Huntley Manufacturing Co. (Monitor)

History

The Huntley Manufacturing Co. is from Silver Creek, in western New York State. Its own catalogs print two dates on their title page: “Established 1879” and “Incorporated 1896.” It does not come from coffee. Its trade is the sorting of seeds and grains. Under the Monitor brand it sells cleaners, separators and graders. In the 1920s its catalog still covers grain, rice, peanut, tomato, pea and canning. This past explains what follows. In 1896 it applied the same know-how to green coffee and brought out a Monitor line of cleaning and grading. It is Ukers who dates this step. The roaster arrives five years later, and it arrives with a man. In 1901 the company hired F. T. Holmes, who came from the Potter-Parlin Co. of New York. Holmes had installed at that employer, in 1893, the first direct-flame gas roaster seen in America. It was an English machine by Beeston Tupholme, patented in England in 1887. Huntley then launched the direct-flame Monitor. Holmes improved the Tupholme principle by placing burners at both ends of the cylinder instead of one. He bent the pipes downward, so that the flame first descends to the bottom of the cylinder before rising toward the chimney. He never filed a patent on this point, and Ukers expressly points it out. The patent he filed in 1905 covers something else: the draft and the separation of chaff. The reflex of the seed sorter is therefore found in the roaster. Holmes assigned half of it to the company. It later left Silver Creek for Brocton, in the same county.

What it makes

Huntley builds direct-flame drum roasters, gas-heated. Direct flame means that the flame enters the cylinder and touches the beans, instead of heating the wall from the outside. Holmes's patent describes the machine part by part. The burners are atmospheric, that is, a mixing tube draws in air and mixes it with the gas before combustion. They project horizontal sheets of flame through the two open ends of the drum. The inner paddles are inclined and alternated in opposite directions. The coffee therefore moves back and forth lengthwise while it falls through the flame. The perforations of the drum are elongated and oblique to the axis, to scour the bean. A fan draws outside air into the drum through both ends. It then pulls the hot gases outward through the perforations, into the space between the drum and the casing. It carries away at the same time the smoke and the chaff, that fine silvery skin that detaches from the bean during roasting. Longitudinal fins attached to the outside of the drum sweep this annular space. They push the chaff toward the suction opening, placed on the flank of the casing on the descending side of the drum. The chaff then falls into a settling chamber with staggered screens, which forces the air into a zigzag. This chamber is cooled by a double wall that must be kept filled with water. The patent gives the speeds: 45 to 55 revolutions per minute for the drum, 1,800 to 2,000 for the fan. The catalog drops to 38 revolutions on the largest drum of the range. The company also knows how to do the opposite: its peanut and cereal roaster is indirect, with two rows of burners under the cylinder and on the outside.

The models

Catalog number 66, printed in Brocton, shows three tiers of range. The Monitor numbers 0 and 00 are the small machines, made for the retailer who roasts in his shop. Their capacity is not legible in the copy consulted. The Monitor numbers 1, 2 and 3, in Style B, form a self-contained unit. This machine roasts, cools and destones in a single station. To destone means to separate stones from the coffee, here by a rising air current that lifts the bean and lets the stone fall. Batch capacities run from 25 to 90 pounds for number 1. They go to 50 to 200 pounds for number 2, then to 60 to 350 pounds for number 3. That makes about 11 to 159 kg. The announced roasting time is 12 to 17 minutes for number 1, 12 to 18 for numbers 2 and 3. The photograph of numbers 2 and 3 shows three burners at the front. The same catalog announces up to twelve burners, six at each end, on the largest models. The supplement to catalog number 64 adds number 4, called Four-Bag, of 600 pounds per batch, about 272 kg. It is heated by six burners, divided between front and back. Each series, right, left and center, has its own control on the panel. To these roasters are added coolers, destoners, coffee elevators and roller granulators. No coffee machinery catalog later than that of Brocton was found.

What you gain

The flame enters the drum and reaches the bean. Heat arrives by radiation and by the hot gas, not only through the wall. The drum is perforated and open, so the bean never rests on overheated metal. There is no burnt flat face. The number 4 catalog describes a sheet of fire that fills the whole diameter of the cylinder. No bean can cross it without passing through it, and the beans fall back separated from one another. The figures point the same way. It takes 12 to 18 minutes for a batch of 11 to 159 kg. The announced consumption is 95 to 125 cubic feet of gas per 132 pound bag, or 60 kg. It drops to 85 to 100 cubic feet on number 4, the largest of the range. The heat source is in the load, so a flame correction is felt immediately.

What you lose

The same flame scorches the surface of the bean if the load is too small, since fewer beans cross the same sheet of fire. The drum is perforated and open at both ends, so the roast depends entirely on the fan's draft. The settling chamber sits on this air path. When clogged, it chokes the draft and makes the heat vary without warning. Its double wall must stay full of water. The patent provides for it to keep the chamber cold, and a chamber full of dry heated chaff catches fire. The combustion gases pass through the coffee: a dirty burner ends up in the cup. Finally there is no probe and no curve. The operator judges on a sample, taken through the opening placed above the burners. Nothing is reproducible from one operator to another.