Roasting kit (210804)
Channel: Reluctant Roboticist
Date: 2021-08-28

#CoffeeRoasting #HomeRoasting #Arduino

Today I'd like to talk about my coffee roasting setup. 

Six years ago, I embarked on this adventure of roasting coffee after 40 years of coffee drinking. I've done about 900 roasts; that's about 500 pounds or 200 kilograms of coffee with my batch size of about 250 grams. 

My basic setup is that I usually roast on the stove in the kitchen. I use this small saucepan and a whisk. The other critical pieces of equipment for me are welding gloves, colanders and a bamboo spoon for the cooling process. 

This process has evolved over time. Five years ago, I decided to integrate my interest in microcontrollers into my roasting, so I got myself some thermocouples. My whisk now has a thermocouple attached to it measuring the temperature of the beans as I roast which is reflected as a red curve on the PC. 

Inside of this olive oil tin is an Arduino with a shield that allows it to read the temperatures of up to four thermocouples. One of the thermocouples is measuring the bean temperature; one is measuring the environment in the pan; and the others right now are measuring things like the burner temperature. That's my basic setup. 

I have to admit that I have this constant dilemma in my coffee roasting between the instinctual aspects of the craft-- how I see and experience the roast going-- and all of the numbers that this system delivers to me during the roasting process. Balancing that is always a challenge for me.

My coffee drinking habit is one of the reasons I got into coffee roasting. My habit is about 750 grams or a 1.5lbs a week. Somehow it seemed like the best thing to do was to try to roast myself. 

I have some videos on my YouTube channel that provide more detail on my roasting technique, my green bean library and other things that go into both roasting and brewing coffee for me. 

Thank you very much for watching. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. We'll see you in the next video.