Roasting coffee in a Ball roaster

[astracocos]

Hi everyone,

I would like to get information about a Barth Ball roaster machine. It seems to be the best for cocoa roasting but how good is it for coffee? It seems nobody use them for roasting coffee but it's an iron cast machine with indirect heated drum and manual airflow dumper...On the paper it looks like a great choice, don't you think?

Anyone who got an experience with this brand you're welcome to share it, anything could be useful!

Thank's

 

[Mr.Peaberry]

Ultra steampunk contraption...I love it! Nice find...kinda reminds me of the "Bathysphere" submersible of the 1930's.

Barth Ball Roaster:



Bathysphere submersible:

 

[astracocos]

Thank's Mr Peaberry,

This model is the sirocco, it's one of the first produced by Barth, it's a big heavy machine which is known as the best choice for cocoa roaster. There's an other model called Oekonom available from 15Kg batch size to 30Kg I think. This one is most recent, it's a lighter construction ( the 15kg version weight only 450Kg :wink.

My project is to buy an unrefurbished and do the job by myself, the tricky part will be the burner parts definitely. For the rest I'm not scared.

 

[topher]

I have never roasted cocoa before. From what I understand cocoa roasters drum moves much slower so not to break the cocoa. I could be wrong but you would have to put a bigger pulley on the motor and or a smaller pulley on the drive shaft..then to dial it in you would need a variable speed controller. People chime in if I am incorrect. I would hate for you to shell out a lot of dough and not have it work the way it should. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[astracocos]

Well I have the manufacturer brochure for the oekonom but there isn't much tech information, however they say it's designed for coffee

About the drum speed, it seems it's like on the Probat UG, there's one motor running everything else so you can't dial the speed withtout impacting the air flow, Am I right?

Well I'll see if I have to adapt the speed by changing the size of the pulley it will be done but not sure I will need a variable speed controller.