My roaster just caught fire

[VertigoCycles]

Is it grumpy ass Thursday yet? The motor stalled, right at the end of first crack, for a reason I haven't discovered yet, and it takes about five seconds for flames to shoot out of everywhere. Burning beans seem to clump together, blocking the emergency bean dump chute. Luckily, I do this outside where I happen to keep a pressurized spray bottle to keep our dog from eating our raspberry plants (yes, the plants.)

It may be salvageable, but in case it's not, what roasters do you all like? Other than Hot Top.

[Too Tall]

My deepest sympathies.
If they EVER friggin' release this I'm all about it: Jake Kilo Roaster – Behmor
In the meantime pound sand. Get the same thing or consider roasting over the family BBQ. Not kidding.
I've been reading reddit on same topic >> Behmor Jake Roaster : roasting

[weavie]

Sorry to hear about the roaster fire.

I've stuck with the Behmor over the years because of the price. It's not perfect by any means but it's good enough. Personally, I wouldn't buy the Jake until maybe the 2nd or 3rd version and that's assuming it's an actual product that comes out.

I've been doing a lot of reading about the Aillio Bullet lately and I think it's probably better than the Huky or the Quest for me since it's a little more easily controlled and has a larger capacity but all three are what I think about when I consider moving up from the Behmor/Hottop type of roasters.

[Mark Kelly]

It may be salvageable, but in case it's not, what roasters do you all like? Other than Hot Top.

A cheap option is to buy a second hand breadmaker, a temperature controlled heatgun with variable air flow(I have found the Bosch unit to be very reliable) and invest in roaster control software: Roast Monitor plus a Heatsnob are OK apart from being rather sensitive to line noise.

This arrangement is called the "Corretto" after the person who developed it. It has similar kinetics to a spouted bed roaster eg it's between a fluidised bed and a drum roaster. With an ordinary heatgun it will do a good profile roast on 625g of beans* in about half an hour.

I have the heatgun mounted on a bike stand and the breadmaker on a trolley, I can put the ensemble together in three minutes and take it apart in two. A cooling tray is helpful: mine is a bathroom exhaust fan in a box. Works perfectly.


* I buy beans in 2.5 kg bags, a quarter of a bag yields 525g after roast losses, fits into a 500g bag fine.

[defspace]

This hits close to home. I caught my Behmor on fire. It took some time and a lot of cleaning to get rid of the smell. I think the internal reflectivity changed a bit after the fire, so I've had to adjust my methods a bit, but it works well enough that I haven't bothered to look elsewhere.

Fingers crossed you can get yours back in service. My Behmor 1600 (not the 1600+ or AB unit) has lasted several years, caught on fire and still makes me cheap coffee that tastes good. If it totally kicked the bucket, I'd probably just grab another Behmor because it works well enough and I'm familiar with the platform.

[VertigoCycles]

I still need to fully disassemble it to check the motor. After cleaning it up a bit, I ran it empty and there's definitely something going on in the motor housing. Something is scraping and I imagine that it seized and cause the motor stall, which caused the fire. Everything else appears to be working fine.

[tanghy]

Quest m3 is a good home unit

[VertigoCycles]

Once I had a chance to disassemble the machine...and the motor housing...I found a stripped gear. The motor output shaft is about 1/4" which drives a plastic gear that's the first part of a gear reduction. The teeth are so fine that it's not really a surprise that it stripped. Anyhow, I got hold of the guy at HotTop who was apparently impressed that I got the housing open and agreed to sell me a couple of replacement gears (one steel, one plastic) for $30. I'll take it, especially since they normally don't sell them and instead sell a new motor assembly for $150. With any luck, I'll be roasting again in a week.

[VertigoCycles]

I replaced half the machine after the fire and all was well until last week when it completely shut down after hitting the eject button. On the upside, when I replaced all the electronics, the motor housing etc, I installed a manual emergency release lever and flap. On the downside, the emergency release system doesn't really work when the drum isn't turning and the beans caught fire. I was able to do two more successful roasts until this morning when the same damn thing happened.

Josh, do you have that Jake yet? I'm going to have to sell a guitar to justify the purchase.

