[Roasting] Between Batch routine?

Q&A
1

Hey folks,

I’m roasting on a 10kg Proaster (solid steel drum, cast iron door).

My time between batches is insanely long. 10-15 minutes. My current routine is to keep the door closed, Air to max, Gas to minimum. As the drum cools, I gradually decrease the Air until it stabilizes at my charge temp.

I’ve considered turning the burner completely off, but that runs the risk of having an uneven drum surface temperature, in theory. I’ve also considered changing the control setting for my Airflow. On the Proaster, you can change the power delivered to the fan. Mine is set to 40 (for anyone that has worked with a Proaster). Lastly, I’ve considered opening the door to introduce room temp air to the drum, but that will almost surely make for an uneven drum surface temperature.

Is this just a byproduct of this machine, or is there something I can do to reliably reduce the time it takes between batches without sacrificing batch consistency and quality?

2

Does your roaster’s burner shut off when it reaches a certain temperature? We keep the air medium and set the burner for our charge temp at a moderate gas burner setting and let it run it’s coarse for about 5 minutes before introducing our next batch. (We roast on a 12k U.S. Roaster Corp) People take a thousand different approaches to this… We have a successful time repeating the same turning point and following our profile’s curve though.

If you do the same thing each time then you can theoretically do anything as long as you do it that same way each time! The proof is in your data, if you get the same results roast to roast then you have a stable roasting environment!

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