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Post by donnyg on Sept 23, 2014 10:21:20 GMT -5
Hi there,
I am looking into some small scale home roasting roaster options. I've narrowed it down to about 3: Behemor 1600, CocoaT Junior Roaster from Cocoa Town, or a stainless steel drum (RKdrums) hooked up to a rotisserie on my BBQ.
From what I've read, the Behemor is decent and not without its quirks, and only roasts about a lb max. $299 Reasonable price for the beginner.
The CocoaT Junior Roaster seems like a great option. 4-6 lbs at a time, beans rotate slowly in a stainless steel drum under convection heat. $450 Reasonably priced as well.
BBQ drum (depending on size) holds the largest capacity of beans for a home roaster. Depending on where you purchase, it can be quite expensive...upwards of $1000 for a small size drum, including motor and rotisserie rod. You also need to modify your BBQ somewhat to ensure even heat distribution.
Has anyone used any of these 3 methods? Is there another option im not exploring? Any insight would be valuable. Im especially interested if anyone has used the CocoaTown roaster. Thank you.
Donny
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Post by Ben on Sept 23, 2014 10:41:06 GMT -5
I don't have one yet, but the new (upcoming?) Behmor 1600 Plus looks to be a great option. It has a lot more control than the previous model did, including the ability to control the power of the heating elements and to switch the drum speed between 8 and 16 rpm.
The original Behmor has a lot of users, so I'm sure there's several threads here on the Chocolate Alchemy forums as well as the Chocolate Life discussing it's use. I believe that people roast up to 3 pounds or so in it at a time.
While the CocoaT Jr. can hold more cacao, I don't believe you can control the temperature. Also, I don't believe it has convection.
The BBQ Drum is probably in a different class, as it can hold a lot more cacao and is double the cost of the other two options.
For me, I'm planning to get a Behmor Plus when it becomes available to do test batches of new beans.
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Post by donnyg on Sept 23, 2014 22:01:38 GMT -5
Thanks for the input Ben. The CocoaT Jr. is heated by convection and conduction, but yes, it is fixed temperature at 135C. Is temp adjustment an important feature in your opinion?
I will do some more research on the behemor 1600+ and see if this is the better option.
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Post by Ben on Sept 24, 2014 9:56:12 GMT -5
Hi Donnyg.
My understanding is that the cocoat jr. does not have convection, as in a fan for moving air around the oven or through the beans. The quote on their website is "The beans are heated by convection heat (hot air inside the oven) and conduction heat (from the roaster basket to beans) resulting in evenly roasted beans." Without forced airflow, there's no convection (well, technically there'd be a little since air will rise when heated, but that's not what you typically mean when saying an oven or roaster has convection).
Temperature is absolutely critical in my opinion. Without it, you have very little control over your roasts.
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Post by donnyg on Sept 24, 2014 10:44:32 GMT -5
Thanks for the clarification Ben! Reading up on some past posts, a convection oven may be the most cost effective and efficient way to go, especially when starting out. Let me know if you have any experience here and your results. I think a can pretty much put this topic to bed...now on to crackers/winnowers!
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Post by Ben on Sept 25, 2014 9:28:47 GMT -5
There's a lot of discussion on convection ovens on this forum and the Chocolate Life. I started out using a convection oven with perforated sheet pans and eventually hacked a drum into the oven. With the sheet pans, I found that I got pretty large temperature differences between different areas in the oven. With the drum, I get roasts that have a consistent temp throughout the beans.
That being said, there is a lot of great chocolate that is being made with cacao roasted in convection ovens.
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