CO2 Extinguisher

[NorthSouth]

A while back, I suffered an outage of my electricity service while near the end of a roast.
I was very lucky not to have a fire and I suffered no damage to my roaster :razz:
I still have no way to rotate the drum when the electricity is out to eject the beans.
Thus it is merely a matter of time before this occurs again.
The only precaution I have taken is to recently buy a CO2 extinguisher.
This means I would be able to put out a fire inside the roaster without squirting toxic chemicals.
The CO2 that is emitted is very cold and should cool the roaster somewhat.
So, a few of questions:
1. Does anyone else have a CO2 extinguisher for this purpose? Ever used it? If so, how effective?
2. Would the very cold CO2 cause problems? I'm thinking a sudden change from a high to a low temperature is generally never a good thing.
3. Comments/suggestions?
Thanks

 

[topher]

What brand coffee roaster do you have? I have a 60 kilo Ambex and used to have a 120 kilo Toper. Living in Florida we have power outages in the summer..not as frequently as 10 years ago. That being said. I have had issues with coffee being in the drum and no power. On the 120 I had a handle I could attach to the back large gear. I could open the door and rotate the drum. On the sixty I just grab the chain and start rotating. That being said...most important thing to do is turn off all the motors. You really do not want to get your hand stuck in that mess! For extinguishers I use water(silver cans). I never use chemicals. Its a bear to clean. Once its out...well just hope the power comes back on...or you will need to use your extinguisher in the cooling bin.

 

[NorthSouth]

I have a small toper.
I cannot access the drum chain without first removing 3 bolts that hold a protective cover.
When not hot, I removed this cover and tried to rotate the drum using the chain without success.
I think the drum motor is acting as a very effective brake when it isn't under power.
I just checked this theory by turning off the drum motor and saw that the drum stopped very rapidly.

I do wish every roaster came with a manual rotation procedure to eject beans during a power outage.

Do you worry about water extinguishers causing the drum to rust and damage to the burners?
Water would tend to get everywhere.
A CO2 extinguisher leaves no trace.
I just wondered if anyone else was using one.....