I went to the post office...

[edtbjon]

When I first started up with my Huky a year ago I had a bit of a struggle to produce decent coffee. It took me the better part of say two months to learn the roaster and all kind of thoughts went through my mind. (I came from a Gene Cafe roaster, which I sold off as soon as the Huky arrived. I got decent results with the Gene, but knew that the Huky was a "for real, proper" roaster.) One of these thoughts was that the drum needed to be run-in for a while to start producing good taste.
Now, I installed a perf. drum yesterday and sent the first full batch into the dark Austrian/Spanish dungeons of oily darkness and had the beans rubbing off for half an hour or so. Then I ran three smaller batches of good beans. I normally rest my beans for 5 days or so, but had a taste from two of the roasts this morning, some 12 hours after roasting. Not my best roasts, but really quite good already. I will tweak the roasting profiles quite a bit to find all the milestones for a good basic profile, but I'm very happy so far with the conversion to the "perforated side".

[hankua]

It's so cool the Huky has interchangeable drums.

What about the other machine parts, are they all interchangeable?
Some of them appear to be stamped out on a 10 ton press and others CNC machined. All the internal drum vanes are a perfect fit and precisely welded in place; laser fabricated?

 
 

[Daave]

How's the T configuration working out for you so far? I ended up holding off and going with the J when I purchased my Huky last May due to all of the clogging complaints.

Has Mr. Li tweaked the design of the T config at all since the initial release to help with cleaning out clogged beans, or to reduce the number of clogged beans?

[edtbjon]

I've only done 4 roasts with it so far. I had some beans in the exhaust during the first roast, but as it's now easier to puff down the exhaust now and then mid-roast, I do that. One tell-tale sign is the amount of chaff in the sieve and there was plenty of chaff from the last roast. I will take a look tomorrow when I will roast a number of batches.
It seems wise to check the locking screws after heating the roaster, as the outer tube expands a bit more than the inner one.

[dickcoffee]

I've only done 4 roasts with it so far. I had some beans in the exhaust during the first roast, but as it's now easier to puff down the exhaust now and then mid-roast, I do that. One tell-tale sign is the amount of chaff in the sieve and there was plenty of chaff from the last roast. I will take a look tomorrow when I will roast a number of batches.
It seems wise to check the locking screws after heating the roaster, as the outer tube expands a bit more than the inner one.

I don't understand this last comment. What is the outer tube and the inner tube? Is this referring to the T? If it is, then I don't need to understand.

[edtbjon]

I've only done 4 roasts with it so far. I had some beans in the exhaust during the first roast, but as it's now easier to puff down the exhaust now and then mid-roast, I do that. One tell-tale sign is the amount of chaff in the sieve and there was plenty of chaff from the last roast. I will take a look tomorrow when I will roast a number of batches.
It seems wise to check the locking screws after heating the roaster, as the outer tube expands a bit more than the inner one.

I don't understand this last comment. What is the outer tube and the inner tube? Is this referring to the T? If it is, then I don't need to understand.

That last comment is about the T, where there are two connections held together with very small (i.e. prone to dissappear, just like guitar picks, reading glasses et al.) insex screws. They're say 3x5mm (1/8" x 3/16").

[edtbjon]

I did some 5 roasts tonight just to get the feeling of the perforated drum. This was the latest one, charge of 225g/½. At least it looks alright, but I guess I'll find out when I taste it in a few days. (My roasts with the solid drum usually comes to its full potential after some 5 days or so.)
There is another gadget on the perf. setup: The grate. (Marked "Damper" in the graph.) I kind of forgot about it one way or the other except for the last two roasts. I'll have to tinker a bit with it, as it takes a bit of force to move. After which I just have to tinker with my mind to remember using it.

[dickcoffee]

Shouldn't really take any force to speak of to move the damper or grate. At least mine moved easily when I was using the perforated drum.

[SusanJoM]

And it doesn't move very far....just 1/2" or so in or out....

[Johnny4lsu]

Yep...shouldn't require force and bare moves ..should be easily adjustable if it's too tight

[edtbjon]

Yep...shouldn't require force and bare moves ..should be easily adjustable if it's too tight

It moves easily when the roaster is cold. I think that if I press it together a little bit, it will be stiff when cold, but more more freely when hot. After all, the grate is probably the hottest thing in there, while roasting.