FreshRoast Plus 8 Home Coffee Roaster with 1 Lb. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Organic Green Coffee

List Price: $99.00

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Company: Freshbeans, Inc.

Description

The Freshroast features a glass chamber for a 3.5 oz. roast batch and a fast roast cycle. Ideal for a household of 1 to 2 coffee drinkers, it takes just 5-7 minutes to roast the green coffee beans with a 2 minute cool-down cycle. The Freshroast Plus has a mechanical timer and the chaff collector is simple yet effective. Because the roast chamber is smaller and the roast cycle is shorter than other home coffee roasting machines, it uses less energy to roast a batch of beans. Because of its basic design, this is the roaster that will outlast all the fancy, computer chip controlled machines out there. If you are a serious home coffee roaster, it is worth having one of these just in case your other roaster fails. Because of the mechanical timer and the fast roast time, this unit requires a little more attention to achieve your favorite roast. This is a simple matter of monitoring the bean color and aroma, then manually turning the machine to cool when the beans are perfect. Typically, in a Freshroast the beans roast a little darker on the outside and the coffees bright notes and aroma are accentuated, while deeper tones can sometimes be muted because of the fast roast time. The roast time will vary between coffee types, but results can be duplicated by recording the roast time for each type of coffee you roast. Includes a pound of our Fair Trade certified organic Ethipian Washed Sidamo green coffee.

Customer reviews for 'FreshRoast Plus 8 Home Coffee Roaster with 1 Lb. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Organic Green Coffee'

OKAY, BUT NOTHING SPECIAL

The FreshRoast is a decent little roaster for someone who doesn't try to do anything fancy. It really doesn't do anything more than a hot air popcorn popper does, but costs a whole lot more.

You have to be very careful with the amount of beans you put in, as overloading it at all will result in lots of smoke and burned beans.

My only real complaint is that this thing is very fragile. I have had the bottom come off when removing the roasting chamber, making a huge mess. The roasting chamber will also break without much provocation, and they are about $25 to replace.

For the average home roaster, I find that the I-Roast is a much better bargain, more durable and does a lot more.

[Sunday, January 21, 2007]

An OK starter roaster.

This is our second coffee roaster. Our first was a Hearthware (pre I Roast) We purchased the FreshRoast approximately 2 years ago. It died 2 months ago. The roaster basket developed a crack a few months back and after a call to the company they shipped me one for free. That was nice. I appreciate that kind of customer service. A week or so after that the heating element went out. I have not made a decision on a new roaster yet. I don't want to spend more money on a roaster that will go to the land fill in two years or less. Maybe I have high expectations. The choices for inexpensive home roasters is slim and not very impressive unless I want to spend $500 for the Gene cafe drum roaster. But how long will it last? The FreshRoast is an OK roaster if you are new to roasting and won't be using it much.

[Thursday, December 14, 2006]

Okay, but overpriced

I thought I'd give this a try, since it seemed like a good bargain. It stopped seeming like a bargain when I opened the box and my husband remarked that he expected more of something that cost $90.00. So it was in theory a good bargain compared to the iRoast 2, but the FreshRoast is more expensive than it should be ($40-$50 would be a price more in line with the quality and complexity of the machine). The inner chamber is very small -- enough to make one pot of coffee. I didn't like the small capacity. It would have required me to roast every day. The machine had many other annoying aspects, and these were magnified at the thought of having to use the machine daily. If I have to use something almost every day, I want it to be a pleasure.

So I returned the FreshRoast and ordered an iRoast 2, and very much prefer it to the FreshRoast. Is it worth the extra $100? This machine, too, is overpriced, but it is the next step up and so far I do not regret the purchase. For a machine that you will use many times a week, the experience of the iRoast 2 is just a lot better. It's a solid machine with a larger capacity, and I think the roasts come out tasting better -- somehow more layered than the roasts I achieved with the FreshRoast. It's possible that with practice the FreshRoast would have produced as good a roast, but I want to be able to get a nice roast out of the box and progress at my leisure. I felt like the FreshRoast learning curve was steep right away.

If what you want is an kitchen appliance with which to regularly roast your own coffee -- something you won't *always* have to think about, but which you *can* think about and customize when in the mood -- get the iRoast 2. If what you want is something fun for every once in awhile, or if you enjoy the challenge of getting a budget appliance to produce a good roast, I think the FreshRoast is okay. Though if I couldn't afford the iRoast 2 I would still skip the FreshRoast and experiment with roasting in a pan or in the oven first.

[Wednesday, March 22, 2006]

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