Haha Brett.......I can relate to that Large drum roasters have pneumatic rams for most operations such as doors, loaders, gates, flanges, etc. Just about all green bean hoppers have a flap that is pneumatically operated to allow the beans to enter the drum. To prevent a bean or few being trapped in or around the flap, it's normal to toggle the flap a couple of times after all the beans are in the drum whilst applying a short bit of air. Think of it as a manual "shaker". Ironically, most roaster manufacturers position the load and the eject buttons inconveniently next to each other........for reasons I've never understood. Even worse, the blood emergency stop is like inches from the main buttons (that one has caused grief beyond wasting coffee). When you are rushing and there are just roasted hot beans ejected into the cooling tray, it's important to get the greens for the next batch into the drum asap whilst it's still hot (called fish-tailing). So, you hit the load button, beans drop into the drum whilst the previous batch is still cooling in the tray...........all the green beans drop and you reach back with one hand to hit the load button again so it shakes out the last beans, with your other hand you have hold of the computer's mouse to feverishly set the required burner and speeds....and try to change the afterburner settings to hi fire.......then................bang.....you've accidentally hit the eject button by mistake (because it's right next to the load button and you did not look) all the green coffee dumps into the cooling tray on top of the previous batch's roasted coffee, the stirrers are spinning and you have this terrible sinking hole in your stomach - that's another 2x full batches wasted. Impossible to sort by hand - can't use the destoner, chokes in seconds..........binned around 700kg over the last couple of years........ Lessons learned........stop doing many things at the same time..........serial execution is the only safe way.
