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Hello All,

I am Ken Graham, and I invested in a nice little Sono Fresco Roaster. There is a lot to share with you. The original model was called a Syd and Jerry's. Syd is no long with the company which is known as Coffee Kinetics. The roaster I purchased was originally made for NG or Natural Gas. Working very closely with Tech Support at Sono Fresco, I am bringing this machine back to full spec as a propane roaster.

I did see it roast and experienced 4 beautiful roasts in it before it took a dive. We have discovered that an incomplete changeover to propane was done. They forgot to change out the Orifice which meters the gas to a sixe 51. When I refer to they, I mean the person that bought this from Sono Fresco and then made changes. I will not mention their name since it is my intent to work directly with Sean at Sono Fresco. When I refer to THEY, I am talking about a third party person other than Sono Fresco who really didn't treat this machine well. There has been some stress on that issue but that is behind me now. I AM SO VERY THANKFUL FOR THE TECH SUPPORT I HAVE RECEIVED AND THE SUPPORT I AM GETTING FROM SEAN AND THE CONFIDENCE HE HAS IN MY ABILITY TO GET IT WORKING AS IT WAS DESIGNED.

As of today..December 19, 2011, I have ordered a gas regulator as well. I did also discover that the previous owner of it modified it to fit his Master Roast profile but in the process took the machine right out of warranty.

Sono Fresco only can service the Sono Fresco model and since I am also a Video Engineer with a very solid electronics background, have been granted the right to "wrench" on the machine.

I can tell you this, it's a great little Fluid Bed Roaster and I do plan to own more. I have about $2300.00 invested in it so far, so you can also see I am HIGHLY MOTIVATED to get it working again. I believe as it is returned to the right specification, it will bring joy to me and honor to the merits of Sono Fresco.

In the past few weeks, Jon Koll, David and Allenb and I have discussed this FLUID BED TECHNOLOGY. Fluid bed roasting, while different than a drum roast has many many merits. Some in the coffee industry have argued that it cannot carmelize as well as a drum roaster, but in my experience. you can get some amazing and very even roasts from it. In the 4 roasts I did, I even had one to the level of an Italian Roast. While I do not have an AGTRON meter to verify it to that exact spec, the beauty of the Sono Fresco is you can turn the gas off at any time and take control of just running air through the bean thus arresting any roast style to your satisfaction. There have been no complaints only praise from the coffee's I did roast in it as well.

It is advertised as a fully automatic roaster and granted, there are profiles that have been built into it. The next step, once it gets operational again, is to add the abiliity to digitally chart the roasts with the device I have heard is used by many here.

I will keep you posted on its development and since I have a vested interest in getting it working again, you will no doubt here sooner, not later what the status of my Lil Red Sono Fresco is!

:smileycoffee: