Renatoa Words of Wisdom
Here is a dedicated a page to information Renatoa has said. If you do not know who he is Renatoa is a person I considered to be the god father of the Skywalker. He was one of the first people to purchase one, break it down, predicted issues it would have and provided several of the first set of fixes. He is also the admin of the Home Roaster Forum and has been roasting for several years. I think he is a wealth of knowledge and a great asset to the home roasting community,
Skywalker
"It's simple: follow the heat."
On BT:
"In fact, every known method of measuring a moving mass of solid objects measures an average of the air temperature around the solids being measured.
It is impossible to accurately measure the surface of moving solid objects by point contact for such very short period of time, there is simply not enough heat transfer.
For this reason, you will experience a relatively lower temperature for the final part of the roasting in the Skywalker compared to convection roasters, because in the Skywalker the air is cooler than the coffee beans, unlike convection, where the air is hotter than the coffee beans.
This behavior is due to the radiant nature of the heating in the Skywalker. IR radiation does not heat transparent media it passes through, such as gases or glass!
It is like the heat we get from the sun... the air gets its heat from ground radiation, not from the sun's rays. The further away from the Earth's surface it is, the colder it gets..."
On Probes:
On Airflow:
On Probes:
"That's because the probe measure an average temperature of the air-beans mix.
The air in this machine is cooler than the beans, unlike the most common commercial roasters, where is viceversa, air hotter than beans.
For this reason for lower loads the probe measures a mix consisting of more air than beans, thus lower figures on display."
On Airflow:
"Any change in this machine airflow will change dramatically the roast dynamics, don't do this !
I can detect in my machine behavior even the switching between the three oven hood speeds, that lies about half meter above the roaster."
On Skywalker Lamps:
"
On Skywalker Lamps:
"
A well abused Skywalker... life expectancy.
This is the SKW of a fellow. Heater filament broke yesterday.
9 months, 15 kg per month, thus about 135 kgs.
Those who started using this machine for small production... should get a spare lamp asap.:"