Roastmasters.com Community Forum

I have recently graduated from using a cast iron frying pan to roast in to a little Nesco "Professional" roaster that I purchased at Roastmasters, yay! But there are a couple of issues that I would appreciate advise about.

1) Is there a way to moderate the roasting temperature? That is I find that if I set the time to be short the beans are not as darkly roasted as I would like but if I use even the default 20 minute time the beans come out with small burnt spots. I think what I need to do is to somehow reduce the temperature and increase the time to roast more slowly to get a dark roast without the burnt spots - that is what I would do with the frying pan. Is this possible with the Nesco?

2) The other question is to understand how folks clean the machine after roasting. How do you get the bottom of the roasting chamber and the lid clean? My hands are too small to get into the bottom of the chamber and the lid has chambers that are not possible to reach with a cloth to get clean.

Thanks for any hints and tips.

M.

Maturity, here is some insight into your questions about the Nesco roaster.
1) While you cannot moderate the roasting temperature, you can extend the roast time to get a darker roast that will develop more oils and hopefully no dark spots. You also want to let the coffee rest for a day or so to let all of the oils develop after roasting. There are time suggestions on page 9 of the manual which I will post at the end, take a look.
2) You should definitely be focused on cleaning the chaff tray and screen after every roast. When you want to clean the roasting chamber and other delicate parts you can find instructions for doing so on page 10 of the manual.
Link to manual: http://www.nesco.com/files/pdf/bean_roast.pdf

I hope this is helpful, please let me know if you have any other questions!