Thema: My new roaster

Found this yesterday and could not resist buying it...
Should be delivered before the Meet & greet on June 30th at my place where some coffee and coffee roasting lovers will get together...





Anybody wants to join us on June 30th in Heerlen, Holland, please do...send me a mail and I'll send you my address, some other German coffee lovers from another forum will also be there...

A three barrel sample roaster, how neat...

Now, that would be something according to my taste, where did you find it and what was the price?

As much as I would love to attend the meeting at your place, it won't be possible for me, I'm afraid. But maybe you can make it to this year's Forum meeting in August?

Cheers

Walter

Yes, Walter, it is a three barrel Probat...looks to be in mint condition.
I won't tell you what it cost or you'll just see green and yellow with envy...

Too bad you won't be able to come over to my place later this month, I'll see if I can find the thread regarding the august meeting on this forum...

Zitat von zapty

Yes, Walter, it is a three barrel Probat...looks to be in mint condition.
I won't tell you what it cost or you'll just see green and yellow with envy...

Given what I know about prior bargains of yours you may have a point here...

... but still ... curiosity is going to kill me...

The thread about the board meeting is here...

Try this: more then the cost of a new I-Roast2 but (lot's) less then the cost of a Gene or Hottop....
This Probat is built like a f*****g tank and should last for the rest of my life once it is shipped over here and running.

How are you feeling now?

Well I see a beautiful field of flowers ... mostly yellow and green for some strange reason...

You lucky b*****d, my sincere congratulations...

Cheers

Walter

P.S.: PM me please if you happen to find anotherone...

Thanks Walter for the congrat's,

I've been looking for one of these for some years now but gave it up and hadn't looked for quite a few months.
Last night all of a sudden I got the urge to check once again and the first site I checked had this baby for sale right on top of the list. (all the rest was stovetop junk)
Contacted the seller and closed the deal real fast before anyone else had a chance to see it and then had the seller quickly remove it from the site.

I run across some nice (coffee related) stuff now and then and will let you know if I do find another one for a good (very important) price.

less than the gene... oh my...

well thats some kind of BIG luck i guess, congratulations!

Where do these flowers come from...... oh ah.

Nice one, well done, keep us up to date, cant wait to see it in action.

She is up and running.
After taking her completely apart, cleaning, adjusting, oiling, testing the motor, figuring out the electrics, rewiring it and having the three elements re-coiled, a stand made for it and put back together again I have now done a few roasts with it.
The little 3 barrel Probat works like a dream and roasts really well. No surprise there as that is what it was built for, it maybe old (1951) but in it's day it was a state of the art professional piece of equipment.
I am running the 3 heating elements with the help of a variac in order to have some more control over the output.
The old motor still runs like a dream.
It is a joy to operate and experiment with.
This little machine makes it much easier to experiment with different roast levels.

I started out with roasting 100 gram batches per barrel, then 150 grams and now have progressed to 200 grams per barrel with still excellent results.
I tend to roast the first barrel to just in to full first crack, the second barrel till right after first crack and the third barrel up to full second crack.
I then cool and blend all three roast levels together in order to have the full range of flavours from the beans.
Works really well. The Probat heats up in a jiffy and produces excellent roasts, one roast after another.

Draws a lot of comments from people too as in the summer I tend to roast with my garage door open...
The whole street smells of coffee....

He's back!

Great work you did, I think it was a bit of hard work to refurbish everything inside and outside this "little monster"?
Do you have some Pictures of it? I'm very interested in technical (coffee) stuff and want to know how this baby looks like and how it works.
Also a few color samples would be nice, just to compare with other roasters, the Probata should roast very evenly doesn't it?

I'd give alot seeing and tasting your roasts, specialy today because I had no coffee yet

Good luck furthermore!