Hi, I’m attempting to use the roaster for cacao. Although a typical cacao bean is 4-5 times the size of a coffee bean, most roasters are able to accommodate them without issue (we just lower temps and roast longer to achieve our goals).
I’ve been experimenting with the Bullet and have found the bean chute is sufficiently sized to allow cacao in and there is good flexibility in pre-heat temperature settings to do cacao. However, the bean temperature probe is in a very annoying spot and occasionally cacao beans will become lodged between the probe and the drum blades, causing a full jam of the drum!
Monitoring the bean temp is not particularly critical (chocolate is more forgiving I feel)…I can get what I need from the IBTS. Is it possible for me to just remove the bean probe completely and have the unit function okay without it? I know I’m in uncharted territory here, I have a Behmor fallback but getting the Bullet to work would be great!
This sounds cool (not that I’m going to venture down this road )! Do you make your own chocolate? Some pictures would be awesome to see… I’m just curious. I had always though most any drum coffee roaster should be able to handle cacao. Is the roasting process / profile similar to coffee beans?
I do make chocolate! It’s a lot longer of a roast than coffee and of course the entire chocolate bar process is lengthy, however, I’d say the skill barrier is lower than coffee from a strictly roasting perspective.
There’s a great primer on roasting cacao here (https://youtu.be/56zh7gOE_mU?si=JJir1i9mIfYyIw_f) directly from one of the most knowledgeable people out there! Happy to post pictures of some bars after this latest roast!
My solution was to move the Bean temp probe to give it a little more room between the blades of the drum and the probe. It seems to be working for the time being.
If you use your roaster to roast cocoa, is it pretty much dedicated to that afterwards? I’d be afraid that the oils from coffee vs. cacao could cause flavor issues if you go back and forth. I am mostly thinking about how the cacao oils would “burn and smoke” at the higher temperatures used to roast coffee.
Typically cacao isnt releasing much cocoa butter during roasting, unless youve got the drum speed high enough that it starts to shatter the beans. The much larger issue is dust. Even cleaned and sorted beans are going to be much, much dirtier than coffee, and that has a greater chance of smoking. The dust build up is pretty rapid but I find taking an air compressor to the interior helps keep it under control.
I have not noticed any off flavors on either coffee or cacao.
Hey @brendan.8deg and @jclark754 , thanks for sharing your experience with cacao roasting on your Bullet. I am also looking to roast a bit right now.
I had some concerns about oils affecting my subsequent coffee roasts, but your post makes me feel less nervous.
Any other tips? Batch size, temperatures, roast times?
I have a few pounds of good quality unroasted cacao and I’m excited to embark on this journey.
I was thinking about 350grams of cacao, 300F charge temp and 15-20min roast.
There was mention of drum speed, any suggestions?
It would depend a little on what beans youre using and what flavors youre looking to highlight, but thats probably a pretty good spot to start. I tend to do 1kg roasts, and my charge temp are usually around there so I might bring it down slightly if i were doing a 350g batch, but I wouldnt stress about it too much.
cacao develops slower and i start to pull beans to taste as it approaches my target temps.
I set the drum speed as low as it will go, which is zero. I dont run in to too much issue with beans breaking, unless its an extremely long roast or a delicate bean.
)! Do you make your own chocolate? Some pictures would be awesome to see… I’m just curious. I had always though most any drum coffee roaster should be able to handle cacao. Is the roasting process / profile similar to coffee beans?