Kostverlorenvaart

 Five years ago Jan van der Weel and I reviewed the first version of the PUQpress: In the mean time, Laurens Pluijmers of https://www.puqpress.com/ has further developed and innovated the tamping station and a mini version has been on the market for home use for a while now. I picked one up, installed it and pulled a first shot which went well. The idea is to simplify / streamline the work flow of making an espresso. 

 https://www.home-barista.com/levers/ponte-vecchio-lusso-2-check-up-and-mods-t23038.html

Jan was in town so we could take a next step. The VFD drive tweaks we had in mind did not work well: the blower got very hot, once it blew backwards even and once it made a horribe grinder like noise. The old Variac worked better to regulate blower power but the simplest, just having the blower on full 230V power, worked best. Mechanically limiting air intake works well to keeop the beans from flying out of the roast chamber. A first test with Artisan controlling the heater worked perfectly.  

Roasted two batches of 1.5kg green beans, back to back. First batch was 1.2 kWh, the second just 0.85 kWh so as was to be expected it's prudent, energywise, to roast back-to-back instead of one batch per day. Still, for me, to be able to have enough freshly roasted beans ready for people but not too much in stock that is getting old, roasting at most one batch per day is more convenient.

Batch 24: Came out a littke light at Tonino #101 but good development time, beans looking good too.   Lowest energy use so far.

 A shorter roast than some other beans, hence a little less energy use The date info on the Fritz!DECT210 is not always correct. Sometimes the energy use appears 'stacked' on the column of the previous day and then the next day moved to that new day even if I didn't roast at all that day.