Daily Grind

Good day, I hope you have enjoyed at least one cup of your favorite coffee to get your day going! Today I started out with a cup of Guatemala ASDECAFE roasted 2 days ago. There is something special about being able to drink a cup of coffee while not under stress. Today was not one of those days. Unfortunately, when I was roasting 2 days ago, the drum stopped turning mid-roast. This can cause a lot of damage to the machine as well as ruin a batch of beans. An electric motor turns the drum as well as a fan that blows fresh air through the drum. When the drum stopped turning, the gas burner had to be shut off immediately and I had to open the machine up to turn the drum by hand to empty the drum. I took the electric motor off and started doing some research on how to repair or replace the motor that I thought had failed. Today was the day to put the research into practice.

Fortunately, it was an easy fix but I had to spend quite a bit of time getting to the actual problem, then putting the machine back together and hoping it all worked again. It did! Turns out it was a couple of loose screws on the main drive shaft. My! How a simple thing such as 2 loose screws caused so much stress for me! I am very thankful that my coffee roaster was only down for a short time and only 1 batch of beans (Colombia Popayan) was wasted. I was able to finish my roasting order this morning and we are back in business!