Sunshine in a cup - solar coffee

[Clear Blue Sky]

Even when they're browning in the barrel, these coffee beans are green as can be, soaking up the heat collected by the only commercial solar-powered coffee roaster in Colorado and possibly in the U.S.

"Actually, it's technically a hybrid solar coffee roaster," says David Hartkop, a lanky, strawberry-blond designer who studied filmmaking before turning his attention to solar energy.

"On cloudy days, we do have to use propane as a pre-heater to bring the roaster up to temperature until the solar heat kicks in. We buy carbon-offset green tags, so the carbon I use here is canceled out by paying for someone else to use renewable energy."
Hartkop runs the Solar Roast Coffee company with his lookalike brother, Mike. In December 2006,

Brothers David, left, and Michael Hartkop use solar power to roast coffee beans for their Solar Roast Coffee shop in Pueblo. (Lyn Alweis, The Denver Post)
they moved from central Oregon, where Solar Roast Coffee began as a kiosk business, to downtown Pueblo.

The Hartkop brothers found most of their new neighbors as welcoming as the sunny weather, with a few exceptions. The largest contretemps involved installing the Helios 4 Solar Coffee Roaster on a mesa 5 miles from the brothers' shop.
The rural property where the Hartkops house the Helios 4, along with an earlier portable version, is surrounded by ranch houses overlooking the now-silent CF&I steel mill works. People in adjacent houses worried about the enormous mirrored panels causing fires or sending dazzling reflections into their homes.

After a public hearing and community presentations, the Hartkops won over the neighbors, especially once people learned that David Hartkop, the engineering-oriented brother (Mike Hartkop runs the coffee shop), never allows the Helios 4 to operate unattended.

Because the Earth constantly moves, so do the mirrored panels that focus sunlight onto a 35-foot-wide reflector that collects the solar power. On a video monitor, David Hartkop follows the sunshine's arc, manually tweaking the panels' angle by infinitesimal degrees.

It takes the Helios 4 about 20 minutes to roast 30 pounds of green coffee beans, delivered weekly to the Hartkops' shop. When they're done, the beans are mahogany brown, shining with their own oil. The hot beans tumble from the roaster, filling the air with heat and fragrance. Once they're cool, they're bagged and brought back to the Solar Roast coffee house, ready to be ground and brewed, or sold as beans in the shop or online.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8986075?source=email

[elocs]

1. I often use my solar oven to cook food. It works beautifully (obviously you need sunshine).

I have a Sun Oven from here: http://www.sunoven.com/usa.asp

I have baked pork roasts, whole chickens, bread, cookies, made rice, reheated meals. The great thing about baking cookies in the solar oven is that they will not burn. I have had people knock on my door to ask me what it is. Very large solar ovens are used in 3rd world countries to bake bread for the entire village. They are particularly good in places where women may search many hours for wood enough to cook and they can also be used to boil water to make it safer to drink.