Chocolate Roaster on the Cheap

[angioplasty]

Hey folks. I originally built this roaster to do coffee beans on a budget. So the website is geared towards coffee but I have through experimentation found it works wonderfully with roasting cocoa beans as well. I will update the website to add the chocolate o holics into it as well..

Umm embarrassingly to say, this oven works better for roasting cocoa than it does for coffee....

here is the link to the page I have my stuff up on

www.surfingsmarter.com/coffee/

Preheat oven and cook in these steps. I did one pound at a time

350 let run for 3 minutes,
375... let run for 3 minutes.
400, another 3 minutes...
425 - 450 another two minutes
400 3 minutes
350 degrees run for 3 minutes...
take it down to about 250 and let it run until either 20minutes total is up or you smelled 'brownies' (or whatever your sweet spot for roasting is) for a few minutes, then turn it off...remove the drum and cool...

IM finding that about 18 and a half minutes is my 'sweet spot'...


Have fun and enjoy the cocoa and coffee if you so desire ..

aaron

[Brad]

Looks good.

I was just wondering if anybody has yet tried the following:

www.amazon.com/George-Foreman-GR82B/dp/B00005B6Z3

This one comes already with the basket (which has agitators inside it). The information doesn't say how hot it gets inside, or anything like that. I saw one up close and personal, and it doesn't look like there is a temperature control.

Comments???

Brad

[angioplasty]

I will have to look into that one. I was originally contemplating one of the GF type grills when I was looking for a heating unit for the RR I built but the price was a bit prohibitive on it given I was going to rip it apart and essentially immediately ruin any warranty that might be on the thing.

The basket thing is a nice addition and one could probably incorporate that into whatever they build. I wonder........ Maybe if one does not buy the entire grille, I wonder if you can just order the basket through their parts department or whatever. If you can, it'd probably be a nice quick easy way to convert any grill one has right now to a bean roaster. The thing should be fairly easy to adapt to whatever setup one might have.

Aaron

[Alchemist]

brad said:

Looks good.

I was just wondering if anybody has yet tried the following:

www.amazon.com/George-Foreman-GR82B/dp/B00005B6Z3

This one comes already with the basket (which has agitators inside it). The information doesn't say how hot it gets inside, or anything like that. I saw one up close and personal, and it doesn't look like there is a temperature control.

Comments???

Brad

That is the exact basket I use in my homemade roaster. I think it would do absolutely great. So much so that I am going to pick on up to experiment with. I know from coffee roasting experience, it can't roast coffee, but from the same experience, it should do 3 lbs of cocoa just fine. Like you say, no temperature control, but it is a great starting place.

[Brad]

One of the chocolatiers I'm using as a sounding board, has had many years of experience setting up entire chocolate factories in Europe. He's worked for companies such as Toblerone and Lindt.

That being said, many of their large scale roasters work on the same premise as a home oven - large flat trays.

Here's how some of the roasters work:
A hopper dumps a predetermined amount of beans on to a large tray which is divided in the middle. The beans are heated on that tray for a certain amount of time, after which the middle of the tray falls out, and the beans fall onto another similar tray. They are spread out and roast on the second tray. This happens several times, until the last tray, where cold air is blown over to cool the beans.

This is not unlike using your home oven and two cookie sheets of beans, pulling the sheet out at 10 minute intervals and stirring them. The redeeming thing about using a home oven and large cookie sheets, is that you can roast up to 10lb of beans perfectly at a time (at least I do).

I've pondered the idea of buying a roaster, but really, what's the point when a home oven works just fine.

If you're worried about the element burning the beans on the bottom rack, put a third rack in on the very bottom with an empty cookie sheet on it. This will dissipate the heat.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, and why I haven't spent the money purchasing a roaster.

[angioplasty]

Brad good points there, but for me, the roaster works fine. In fact I do most of my cooking in it. Maybe im cheap but my take on the whole 'roaster oven' thing is, why heat the whole @#$% house up by turning on your regular HUGE oven, dumping 3 to 5 Kwatts into heating that big space up, and subsequently dissipating all that heat into your house and making your A/C work harder, when a smaller 'roaster oven' can cook the same items (unless you are doing the 20 pound thanksgiving turkey), using a lot less energy, and throwing a lot less heat into the surroundings?

Now granted in the winter time, the heat bleed is actually a good thing, but in florida in the summer with the temps already in the mid 90's. I don't need anymore heat than nature is already providing.

