Ian Moderator Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 1,401 Location: England
Espresso: Euro2000,Rancilio Grinder: Mazzer,La Cimbali Vac Pot: Cona-->CraigA Drip: Belgique for emergencies Roaster: Primas with variac
Posted Thu Jun 7, 2012, 3:46am Subject: Roaster resurrection project
A friend has convinced me to have a go at converting the dead roaster to manual. This will be done in my spare time, as cheaply as possible, and if we can get a roast nearing the quality of a manual popper then I'll be reasonably satisfied.
I thought I would post up pics of progress for general entertainment ;)
It looks like a roaster that Safety Inspector Fire Marshal Bill would have used: Click Here (www.listzblog.com)
;^D
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
I do not know the Behmor and so can't comment on damage in the roast chamber, but the rest looks quite good. Fire Marchall Bill. LOL. I do a perfect impression of him. I was a firefighter and was doing it when a group of us were together and one guy in particular nearly wet himself laughing. Was on a fire a few weeks alter and I saw him driving an engine which was sitting about twenty feet from ours. I yelled out the window, in my best impression., "Hey You n the fire engine... LET ME SHOW YA SOMETHIN' !" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdR2T6YKAUc
I wonder how this roaster ever passed testing for a UL label. Damage at this level would seem to be unacceptable for most any insurance company to allow anyone to buy or use in their home. I've had a woodstove in my home for general heating for over 35 years and I have less worry about it causing a fire than what I've seen with reports of this roaster flaring up and destroying itself. I even get dinged for a small insurance surcharge just because I use this woodstove, even though no incidents have ever occurred requiring action be taken or lose the house.
I realize there are warnings of all kinds with the instructions for this roaster about leaving it unattended, but everyone has lapses where they may leave the room to answer a phone, get more beans, do some other "quick?" chores, or whatever. Not everyone who owns one of these roasters spends time on a site like CG to get the occasional posted warning to not leave a roast when it is in progress. 18-20 minutes for a roast cycle is long enough for someone to lose their concentration on roasting. If there is some inherent defect or omission of parts, or other glitch or anomaly which allows these fires to occur rapidly and without warning, then maybe they all need to be recalled for re-engineering until they are made safe to use without fear of losing your home. The I-Roast machine I have is used for about 2-4 roasts per week, and over about a 4 year period, there has never been a fire incident with this roaster and nothing close to a fire has ever happened. Likely, the I-Roast would have less of a chance of catching fire since the chaff is blown up into a collector as it comes off the beans. The chaff from roasting in the Behmor remains exposed to the heat elements until the roast ends which would seem to be one of the reasons for these fire reports from time to time.
I pay a bit more for fire insurance because there is an attached garage to my home and I have a wood stove. Statistically these are causes of loss to insurance companies.
There is a fire hazard when roasting coffee. There is also a fire hazard when lighting a cigarette, smoking in bed, frying eggs, baking a ham, using a light bulb, X-mas tree lights, microwaves, toaster ovens, toasters (put a pop tart in and lock the on lever in place and stand back), and a sharpened pencil can put an eye out.
You are stating that fires can be caused by coffee roasters, but making a general statement like that ignores the individual case causes of such incidents (which, of course, are discussed more frequently on coffee boards than anywhere else). In most cases these fires are not cleaning sufficiently or from inattention which, incidentally, are the same causes for fires in home ovens. Notice that the fire in the roaster was well contained within the roasting chamber.
Anything with a cord, flame, or heating element can constitute a fire hazard. If we all go back to eating cold food as we found it and going to sleep as soon as the sun goes down, the world will be a safer place. In the meantime, let's try to be more personally responsible.
You are stating that fires can be caused by coffee roasters, but making a general statement like that ignores the individual case causes of such incidents (which, of course, are discussed more frequently on coffee boards than anywhere else). In most cases these fires are not cleaning sufficiently or from inattention which, incidentally, are the same causes for fires in home ovens. Notice that the fire in the roaster was well contained within the roasting chamber.
I did make a non-general statement about a likely possible cause for behmor fires over other coffee roaster types was related to the design of the behmor which lets the chaff fall below the roast, but not out of range of exposure of the heating elements, compared to an I-Roast, which pushes the chaff up into a collector away from the ignition source. You start most campfires, woodstove fires or similar fires by starting with small, easily ignited material below larger pieces. That seems to be the same scenario that plays out when lots of chaff gets ignited then travels up into the bean mass in these roasters.
While the fire may have been contained within the roast chamber, it did occur and that's not good. Not every user of an appliance, tool, machine, vehicle or whatever, wants to spend time on a forum to learn about all the tips, tricks, or problems that may be a part of some device. This fire issue is serious as it seems to occur with some regularity. If it was a minor issue, there wouldn't be all this discussion on this forum and consistent warnings about not leaving a roaster unattended by Joe B, and many others.
While any product or device can be pushed to it's limits where an incident occurs, not all of these potential incidents are always noticeable until a number of them occur with regularity. How long did it take before the early GM Corvairs of the 1960s were singled out for killer roll-overs because of the engineering deficiency of the rear axle suspension and it's tendency to buckle under in a fast, tight turn?
There is a fire hazard when roasting coffee. There is also a fire hazard when lighting a cigarette, smoking in bed, frying eggs, baking a ham, using a light bulb, X-mas tree lights, microwaves, toaster ovens, toasters (put a pop tart in and lock the on lever in place and stand back), and a sharpened pencil can put an eye out.
I am with Snaxx on this one. I am a smoker, a Xmas light user, a toaster and toaster over user, a BBQ smoker and griller,a backyard fire pit family, microwave, a stove top user and I will even deep fry on the stove top, and a wood stove user, yet I have never had a fire with any of these items although I have stabbed myself with a pencil pretty bad. I had 2 fires outside of the norm in a Behmor in 6 months of use, the drum didn't get stuck and the beans had not hit second crack yet one of them was full bean ignition that would have been pretty bad if I had not been standing right there. This board is filled with Behmor fires of varias degrees so while I can not speak of statistics of how many fires have happened with other appliances and heat sources I can say I had two in 6 months with a Behmor and zero in my 35 years of using other appliances.
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