Thanksgiving day, Christy drove the girls over to our friends home for dinner while I walked. I was getting a bit squirrelly and the fresh cold air was exactly what I needed. Almost immediately, my mind was engaged with this experimental roaster. I’d been stagnant with any progress since the soapbox derby, and i was really wanting to get back with it. But I was hesitating for some reason.
One of the things that has been nagging at me has been airflow… I had convinced myself that the airflow for roasting 1/2 to 1 pound of coffee wasn’t as important as the drum and bean mass dynamics. Minimal in fact and so I didn’t need to put too much consideration into it… as long as I drew air through the back and out of the front of the drum (the front end was going to be open, like Gothot / Probat and Pinhalenze sample roasters) I believed that I would be able to achieve good control over the roast. But the venting and control that the Gothot has was just sitting there in my mind, picking at my certainty, pointing out that even in small batches, air flow is important.
So I was walking through the neighborhood and re-worked almost everything. Not so much in detail, but mentally re-sketched the entire plan for the roaster. and so now it is more like a grown up roaster, with control over the air flow so that I can control it subtly.
Which brings me to today. I am not trying to re-invent anything, and so built a prototype of the air box based on what I know about the Gothot sample roasters.. an so far just have the chaff collection part built. I should be able to test it in the next couple days and will post images and video of it shortly…