Coffee roast at home - Part 2 121020

I decided to roast another batch of coffee.

Modified popper with 1/4 in. screen to keep beans from flying out.  The screen generally works well.  Beans stay in and chaff escapes.  Some minor adjustment will likely be needed.  Screen held in place with a copper wire.

Screen to keep beans in popper.

Dropped 78g of green Mexican.  This is enough to fill popper to popcorn full line.

78g green Mexican

This time I put the popper and chaff collector next to the stove with the hood running.  This is a considerable improvement but the area still smelled of something burnt or so says BB.  Paper towel is wet to catch chaff and that works extremely well.

Setup next to stove with wet paper towel to catch chaff.

I ran the roast as follows:

• 1:40 Beans showing color but uneven.  Some beans definitely appear burnt.  Had to shake the popper to improve agitation.  Not a big issue but I'd like more agitation. 
• 2:16 1st crack starting.  There is PLENTY of heat in this roaster given the air flow.  Would like more air flow so 1st crack is 6 to 8 minutes and second around 10 to 12 as we run at Karma.
• 3:20 Smoke visible with extended cracking.
• 4:00 Crack running solidly.  First to second crack happened instantly.
• 5:00 Dump.  Serious smoke.  This machine runs WAY TO FAST with 78g of beans.  More air flow needed and likely more beans.

Plastic cover was VERY hot and I slightly deformed it when I took it off to dump beans.  I'll need an insulated handle.

The yield was 62g. That's a 16g roast loss, 20.5%.  At Karma we drop 16 lbs and get 13 yield for a roast loss of 3 lbs, 18.75%. 

62g finished roast

The wet towel chaff collector worked well.

Chaff on wet paper towel.

Here's what the coffee looks like.  Solid dark with uniform color.  Post roast smell was good.  I'll cup it Tuesday.

Beans, Full City + perhaps ++

A couple of things of note on this popper:

• More air flow to float a larger load since there is plenty of heat
• Insulated handle on plastic so it can be more easily removed.  I suspect replacing the plastic with a glass chimney makes a lot of sense though I'll need to work out some way to catch the chaff.