Wednesday, August 19, 2009

NEW Roaster takes it maiden VOYAGE!


OK, so in an earlier post I showed my prototype for the roaster I was wanting to build. Honestly, there was no way I was going to use that to roast chiles. It would take too much work to make it work properly. I used the same concept and built the roaster pictured.


My wife just happened to have a rotisserie motor in the trunk of her car (doesn't everyone have one in their truck?). Her mother bought it at a garage sale for $1 and thought we might need it! SHE WAS RIGHT!!! We used the roaster today on some new mexico green chile and it works wonderfully. The only problem was the legs caught on fire! I will make new legs out of galvanized pipe. If anyone is interested in how I built it, let me know. I will be more than glad to help you out. It was very cheap and simple. I will post a video of its voyage soon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is SO very clever! Found your blog via Gardenweb, BTW. I was looking for ideas for closing in one of the endwalls on my pvc hoophouse.

I see you are zone 5, do you overwinter anything in your HH, or just use it for starts?
Ali

Unknown said...

Hey PepperGuy,
GREAT ingenuity. As someone else said, I like the pie tins as end caps.

BUT HOW are you loading & unloading the peppers? I don't see a "door" in the mesh.

What's the best way you've figure out to beat rust? I figure once you've heated the wire mesh AND exposed it to caustic pepper juices ... it's gonna want to rust.

I guess you could oil it up after use & hope that stops the rust ... and just plan on burning off the oil before loading peppers next time? OR ... like cast iron ... hope to bake on a protective layer of oil?

GALVANIZED metal will give off TOXIC ZINC fumes ... so probably not a good solution. How about expanded aluminum mesh? (I assume it exists).

I was gonna make this a welding project, but if steel mesh rusts, I'm no good at welding aluminum, and galvanized is a bad choice, not sure if welding is the right way of building it.

Hmmm ... IF you build the drum a large enough diameter, you could put a small loading/unloading door on one end ... or maybe even leave it open. But, then where would you get large enough pie pans? Maybe pizza pans? I know that's getting very big ... but I'm trying to fix the loading/unloading problem w/o dismantling the whole contraption to get the peppers out.

What's your solution been? (If it's in your video clips, I haven't seen it ... I've got a slow connection & some just ain't playing for me.

Ed

PepperGuy said...

henbogle - I do not overwinter any of my plants. I just use it for starts and keeping some plants longer in the season. I love it for the peppers with real long growing seasons. As long as the sun is shining, it will be nice and warm in the greenhouse.

Doc - If you look at this post here

http://pepperguy.blogspot.com/2009/09/updated-home-made-chile-pepper-roaster.html

you will see in one of the pics the small door that I put in the roaster. It is attached with hinges and a cabinet handle. The steel mesh did rust a bit. I just put it on the fire and burned off the rust before I used it. Is that safe? I dont know, but I have not gotten sick yet.

Unknown said...

Yo PepperGuy

>Doc - If you look at this post here

http://pepperguy.blogspot.com/2009/09/updated-home-made-chile-pepper-roaster.html

>you will see in one of the pics the small door that I put in the roaster. It is attached with hinges and a cabinet handle.

Good design, thanks.

>The steel mesh did rust a bit. I just put it on the fire and burned off the rust before I used it. Is that safe? I dont know, but I have not gotten sick yet.

The only problem I am thinking about is that if I hit galvanized metal (i.e. zinc) with a welding torch, it'll vaporize the zinc into the air & zinc is most toxic if inhaled (not nearly as toxic if eaten). But I don't know if the metal mesh you are using is galvanized and I don't know if a BBQ or wood fire is hot enough to put zinc into the air. I guess the safe bet is to only do this in a well ventilated area ... and don't let the kids stand down-wind in the smoke?

You wouldn't notice any quick symptoms, it's a heavy metal poisoning, so IF it's a problem, it would most likely be slow & sneaky.

There should be no problem w/ burning off iron rust. I guess a fire can reduce the reaction!? I'm 40 yrs away from my last chemistry class :-) And, I don't think zinc can rust ... so you probably don't have galvanized mesh. (Iron & Chrome will rust ... not sure how many other metals will look 'rusty' ... of course, almost all metals oxidize.)

I can't seem to find the mesh metal you are using. I only find 4 or 5" wide mesh that is 36" long w/ hinges to clip to gutters ... or galvanized "hardware cloth" with 1/4" or 1/2" mesh that is something like 20" wide. I've looked at Home Depot & Lowe's. But your picture looks totally different than anything I'm finding.

What am I doing wrong?

FWIW: I'm looking at slicing up some propane tanks to make a pot-belly stove ... but the tops off of 2 tanks w/ the valve holes (maybe fitted w/ pipes for an axle for a pepper roaster) would be another good design option for folks w/ a welding torch.

Thanks for sharing your good ideas PepperGuy