My efforts at multitasking yesterday ended with flames, billowing smoke and the awful scent of burnt coffee beans. Surprisingly, I did not stop to get a picture of this event to document it for this post. At first there weren’t any flames. That didn’t happen until I opened the roaster door.

What to do?

After unplugging it and unsuccessfully trying to dump the roasting barrel out, I thought about just grabbing the barrel and throwing the whole flaming thing over the porch.

What not to do?

Um, yeah, canned air isn’t a good idea even if it *is* cold air. I use that to blow chaff out of the roaster between batches and it was handy… but not. Don’t do that.

What to do?

Finally it dawned on me that just closing the door might be the best option.

It was. The flames went out but that’s when the billowing smoke really got going good.

Burning Coffee Beans

So when it cooled down I threw the extremely roasted beans over the rails and even the chickens won’t touch them now. They’re beyond Vienna roast, which is pretty oily and black. So I did make a point to take a picture now…

Multitasking

I’ve been working on getting the ginseng color page uploaded to all the various outlets, and roasting coffee in between. Good thing for my timer or I am sure I would have burned more of the coffee! It was only the very last batch that I burned, and that’s only because it was a smaller batch and I didn’t reduce the time.

Rob’s been working on the driveway. Wow, that is a big job. We hired in for help from a backhoe operator-friend. Finally it just got too muddy even for the big machine and they decided keeping the cut-around driveway (the one we had to have cut when the flood and landslide wiped out the old driveway last summer) might be the best option for now.

The hill just has too many springs seeping through it and it never dries completely.