Solar Roasting?

[kellymon]

I've made a few small batches of chocolate using my oven as a roaster, but since we cook most of our meals in the summer with a solar cooker, I decided to try it to roast cacao beans.
About 4 liters of 50/50 Madagascar and Ghana.
They were in for about 2 1/2 hours with a finished temperature of 215 f. The oven does take a while to warm up, so I estimate they were in the 160-215 range for about 1 hour.

One disadvantage to using this cooker is that there is a lid on the pot, so moisture is not removed. However, I finished drying in a dehydrater set for about 115f to remove moisture prior to cracking and winnowing.

The browny smell was rich and strong, and the finished bean taste nice but not burnt (which has happened to me in the regular oven)

Here is a link to the solar cooker I used
65.108.108.197/catalog/hotpot-p-34.html?osCsid=e202657d8257c6c99210766a589bb1d1

Any thoughts on this so far?
robert

[kellymon]

The final results were pretty darn good. About 3 lbs of 80+%.
Tasty enough that I like it but not so strong that it scares off those unfamiliar with real chocolate
Weather permitting, I'll do my second roast this weekend using the sun again.
robert