I just did the very first seasoning roast on my new Bullet, and it produced a scary amount of smoke. I was worried that someone would call the fire dept. and cannot do the second seasoning batch. Unexpected amount of white smoke. Is this normal?
I am roasting in my garage in a townhome, with a 6-inch duct with an in-line fan set up for venting (directing smoke/smell towards the outside, in front of the garage door). Before Bullet I was roasting on the SR800 without any smoke concern. Assuming this will get better once seasoning is done, especially because I will be doing mainly light roasts, how much better will it get? Will my second seasoning roast a little bit better than the first?
Yeah, completely normal. I have good neighbours, so nobody complained during seasoning, but it took time to disperse from the building courtyard. Meaning there was a lot of it. No, your second seasong, or the third for that matter, won’t have less smoke, if that’s what you mean by better. They’ll all look the same in the bin, black and oily. It will get extremely better after seasoning.
Unfortunately, that would not be seasoning. Seasoning implies that you let the oils and everything else, out of the coffee and onto the drum. It’s not possible to do that without going charcoal dark. Please, just be careful not to exaggerate and avoid fires. I haven’t even hooked up RoasTime for my seasoning, but I’ve kept a picture before throwing the coffee away.
Thank you. I managed to go through the 3 seasoning roasts. Mine did not look that black, but I definitely took it beyond the level that I would ever roast, and beans are very dark and oily. Looking forward to the consumable roasts now!
At the very least get well into 2nd crack. Yes that amount of smoke will happen and when you dump the beans into the tray there’s going to be lots of smoke there too unless the tray fan is also vented out. I came from an SR500 to the Bullet and it’s just not the same amount of smoke with the SR500. Enjoy the journey though, it’s worth it.
I just got my Seasoning beans (10#) and did 7 roasts for seasoning 5 @ 500 g, and 2 @ 1000.
I didn’t know what to expect in the way of smoke so put up a screen to help channel the smoke into the cooktop exhaust fan. it worked well, but glad it was a bit windy outside
The cooling tray will also have quite a bit of smoke when you drop the beans.
I have an almost identical setup as you (minus your screen) except I also run a semi-rigid dryer duct from the back of the cooling tray with the duct up closer to the cooktop exhaust fan as well.
I noticed you used an acrylic(?) cutting board under your bullet, I suggest a wooden board instead because underneath the bullet can get quite warm… you might want to check that board you used.
