Topic Type
Idea

I'm looking for some assistance hacking a soybean roaster, or locating someone who will custom roast near Johnson County, IA.

As a small-scale poultry producer, as much as I'd like to buy organic feed, at this time it's out of my price range and I'm seeing other poultry producers in my area in a similar position.

I've managed to track down some conventional non-GMO sources for corn, soy, alfalfa, and oats, and secured access to a grinder and mixer. The challenge now is roasting the non-GMO soybeans.

...Anyone tried hacking a roaster?

roaster feed livestock grain row crop value add
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Farm Hack Talk
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Great to see your post - Our farm has started to parch/roast sweet corn and flint corn for corn meal and were thinking about having a local coffee roaster do it, but I think that this would be a great project for the farm hack community. I think if the root washer setup with a steel mesh screen instead of wood slats were combined with the flame weeder setup - including the ignition module that is posted that it would probably be a fairly efficient setup. The pedal power setup is here http://www.farmhack.org/tools/low-cost-pedalpower-rootwasher The ignition module here http://www.farmhack.org/tools/electronic-flame-weeder-ignitionelectronic-lp-solenoid-onoff Here are a couple other posts from the beer brewing communities - the images are attached. http://www.heydenrych.info/grain_roaster.html http://thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3019 and from coffee roasting http://www.costa-rica-mountain-property.com/Mountain_Coffee.html
Forum comment

If you build it - please post a tool wiki! Let the community know how it works. I think there is a real opportunity to fire these designs with a rocket style combustion unit. I have heard from one grower that their oilseed press gets the soy heated enough that the extruded meal becomes digestible. He is using a Kern Kraft oilseed press. http://youtu.be/WX-F0IMXew8