Posted Sat Oct 25, 2003, 1:23pm Subject: 1st heat gun roast
I'm starting to agree with the idea that all you need are green beans and heat. I tried roasting beans with a heat gun today and I think it's going to work well. I bought a stainless steel mixing bowl and a long handled spoon from a second hand store. Then I got a Wagner model 775 heat gun from Menards.
Basically I just dumped some beans in the bowl (~1/2 lb), held the heat gun an inch or two above the beans and stirred. I wasn't wearing a watch but I figure it took 10 to 12 minutes to get a full city roast. I haven't tasted the beans yet so I don't know how even they are.
Next I want to think of a way to attach a thermometer to my stirring spoon.
SmokinBeans Senior Member Joined: 10 Jul 2003 Posts: 37 Location: Sonoma, CA. Expertise: I love coffee
Grinder: cheap whirly blade thingy Drip: Bodum 3 cup French Press Roaster: Stainless Back to Basics...
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 9:21am Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
That sounds like fun Jim. I agree with the principle Heat+Beans=roast coffee. It don't have to get much more complex than that. Add thermometer and a timer/clock to the equation and you got Heat+Beans+Thermometer+clock=repeatable roast coffee results. You may recall responding to an early post of mine when I wondered why my roasts where only taking 3-4 minutes in my whirley pop. I think your suggestion was "turn down the heat"...or something sensible like that. :) So add Controlled Heat+all of the above="good tasting" repeatable roast coffee results. :D
I love low tech. One of my fav early attempts at roasting coffee was simply an iron wok with a lid held down on it over my gas range...applied heat while 'flipping" the wok till I heard first snaps of 2nd crack (about 12 minutes or so) and got a nice even roast. But it was quite a work out...and no way to add a thermometer.
Whirly Pop will most likely remain my method of choice...its a step up from the wok with ability to add a thermometer. But the image of a thermometer clamped to your spoon really gave me a good chuckle...Thanks.
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 1:22pm Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
These heat gun postings have inspired me to try the same thing; that and my recent Rosto problems requiring fuse replacement.
Reading Martin's earlier posts, I went out this morning and bought a 64 oz. nonskid stainless steel dog water bowl from Pet Smart, and a model # HT 775 Wagner heat gun from Lowe's Hardware. I had a smaller heat gun already, but the new one has a 'cool' setting, which the old one does not, and I figure this may be of some use in cooling the beans after the roast.
I am hoping that the large bowl size will give me a good roast batch size, with lots of surface area for stirring. I am going to try a batch and will report back later. Unlike Martin's technique, I am not going to heat the bowl on a barbecue grill, but will only heat from the top with the heat gun.
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 3:12pm Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
Well, reporting back after an hour or so, during which I roasted two batches of coffee. Overall, I am very pleased with the results. I am waiting 24 hours for the coffee to outgas and rest before brewing.
The first batch was using an organic Brazil, two cups by volume. Using the heat gun on the 'high' setting and stirring throughout, I achieved a full city roast (few seconds into second crack) at about 10 minutes. The roasted batch size was three cups by volume and 9.1 ounces by weight.
The second batch was using the Red Sea blend from the Coffee Project. I used three cups by volume, the 'high' heat gun setting, and stirring throughout reached a full city roast at about 14 minutes. I had to stir a lot more with this increased volume in order to get an even roast. However, this blend can be difficult to get evenly roasted regardless of roasting method, since it is made up of three types of beans. This roasted batch size was a little over four cups by volume and 14.6 ounces by weight.
With both batches, I switched the heat gun to the 'cool' setting and stirred for about five to seven minutes to get the beans cool enough to touch.
I experimented with stirring the beans with a large stainless steel slotted spoon, and a couple of times, plunging the barrel of the heat gun into the bean mass and stirring. Using the barrel, however, is prone to catching the chaff on fire, so I probably will not use that as the sole stirring method. This also tends to plug up the screen at the end of the barrel with chaff fragments. Blowing off the screen restores full air flow.
I have to say that I am intrigued by this method, and so far the advantages to me include relatively low cost ($ 15 for the dog bowl and $ 58 for the heat gun), an excellent batch size, good chaff blowoff and ability to see and hear the cracks easily. I was impressed that after about 35-40 minutes of work, I had slightly more than 1.5 pounds of roasted coffee to show for my work; an amount that will last my wife and I about a week. For future roasts, I will probably roast two cups by volume, since that was somewhat faster, and easier to achieve a more even roast. I should be able to do back to back roasts limited only by my endurance. I specifically bought an industrial quality heat gun so it would stand up to hard use and back to back roasts.
Disadvantages at this time include more work to get an even roast, and the lack of controlled variables to get reproducible results. However, I roast my coffee by sight and sound regardless of method; i.e.: a full city roast. It is a lot easier to see and hear the coffee when heat gun roasting than it is in my Rostos. Inability to measure temperature means no ramped roast profiles.
This clearly seems to be a method to be done outside, since there is smoke and chaff blows everywhere. I was roasting on the back steps of my open backyard concrete porch, with the bowl resting on the concrete. When it starts raining again, I will roast on my covered front concrete porch.
More to report in the next few days as I try out the coffee after it outgasses.
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 8:57pm Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
One thing I noticed is that the coffee beans appear darker while you are roasting them than after they cool. I cut my roast a bit short because I didn't want to overroast. What I ended up with was barely full city which is actually a fine roast for the Gayo beans I used.
It will take a few more roasts to achieve repeatability. I know the thermometer attached to the spoon sounds goofy but I can't think of a better place for it.
