Roaster capacity: Diedrich, Ambex, US Roasters, and Probat

[coffeejoes]

Lizzy
Do you use the standalone chaff collector? When roasting a full load(5# or so) do you have a lot of chaff in the finished beans?

 

[topher]

My roast times came out between 17 and 19 mins. You did bring up a good point on your exhaust. How long is the pipe before the smoke can escape? I used to roast on a ambex 5kilo and I had a problem with the back pressure. I had to put a a fan to break the "seal" that was caused half way up my exhuast pipe. Call Terry and ask what kind of fan he suggests...if he doesn't understand tell him that it was what coffee contata had to install about 10 years ago. :wink: hope this helps.

 

[coffeejoes]

Topher
Good advice on the exhaust. I will try exhausting straight through the sidewall to see if it makes a difference. Total length of my exhaust is 22', most of which is 6" vertical outside the building.

 

[BeanGrinder]

Um...I think there is another variable that no one has looked at. My attention span is short, so I didn't read all of these posts that carefully.

Anyway, the bean size makes a difference. Some are just larger than others and I can tell you that I can always roast more Ethiopian than Colombian in a single batch.

Also, I think Ambex totally changed designs in the last couple of years - the metalwork used to be done in Turkey but is now done in the USA (at least for some of their models). In that process, I think they gave the newer roasters "more headroom."

As for false representation, I think it is more like an industry standard. Remember that traditionally these machines were manufactured in Turkey and, to a point, Europe (Italy). Drum capacity means something slightly different. A good analogy is to get out a ruler and measure a 2x4 in the lumber section of Home Depot. The finished dimension is actually slightly smaller than 2" by 4".

BG

 

[coffeejoes]

Bean Grinder
Good comments. I have also noticed some beans expand more than others. I never intended to imply false representation on the part of any or all roaster manufactures. My only intentions was to see if my current roaster is set up correctly and gain some insight into my next roaster purchase.

 

[Fresh Roaster]

How come no one has mentioned the actual roast and mass?

First, roaster manufacturers fib about capacity. Common knowledge. We have a "five pound" roaster and it's the same size as one of the other guy's "10 pounders". Same volume.

Second, if you're doing a really dark roast your going to get more volume. Hence that drum is going to fill up and augment the agitiatation and airflow.

Do a french and fill up a bucket. Do the same beans to a light roast and fill up the same bucket. One will fill as much as ten percent more of the bucket... :wink:

 

[Temuri]

Guys! May be the problem is same motor for cooling and hot air exhaust. I have never worked on such machine, (All my roasters have different motors for cooling and exhaust, only 1 kg cafemino is like that, but it is coming this week and I have not roasted on it yet). So when roasting and cooling simultaniously may be there we have to look for reasons.
Also the size may matter. My 60 kg Toper is approximately the same in dimensions as many other 120 kg roasters I have seen. And once by mistake I put two bags of Brazil Santos in it, naturally it prolonged the roasting time to very unpleasant 35 minutes at the normal flame. Shortly I want to tell you that quite may be that some producers claim their machines are 1.5-2 times more bacth roasters then they are. May be the reason is to claim lower price or I dont know...