*in my best Obi-wan voice, and a slight wave of the hand* "This is the starter kit you're looking for."
I'm going to regret asking this, but how smoky does it get? My smoke detector/service is hellaciously sensitive.
There will be smoke. Thick, billowing clouds? No. Do you have a hood over your stove? If so, shouldn't be a problem. I open the back door and put a fan on the counter to blow out. I also have a door to close off the kitchen from the dining room; no detector in the kitchen.
I thought that's why they had side burners on gas grills. The smoke is one thing, but won't there also be a lot of chaff?
I take the popper outside and pour the coffee into a colander, one to help it cool faster and stop the roasting process, but two, to blow the chaff off. Some people use two colanders and pour the beans back and forth.
I pour the beans directly from the smokey hopper onto a 24x24"screened frame that sits atop a upward-facing blowing box fan. Beans cool to the touch and loos all chaff within a minute or so. You can see a portion of this screen in the photo below.
Yup. I did forget to mention I set the colander over the fan that I had sitting on the counter, now moved outside.
I read a recommendation to have a skillet under the Whirley-pop is using a gas burner, so I tried that with my first half pound. I decided it worked better without the skillet. I poured the beans in a grill veggie basket laying on top of a fan, the fan was a little too strong and blew a good part of the beans out of the basket. On later batches I poured the beans in the basket, then held the basket a couple of feet above the fan. The Whirley-Pop, basket and Colander fit pretty well under the grill. I ended up roasting two pounds in 8 oz batches. The second batch could have roasted longer (pic above is first two batches in colander) although I prefer a light-medium roast. I'll probably grind some for the first pot around Wednesday. Next time I'll probably try roasting a one pound batch instead of 8 oz batches and see how that does.
