Is there anyone in the UK running a de stoner? We run a very small scale roastery which we recently set up. As things are moving and growing we are considering investing in a de stoner to give us peace of mind.
However they seem like a hefty investment, anyone got any tips and tricks other than working off sight alone?
Cheers,
Tom.
Have you found many issues in what you’ve been roasting out of interest? In all the roasts I’ve done I’ve only found one so far, but that’s obviously not accounting for any that I haven’t found! I’d assume that I’d have had some kind of complaint by now though if I’d have wrecked someone’s grinder (or my own shop grinder!).
My working assumption has been it only really becomes necessary when you’re doing very high quantity of possibly lower quality beans as given the investment level in them I couldn’t see a way of it working in a small roastery.
No tips and tricks unfortunately other than looking when they go into the roaster and then come out but keen to hear anyone else’s experience!
My experience is similar to adam.cTfR. After decades of roasting. I’ve found 3-5 small pebbles. I’m not a fan of coffee influencers, but this video is pertinent to the topic at hand, so I’ll link it.
Adam,
We have found 2 or 3 so far and weve not got through a great deal of coffee in total, maybe 200kg total.
Thats the only reason i started looking at de stoners as i didnt want to ruin anyones gear, especially now were supplying businesses with guest coffee.
I find it a lot easier seeing any post roast as the stones are often too similar of a colour to the green beans.
Read people have made their own in the past using a hoover and some sort of duct work with a hopper at the bottom for the stones to fall into. Seems like too much hassle though!
With the batch sizes of the Bullet, I simply use a white tray and load it with a single layer of beans. Then damaged beans and foreign objects stand out quite nicely. It is part of my green weighing workflow, so really not intrusive at all. If, however, you run multiple Bullets at a time, it is probably not so easy to incorporate 
.
I have 1500 roasts under my belt on the bullet and I think I’ve found a stone 2, maybe 3 times in all that coffee. But I agree with @tommyg that I find them much easier to see post-roast where I’m already looking for quakers.
That’s not a bad idea, that’s potentially something i can look at adding into our workflow to alleviate any issues! I Think I’ve possibly just been unlucky in finding a couple of stones already in such a small quantity of coffee!
Tommyg,
A lot has to do with where you source your beans and country of origin. We’ve done 1700 roast and that’s about 1800kg of green through our bullet and our stone count is almost in the triple digits. It’s not just stones though, we’ve found screws, corn kernels, and vast amounts of burlap twine. Our most common culprits come from Mexico and Costa Rica.
I’ve been working on plans to build our own, just haven’t had the time to complete it. When it’s done, we’ll be sure to post it. While it is a hassle, replacing someone’s grinder would cost us more, not to mention the negative reputation your company might get. Relying on sight, sound, and well placed magnets has saved us for now, but it eats up valuable time.