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Post by sdcecil on Sept 25, 2015 11:29:51 GMT -5
I periodically see folks on the forum allude to a formula for calculating how much cacao to put in a coffee roaster when roasting. However, I have yet to actually see the article on the Alchemy website. I'm wondering if someone could pass along that link, or just the formula for figuring out how much cacao to put in a coffee roaster when roasting.
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Post by Ben on Sept 25, 2015 18:17:50 GMT -5
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Post by sdcecil on Sept 25, 2015 18:27:08 GMT -5
Thanks Ben. That's a fairly easy formula to follow. I think I can handle it.
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Post by sdcecil on Sept 25, 2015 18:28:12 GMT -5
I had looked over those articles earlier today, but I guess I was expecting something more prescriptive about calculating how much to roast.
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Post by Ben on Sept 28, 2015 11:54:15 GMT -5
I think it's mostly just related to getting a decent roast when using the stock programs on the behmor. I don't know that this necessarily applies to all coffee roasters. Even with the behmor (plus), I'm sure you could roast less using the manual controls and/or setting the roast weight lower. You may even be able to roast a bit more, but then you may run into issues with the physical size of the drum. There's really nothing prescriptive to be found.  Each roaster has different attributes that may or may not need to be compensated for or adjusted for use with cacao. For example, I know of a few makers who use refurbished Royal #5 roasters for cacao. They're designed to roast 50 lbs of coffee. As far as I know, all of the chocolate makers who are using them are only roasting 50 lbs of cacao, but presumably are roasting at lower temperatures. This is because that roaster has the ability to do so, whereas the behmor (when using the stock profiles, at least) has less control, and so needs to have more cacao to compensate for the higher temperatures. Edit 2019/06/04: I'm not sure what I was saying in that last paragraph. The Royal #5 can roast 25 lbs of coffee or 50 lbs of cacao, which works with the 'just double it' rule. |
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Post by timwilde on Oct 29, 2015 17:01:29 GMT -5
As Ben has said, there's no really prescriptive; no hard and fast rules.
The formula I've been using was found on a home/diy coffee roaster site and prescribes the formula for coffee drums as follows:
Roast size (ounces) = Drum Volume (cubic inches)/10
Then for cocoa, I just multiply the answer by 2 (following Johns advice here, linked by Ben). I use this mostly as a guideline. If it looks or feels empty, you can, by all means test it and see if it can do more than the calculation suggests.
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Post by sdcecil on Oct 29, 2015 22:08:26 GMT -5
Thanks TIm, that's helpful.
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Post by Ben on Oct 30, 2015 7:35:35 GMT -5
That's an interesting formula, Tim. Based on that, the new roaster I'm building should be able to fit 130 lbs of cacao. I had based the size of the drum on a couple things: - John's comment in this thread that 5 lbs of cacao takes up roughly 300 cubic inches
- His comment also in that thread that you don't want to fill the drum more than 1/2 full when roasting cacao (and that 1/4-1/3 is ideal).
- My goal of being able to comfortably roast 50-65 lbs
Based on those assumptions, I have built my drum to be 21 inches in diameter and 30 inches deep, so 10,395 cubic inches. Again, using John's numbers, this would mean that my drum would be 1/3 full holding 50 lbs and 1/2 full holding 86 lbs. So, either way my roaster should be able to do what I need, but it would be really really nice if your calculation works and I could roast 100+ lbs at a time. I guess I need to go and actually weigh some cacao to check my assumptions. I'll also (obviously) have to do some testing when I've finished it (it's currently about 1/2 done). |
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Post by timwilde on Oct 30, 2015 11:09:15 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm not 100% sure where I heard the 1/3 comment, but it did stick in there. But was told to never exceed the 1/2 mark, as any more and the airflow to the beans would be obstructed and even roasting wouldn't be possible. Again, take it for what it is, but it was offered as a starting point formula on homeroasters.org for coffee. Good luck to you though! Always nice when you overbuild something and can do more than you intended  |
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Each roaster has different attributes that may or may not need to be compensated for or adjusted for use with cacao. For example, I know of a few makers who use refurbished Royal #5 roasters for cacao. They're designed to roast 50 lbs of coffee. As far as I know, all of the chocolate makers who are using them are only roasting 50 lbs of cacao, but presumably are roasting at lower temperatures. This is because that roaster has the ability to do so, whereas the behmor (when using the stock profiles, at least) has less control, and so needs to have more cacao to compensate for the higher temperatures.