Heatgunroast Senior Member Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 357 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Spaziale Vivaldi II Grinder: Mazzer Mini; Zass Vac Pot: Royal Balance Brewer Drip: Various press and pour-overs Roaster: Heatgun, Dogbowl
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 9:01pm Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
Hey Michael, Matt, Jim. Near as I can tell, this is the first legit. Heat Gun thread that someone besides myself has posted since I've been checking out the forums I follow. Doesn't feel so lonesome anymore. I've lots of responses, but nothing much that goes beyond what you will or have figured out on your own. A few things I've stumbled on. If you keep on heat gunning, you may wind up with several bowls. I use a 32 oz for up to 5 oz roasts, a 64 oz for 6-9 oz, and a 96 oz for bigger. A certain mass helps to keep the beans even, not overflowing. I've been stirring with the stick end of my large wooden spoons, including a very big one bought at a fancy kitchen supply store ($6). Much easier, good agitation and keeps the beans in the bowl.
I've wracked my brain trying to figure out how to get a temp read. Wasted some $ on an IR thermometer. Gave up since I realize that the "control" issue is one of mind, not physics. In short, there is so much info available through the senses, that you can know exactly what's going on with the roast (I do keep a timer going for every roast. Find that it does help replicate roasts and adds much to the learning curve), and my guess is that that data is far more useful that watching the thermometer. As far as ramping (if you mean uping the rate of temp increase over time or the increased upward curve of the plotted profile), I find that it's pretty easy to simply move the gun closer to the beans and, again, get used to the beans' response.
All that said, rumor around my household has it that a new I-roast is coming my way some day soon. Since heat-gun is the only roasting I've done, I'm looking forward to comparing the experiences.
Heat gun only? With no grill top? I've tried that and it "works," but I find (really, "guess") that the gun alone allows for too great a variation in the temp. That is, the grill (which I estimate gives 60% of the heat) is a passive and steadyi transfer of heat and lets the gun do the control with some margin for error or absent mindedness.
I'm not familiar with the Wagner guns. I've been very satisfies with the 1100 F. Makita. Got my hands on a Porter Cable one-speed 1000F. 27cfm heat gun, and the ratio of heat to air movement was not good. Actually took longer and seemed to cool the exothermic reactions of the beans. Maybe. Anyway, I didn't like it and am much happier with my lighter duty (but still significant) gun.
Good luck with your experiments. At this rate, we ought to have several hundred people roasting with heat guns by - - - let's see - - - 2050? Martin
Posted Sun Oct 26, 2003, 9:30pm Subject: Re: 1st heat gun roast
When I was out shopping today, I stopped at the two big box hardware stores in my area: Home Depot and Lowe's. Home Depot was out of stock of the industrial 750 heat gun by Milwaukee so I ended up buying the Wagner HT 755 at Lowe's.
As it turns out, the Milwaukee Industrial 750 is merely a rebadged version of the Wagner HT 755. The specs for both of them are 5700 BTU, 1680 watts, 14 amps and 500 to 750 degree settings. I do not know what CFM it puts out, except that it is enough to agitate the beans without blowing them all over the place, which is exactly what I want. With my three cup by volume batch, I had to be careful as the beans swelled to avoid blowing or stirring them out of the bowl.
Most of my roasting experience has been with my two Rostos, except for some time spent with a Gourmet owned by a friend of mine. Although my heatgun experience is all of eight hours old now, I do like the batch size I am able to produce in a smaller amount of time than my two Rostos running sequential batches. And of course, it is almost impossible to hear cracks in the Rostos, especially my newer one, which has a more powerful fan.
I also found that the dog bowl (which is made of a pretty heavy gauge of stainless) does pick up the heat pretty well from the heat gun, so I suspect that I have some conduction roasting happening as well as the hot air roasting from the gun. This may have been enhanced by setting the bowl on a large thermal mass such as concrete. Living in the Seattle area, I wanted to find a technique that did not involve a gas grill. My grill is outdoors and is not under cover, so unless I wanted to roast in the rain, I had to come up with a Plan B. I may also try this with the grill next spring. I may also try dumping the beans into a colander and see if that cools them faster.
I will be interested to sample the coffee tomorrow and see how it compares with coffee done in my Rostos.
Let us continue to share information as we make this a viable means of roasting. Kudos to Martin for being one of the leaders of this technique.
I made a pot of drip this morning using the Red Sea blend I roasted yesterday afternoon. Neither my wife nor I could tell any difference in the taste of the coffee roasted via heat gun vs. roasted in my Rostos. So far so good.
It's interesting that you started with a heat gun and are moving to an appliance. I started with a FR+ and branched out from there. I found having a roaster made it easy for me to learn the roasting process. I think that's why I was able to get a drinkable roast the first time I tried the heat gun.
It didn't take me long to get the hang of whirley pop roasting. Now with the heat gun, it's really just a question of learning how this roast style works in comparison to others. I definitely think the heat gun profile is more like a fluid bed profile. (Maybe it's an upside-down fluid bed?) But it has a slower ramp up to first crack.
I like this method for two reasons. I like that I can do relatively large batches. I also like that the profile will be totally controllable once I get the hang of it.
This just in: the Wagner HT 775\Milwaukee Industrial 750 heat gun has 19-23 CFM, depending upon the side louvers being open or closed. I am roasting with the louvers in the closed position, at the 750 degree setting.
I mention this only because as a former scientist, I want to provide the data to reproduce my results.
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