Now lets add to the fact that with a 'roaster oven' that has a built in rotisserie you don't have to open the door 20 times to stir the beans, and let all that additional heat out into the surroundings, making the process even less efficient. Granted electricity isn't that expensive yet..but with the way things are going with fuel prices etc etc.. If I can save $15.00 a year on energy, that's another pound of chocolate I can buy.

Im not trying to criticise you, as to each is own and what works for you is the way to go, but just want to offer a view from the other side of the coin here I guess you could say.

Thanks for your inputs.

Aaron

[Brad]

Aaron;

I understand your point about the oven heating the house.

However your calculation on economic savings needs some revisiting.

Spending $100 + shipping on a machine to save $10 per year on electricity (remember, your little oven still uses a substantial amount of electricity. In fact, in terms of amperage draw compared to your "huge" oven, you'd be suprised at how close the two are!) puts your break even point somewhere around the 10 year range before you have to wait one more year to buy that pound of cocoa beans.

No disrespect intended, but personally, I'll take my $120 +/- and enjoy my 8lb of cocoa beans now! 10 years is too far down the road to wait for me!

Brad.

[angioplasty]

Brad, a toaster oven uses generally 700 watts to maybe 1000 watts.
an oven can use 2200 watts to 4400 watts. Big difference there. Lets cook for an hour straight. at ten cents a kilowatt hour. high end little oven uses a dime. Low end big oven uses 22 cents... thats just for one hour .12 cent difference. now lets do that for 30 days... that's $3.60 a month or a bit over $40 a year. Thats if you only cook for an hour a day. Any kind of cooking, not just cocoa beans.

Overall, that is HEAT you are producing, which will dissipate into the house as the oven cools. 1000 watts / hr of heat is going to be taken back out of the air a lot quicker than 2200 watts/hr of heat as the A/C sees it.. Im not even going to attempt to caculate how much more your A/C bill is going to change as there are too many variables. Let's try to keep it simple and say if you used X watts of electricity to put Y btu's of heat into the house, you will probably need x watts of electricity to take it back out of the house. (granted this is only true during A/C usage months) on the colder months it's the opposite effect as it adds heat your furnace don't have to...

also, while it is true that the amps a toaster oven uses might be close to the amps of a full sized oven, you have to remember that power is a product of amps and volts..... (putting it simply).. a standard oven generally runs off of 220 volts, a toaster oven 110 volts so while the amps may be equal, the power is actually doubled in the standard oven because of the higher voltage.

Running out and spending a hundred dollars on a RR just for it's own sake, yes that is a bit expensive, but if someone was looking to get a drum type roaster to begin with, spending 100 on the RR, which will do a pound easily, probably more I just havent tried it. or almost 500 on a hot top oven, or I think about 350 on an RK not including the grill... then the 100 looks very reasonable, and unlike the Hot Top, RK or others, you can still use it as a toaster oven too.

If Im cooking "big bird" for thanksgiving, ill use the big oven, if Im warming up a pizza bread, the toaster oven works just fine.

Aaron

[benvt]

brad said:

Looks good.

I was just wondering if anybody has yet tried the following:

www.amazon.com/George-Foreman-GR82B/dp/B00005B6Z3

This one comes already with the basket (which has agitators inside it). The information doesn't say how hot it gets inside, or anything like that. I saw one up close and personal, and it doesn't look like there is a temperature control.

Comments???

Brad

I actually use the "Big George" rotisserie (GR80). The main difference for us cocoa roasters is that it does have an adjustable temperature control. This is the best option I have found for roasting at home. The roasting basket that is included tumbles cocoa beans perfectly. The lowest temperature settings are around 270 and 300 which work perfectly. It even has vents in the back that you can smell your roast through so that you never need to open the oven during roasting. I have had the best roasts since I started using this rotisserie. The only drawback is that it is discontinued and there is no other rotisserie available with an adjustable temperature (that I have found for a reasonable price). Although about one GR80 goes for auction on Ebay a week. They are usually in like new condition and around $50-80 (+$30 shipping). If you get one make sure the shipper has original packaging or knows what they are doing. Mine had 3 legs broken during shipping. If you want just the basket, call Salton USA at [phone] and have the model number of the rotisserie ready (I considered getting just the basket and emailed them, they gave me that #). Happy roasting!