Is anyone deep cleaning their drum? I recently felt I might want to. Seeing a built up of black char. I can only wonder how that effects the flavors.
Really important to make sure the underside of the bean probe is clean. I was wiping it off thinking it was clean until I saw underneath it had a build up of bean oil. This made the bean probe less responsive. I cleaned that off, and it improved roasting accuracy.
I think the general answer to cleaning roaster drums is no, for the more or less the same reason one doesn’t scour the coating off a well seasoned cast iron skillet.
The question comes up every so often in roasting forums; e.g Cleaning the inside of the drum of your roaster.
The issue is you’ll need to season the drum again if you clean/polish the roasting surface. Bare metal affects the taste negatively which is the reason for the seasoning step.
To my eye, roasting heat seems to keep the drum looking pretty much the same before and after a roast. In about 3 weeks I’ll have 4 years on the Bullet; the drum looks about the same as it did after it was seasoned in January 2019. But of course YMMV.
Bruce
I don’t roast as dark as you do, Bruce, but my experience is the same.
I contacted aillio directly. Here is what I was told:
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for contacting us. Cleaning the IBTS Sensor is one of the most important Bullet cleaning/maintenance routines. The bean probe can use some cleaing from time to time, making sure it’s not covered by oil and residue. Those two would greatly affect Bullet’s accuracy. Cleaning the face plate is more of a personal preference than necessity.
Hope this helps. Have a great weekend!
– Matt Yau