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Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Shane,
Got the new clip, and pop riveted it on. Must have taken me all of 2 minutes!
Just completed roasting 20 pounds of various beans, and I LOVE the new clip!!!!
No more fiddling around with the pin, just pop it out, flip the clip, dump the beans, and on to the next batch.
As you mentioned in your review, a bit less noise, and much faster turnaround times between roasts.
Still regret not going with the 6 pound drum.
Best Wishes,
Jay Michels
Hi Shane,
This is a email I received from Adam Jahiel: http://www.adamjahiel.com/
I'd like to thank Ron for producing his roasting drum.
After quite some time of struggling with my Alpenrost, or Alpenusuallyrost, or Alpensometimesrost and sometimes not rost, I can tell you that Ron's RK DRUM drum is a GODSEND. At our house, we go through so much coffee that the Fussyrost usually sits on the counter in the kitchen, taking up space for days, because we have to roast so often. With the RK Drum, on the first try, I loaded it up with a couple pounds of Malabar Gold, popped it in my Weber Genisis Gold Grill after a preheat, sat in front of it keeping an eye on the thermometer, and shortly, crack,smoke, crack (I'm referring to the coffee roasting process here, nothing illegal), and suddenly, I had a bunch of perfectly roasted coffee. No muss, No fuss, No Alp. And this was just my first attempt!
Thanks, Ron, you now join the ranks of my other hero Les, maker of the THOR TAMPER. In this increasingly mechanised and mass-produced world, I am delighted to have your lovingly, hand-made products in my home, improving my life.
As for the ALP, maybe target practise?
Best,
Adam
From: "Mike Smith"
Subject: My first run with my RK Drum BBQ Roaster
First off, I'm in no way connected to the production or manufacture of this
fine product. Although, I wish I were. What follows is a description of my experience
setting up for my first roast with my RK Drum, that I received...yesterday.
Upon opening the well packed box, I was impressed with the heft, and build
quality of this all stainless drum. Anyone that has worked with stainless steel, knows what
a bear it is to work with. All of the cuts are clean, no burrs, and all of the welds have
been ground and smoothed. A very well executed construction. The height of the stirring
vanes kind of surprised me. All of the other drum designs I had seen, as on my Alp, the
vanes were a fraction of an inch tall. On this drum they are at least a full inch high.
They stir a large load 2 pounds or more very well. For the grill, I purchased a I was having to look into the bottom of the grill from underneath to see the
burner so that I could adjust it down as low as possible to maintain 435, and still have a
flame. At 10 minutes first crack started and I could tell by how " all at once " it was, that
second was going to follow very rapidly. I was right, by 11 minutes I was into one heck of a rolling second crack. I cut the heat, grabbed the spit, and dumped and cooled the beans.
I had sort of mélange roast, with most of the beans a very full city, with
slight oil showing, and some french, with about 10 % city. I had observed
the good mixing action of the vanes, and knew that this unevenness was not
due to poor bean movement. I surmised that it was a result of too rapid of a
bean temp rise.
I decided to load up a larger batch. I loaded up 1 and 1/2 pounds of La Manita, and started again.
This time the temp recovery after drum insertion was much slower. I think that the larger load
actually made the temp more stable, and a lot less ticklish. This time first crack started at about 14 minutes, and started much more gradually. Second crack followed after a
little added heat at 17:30 and I pulled the roast immediately upon onset of second. I usually like LM right before second.
Anyhow, this roast was MUCH more even, and easier to control. I really like a more mellow taste,
hopefully this won't be TOO mellow.
I am thoroughly pleased with the drum, and it will make my roasting much less involved than 6 or 7 Alpenrost roasts a week. I think I will look at putting a cast iron griddle in the bottom of my grill, to more evenly distribute the heat and flame, and to act as sort a thermal mass. I think that a load of about 1 pound is as small a roast as a beginner BBQ roaster should try. That
1/2 pound roast was just too hard to control. The larger batch tracked along a profile almost
exactly like my Alpenrost.
The drum is by far the best investment in my roasting that I have ever made, and I am grateful
for such a quality product. The drum is easily worth the price of an Alpenrost.This thing is built as well as anything I've ever seen. I have fabricated a few gadgets in my life, as I have been a
homebrewer. It is much like coffee roasting in that you have to build everything
if you want a nice setup without spending thousands.
To replace my BBQ roaster would cost $6000 for a San Francisco sample roaster, and the end result is every bit as tasty. Until someone decides to sell a computer controlled, commercial style drum roaster for under $2000, I've got THE best setup out there for us that don't like being tied to 3 hours of 8 oz roasts once a week.
Mike Smith
flyin' hillbilly BBQ RK Drum roaster
just a satisfied customer
Craig Jensen:
(Posted at www.coffeegeek.com)
I have been looking at coffee roasters for well over a year, but have been disappointed by the current options. Basically, most of the current crop of home-use roasters (with possibly the exception of the Behmor) seem somewhat flaky and poorly constructed. I looked at more than a few of them, and they just didn't seem likely to last out the year. It seemed to be stretching things to pay the amount of money that many cost if I wouldn't get that much use out of them. Also, all of the posts about voltage problems in houses with these roasters had me pretty alarmed. I read posts about people needing variacs and line voltage problems with the roasters, and that combined with the construction problems I had seen were just too much of a red flag. So I put off getting any of the roasters.
But then I noticed www.rkdrums.com and it seemed like a very good solution. The drums looked well built and unlikely to fall apart in a year. Also, since it used a propane grill, no worries about voltage issues. My only concern with rkdrums was assembling the thing. This was solved very easily though when Shane Lewis (see buying experience below for more details) agreed to assemble one for me.
I have done 6 roasts with the unit so far, and that seems to be enough at least to get a review started I think. Using the unit is very easy:
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