so often, but my arm gets tired to quick. And since I'm getting better results from the Poppery, the dogbowl sits unused.
Edit: I added the word Coffee to the title so Mandi won't be confused. ;-)














2 Comments:
Nice snaps, what!
I say, old man, how's about a bit a roast up, eh? I could go in for a rather brisk bout of stirring and popping one of these days.
What do you say?
captcha: kenxrat
LOL...a random surfer here, but you reminded me of some co-workers who couldn't function without coffee.
If their was no coffee, nothing got done. LOL...
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