As inspiration for building home-made drum roasters or roasters from converted gas barbeque grills, I wanted to share some photos of the Jabez Burns sample roaster. These two models below are not mine but belong to Royal Coffee, a broker near our shop (where I cup participate in cuppings sometimes). Also, see our description of perforated metals.
 Here is the 2 banks fo sample roasters side by side. You can see the sample tries to pull out coffee during the roast. This open front design is absolutely ideal for total access to the coffee during the roast. |
 The 4 barrel roaster is newer and has air-through-the-drum -see next photo- We had just roasted a bunch of KenyaKenya is the East African powerhouse of the coffee world. Both in the cup, and the way they run their trade, everything is topnotch.: Kenya is the East... samples so there’s a lot of chaffChaff is paper-like skin that comes off the coffee in the roasting process. Chaff from roasting is part of the innermost skin (the silverskin) of the coffee fruit... everywhere. (You really don’t have to pull the chaff out of the drum while roasting -you can just separate it after – but we were being picky for the Kenya cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest....). |
 Here you can see the air manifold that pulls air through the drum, and how the drum barrel hinges forward to dump into the cooling tray |
 The drum is perforated metal with agitating fins. It has is a cylinder shape with a coned front end. In the rear, it is mounted on the drive gear, but so the front can remain open it runs on a groove inside the front opening. |
 Here is the gear that drives the rear -this is the 5 barrel one because it lacks the air manifold |
 The gear is meshed into a worm-drive gear on a lateral rod |
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The lateral rod is driven by an electric motor at the base, with a long belt between the pulleys. This keeps the motor away from the heat. |
 The sample trays have a strong airflow pulling down through them and they cool the coffee very quickly. (Airflow cools coffee, not physical agitation). |
 Here you can see the burner, a very simple round flame like a gas stove, or like a Colman Camp stove that runs on white gas. |
