Home Coffee Coffee Roasting with an RK Drum and a Gas Grill

Every once in a while, the blind hog finds an acorn. Such was the case when Ron Kyle offered one of his RK Drums as a "Tradition" gift on the Sweet Maria's Homeroast mailing list. The Traditions are one-string-attached gifts where the giver offers some item(s) free including free delivery. Usually there is random choice involved in selection of the recipient. The only "string" is that the recipient is obligated to offer a Tradition of his own.

In Ron Kyle's tradition, he offered one of his custom-made RK Drums for coffee roasting. I WON! All I had to do was add my own gas grill and rotisserie. Ron sold these drums for $210 through his website.

First roast with my RK Drum was 16oz of Rwanda Masaka "Seven Lakes" from Sweet Maria's. I really like this coffee and had bought a second 5# bag of it. I probably should have used my Uganda Bugisu '03, since I've still got about 10# of it, but I just roasted some Friday. I had trouble keeping control of the temperature. Even though the New Braunfels thermometer showed that I was running about 25-40 degrees over target, first and second cracks were at the late end of the target windows. The final roast was an unintentional melange. (I'm going to add the 57 RPM motor) I chewed on a bean and it was yummy! I let the coffee rest until morning; after all, it was late afternoon and that's caffeinated stuff.

My Charbroil experience getting there were not good, though. I bought the $99 Charbroil from Lowe's and the Charbroil "universal rotisserie" I found there. I had a few problems initially...

First, the big one: I really regret buying the $20 Charbroil universal rotisserie. It wasn't worth that price. The motor had trouble turning my RK Drum, hesitating at a repeating part of the rotation. The Charbroil motor did not fit the Charbroil grill well, with the electrical cord and the on-off switch interfering with the grill's shelf. Further, the rod is two pieces that screw together. It broke easily when I tried to straighten it. The rod appears to be cast metal that is threaded on one end. Then, I tried to find a 5/16" rod to replace it. Not an easy thing to do on a holiday weekend. The only hardware store that told me they had 5/16" square rod in 36" size was wrong -- they had 36" round, but only 12" in square. Neither Lowe's nor Home Depot had any either.

THE FIX: I had to go back to Lowe's for some more painting caulk (for an unrelated project), so I checked out their other rotisserie items. Sure enough, there was also a $32 Charbroil universal rotisserie called the "Premium Electric Rotisserie". This had a one-piece rotisserie spit rod instead of the two-piece. The motor was labelled "heavy duty" and was bigger, heavier, and with the cord and switch were well-placed. There was also a wooden handle for the spit rod. All the Lowes' boxes were in bad shape and I decided not to buy one. I went by Home Depot on my way home, and bought the same unit there at a competitive price.

Coffee Roasting |  2 |  Hottop |  2 |  Hottop Tips |  RK Drum |  2 |  3 |  4 |  5

Copyright © 2004-2006 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.