Anyone who wants to get in on a socially distanced "Office Space" style decommissioning of the HotTop get in touch and BYOB(aseball Bat)

[Too Tall]

I replaced half the machine after the fire and all was well until last week when it completely shut down after hitting the eject button. On the upside, when I replaced all the electronics, the motor housing etc, I installed a manual emergency release lever and flap. On the downside, the emergency release system doesn't really work when the drum isn't turning and the beans caught fire. I was able to do two more successful roasts until this morning when the same damn thing happened.

Josh, do you have that Jake yet? I'm going to have to sell a guitar to justify the purchase.

Anyone who wants to get in on a socially distanced "Office Space" style decommissioning of the HotTop get in touch and BYOB(aseball Bat)

I love beating things with baseball bats. $1 a hit? I'm in. The Jake is still not in production. Get the Behmore, it is very servicable and I've been running one for a year'ish with very good results. The front control panel is very hackable by learning what the buttons are able to do you can roast exactly what you desire. I'm not making a cent telling you this ;) If you get the Behmore I can send you my cheat sheet for 1lb dark roast.

Hey Vsalon roasters. If Sean stalls on this let's all pitch in a send him a pound of our best effort. I'm roasting this weekend. PM me your home address. I'll whip you up a pound of some real old school Moca Java (deeeeep into first crack). It kills.

[Dmoeny]

We've been using a Gene Cafe for the last 2, maybe 3 years at the rate of ~4-5 250gram (green) roasts per week, and I'd recommend it for lower volume consumption.

[VertigoCycles]

I love beating things with baseball bats. $1 a hit? I'm in. The Jake is still not in production. Get the Behmore, it is very servicable and I've been running one for a year'ish with very good results. The front control panel is very hackable by learning what the buttons are able to do you can roast exactly what you desire. I'm not making a cent telling you this ;) If you get the Behmore I can send you my cheat sheet for 1lb dark roast.

Hey Vsalon roasters. If Sean stalls on this let's all pitch in a send him a pound of our best effort. I'm roasting this weekend. PM me your home address. I'll whip you up a pound of some real old school Moca Java (deeeeep into first crack). It kills.

no charge for having a whack at it

as a person who can't replace anything until I'm 100% certain that it's 100% dead and unfixable, I pulled the back off of the roaster and have been taking things out of the circuit to see if something is possibly drawing too much current and forcing the machine to shut down. It happens right when I hit the eject button, which happens to be when the exhaust fan, the bean cooling fan and the agitation blade all turn on simultaneously while the drum continues to turn but the burners turn off. I think I've narrowed it down to the exhaust fan and when I can find a suitable replacement, hopefully it'll be a $20 fix.

[Too Tall]

Taking a knee while Sean examines the guts.

[defspace]

I think I've narrowed it down to the exhaust fan and when I can find a suitable replacement, hopefully it'll be a $20 fix.

Fingers crossed you've got it sorted. I've replaced a few parts and have done a few crude but effective "mods" to get my post-fire Behmor roasting the way I want.

Hey Vsalon roasters. If Sean stalls on this let's all pitch in a send him a pound of our best effort. I'm roasting this weekend. PM me your home address.

Count me in. These are dire straits.

This is a good reminder. I need to roast up a batch.

[VertigoCycles]

thanks for being on standby fellas. I'm fairly certain it was the fan and have another one on the way. It should arrive before I need another batch, but probably after my wife runs out of decaf. Decaf isn't real coffee anyway, so I think she'll survive the two days before the fan arrives.

[VertigoCycles]

The new fan was installed and tested yesterday. Looks like that was the culprit. As much as I was ready to beat the sheetmetal flat, I'm happy to keep some dough in my wallet and stuff out of the landfill for a while.

[Too Tall]

The new fan was installed and tested yesterday. Looks like that was the culprit. As much as I was ready to beat the sheetmetal flat, I'm happy to keep some dough in my wallet and stuff out of the landfill for a while.

Nice work bub. BTW Duck. Commenting on spousal preferences is a short path to doom. Just sayin'.

[Mark Kelly]

Decaf isn't real coffee anyway,

Over here a decaf soy latte with sweetener is known as a "why bother".

[VertigoCycles]

Nice work bub. BTW Duck. Commenting on spousal preferences is a short path to doom. Just sayin'.

We have a long standing but good natured "spat" about this. It's all good. I roasted a batch for her this morning and she enjoyed a looooong inhale of the aroma a few hours after. She's happy, I'm happy.