Bean cooler is the coolest!
"They had the referrals on sale but unfortunately by the time I clicked buying it had already sold out they gave me a great deal on a new one, (thank you very much) now I don’t have to use my yard blower to cool the Beans on my Behmor 2000 AB! Love these guys!!!!"
— David R. (5/5)
Adequate but flawed
"I received the bean cooler on 19 December 2021, so this review represents my observations from almost a full month of use. Pros: The bean cooler does cool the beans more quickly than leaving them in the roaster. I use both a Fresh Roast SR800 and a Behmor 1600 Plus drum roaster. Although I've been roasting coffee regularly for several years, both of my roasters were purchased new in the last six months (e.g., they are current models). The bean cooler does give me a more convenient, countertop method of cooling beans to end the roast compared to my previous approach of dumping them in a colander and bringing out to the back porch to set them on a fan oriented upward to blow air over the beans. Cons: Other than providing some cooling to the beans via a countertop device, this bean cooler has several design flaws. I seriously hesitated giving it four stars, because three stars could also be justified. Overall, the bean cooler requires manual stirring of the beans during cooling to mitigate the flaws. A better design would save time and effort, which, considering the cost, should have been goals that were better met. Flaw #1: The fan only covers 30% of the area of the cooling tray, so most of the beans are seeing poor airflow. The diameter of the fan opening is 110mm (radius 55mm) and the diameter of the cooling tray is 200mm (radius 100mm). So the fan is only directly drawing air across the central 30% of beans in the cooling tray. The result is that the beans in the outer perimeter are much hotter than those in the center, cooling the beans very unevenly. For almost $100, evenly cooling the beans should be a design requirement for a bean cooler. I took my FLIR camera and imaged the uneven cooling directly. The review form here doesn’t allow the upload of photos, but the uneven cooling is very evident in infrared imaging, with bright yellow beans circling the entire cooling tray showing the cooling dropping off fairly quickly beyond the diameter of the cooling fan. Flaw #2: The grills above and below the fan restrict airflow. This is minor compared to flaw #1 but does somewhat exacerbate the problem. The grills are just there so that you can’t stick a finger in the moving fan, but in normal operation this is never a concern. You put the tray in the cooler (covering the fan blades), turn the cooler on, and dump the beans in. You then turn the cooler off and remove the bean tray. So, I removed the grills. I’m sure the manufacturer has to recommend against this since they could get sued by someone who does something really bone headed. Flaw #3: The design pulls chaff downward, so the chaff hits the mesh at the bottom of the cooling tray and further restricts airflow. The chaff is also retained so the beans are not as clean when they are done cooling. An upward airflow would blow chaff away from the beans and eliminate restrictions on airflow from chaff. Flaw #4: The fan is noisy. Maybe I got a bad one, but I found it to be annoying. The fan has a standard 120mm frame used in computer cases, and after trying a couple of models I settled on a Phanteks T30 used in its 3000 rpm mode. This gives me the same airflow as the supplied fan with much less annoying noise. I did have to disconnect the switch. The cooler just starts up when I plug in the 12v / 1 amp wall wart that plugs into the 4-pin connector on the fan."
— Carl (4/5)
