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Not the best but, your best option to start home roasting
My passion for an ever better cup of coffee inspired me to purchase this machine. Warning: once you master the basics, and it's not difficult, all other coffee will pale by comparison. This is primarily because coffee loses much of it's flavor three days after roasting. You will be able to purchase green coffee suited to your tastes, and roast according to your consumption. Now for the nitty gritty:
Pros:
Inexpensive. In this price range, you have your choice between this machine or a modified corn popper (don't bother), a few hundred dollars for a slightly better arrangement featuring an agitating auger and catalytic converter to handle the smoke, or several hundred+ for a drum unit. For less than 100 bucks you can produce coffee every bit as good, with a few caveats.
Easy to use. Load the hopper, put the lid on, crank the knob, and in about 7 minutes you have roasted coffee.
Cons:
Build quality is poor. My unit is about 10 months old. It looks like it's been in use for over 10 years. I roast enough beans for two pots of coffee every other day. The heat from the element has cracked the base and warped the lid. The fan wheezes. The glass carafe, which sits precariously over the heating element, is cracked from an unfortunate topple-over. The chaff collecting lid also suffered the loss of a hefty chunk of its rim from this incident. My point is that the whole concoction is so unstable that it is not a question of IF you will one day unwittingly knock it over but WHEN. In spite of the injuries, mine still works enough for me to coax my daily grind out of it. I will either buy another soon to replace this one or bite the bullet and get a drum unit.
Small batch limitation = lots of free time spent roasting coffee. You will be so thrilled at the quality and taste of your first roasted beans. Then you will realize that to support even modest coffee consumption, it will seem like you are roasting constantly. Worse yet, you will read in the manual that the machine must "completely cool" between roasts. It is not meant for "serial roasting" you see. You can push it, and roast again after say, ten minutes - ok maybe 5 minutes - because you just want to go back inside and watch Project Runway or something; but that will likely accelerate the cracked base effect noted above. So let's break down the time required for tomorrow morning's coffee nirvana, which will require 4 ½ cups of water and 10 rounded tablespoons of ground coffee:
1. Choose beans to roast from green coffee library (Guatemala Acatenango Buena Vista Gesha) - 2 minutes
2. Measure two scoops into the roasting chamber - 30 sec
3. Turn knob and roast - 6 minutes on average
4. Dump beans and cool down - 1 minute
5. Wait for machine to cool 20 minutes
6. Repeat steps 2 through 4 - 7.5 minutes
7. Total time invested = 35 minutes. Add another batch and you've killed an hour for just over a day's worth of coffee.
Machine runs too fast and too hot. There is no way to control the fan speed or temperature of the roasting chamber. What this means to you is that the timer on the knob is effectively useless. Air roasters roast very quickly (a good thing because, you will be roasting every free minute of the freaking day) Not to worry, you will get the hang of it and I list instructions for great results.
Recommended supplemental equipment:
Home Coffee Roasting, Revised, Updated Edition: Romance and Revival by Kenneth Davids. A great intro and overview of turning beans from green to brown.
A high temperature, long reach thermometer: I dare say this is a must have. Once you can see the temp in there things get a LOT easier
Screen colander. To dump the hot roasted beans in.
Flash light. Optional. A pen light will let you see the smoke and get a better visual sense on the beans in the chamber
Simple spray mister: to quench the beans when you dump them out. Cuts the smoke and the faster you cool them the better for the flavor of the bean
Shop vac. Not essential, but the best darn way to cool beans fast.
An Aeropress to make the best coffee possible with the beans you've lovingly roasted. Do yourself a favor and buy one of these, you will not regret it.
Instructions:
Optional but highly recommended: drill a hole dead center in the lid and pop in your thermometer. Use the clip to set the tip about 2" from the bottom of the chamber.
1. Get some high quality beans. Try on-line resources like Sweet Maria's. Don't skimp, buy the best beans avialable and experiment with different varieties to determine what characteristics you like best.
You really should roast outside unless it's below 60. If inside, under a running range hood will work. The "open window" routine some suggest only blows the smoke IN, unless you open a door or another window to create a cross draft...
2. Measure in two scant cups of beans with the included measuring cup. Though you will want to, do not push it and overload with rounded cups. I know, it's meager.
3. Look at your beans. Are they large, honkin Nicaraguan Limoncillo beans, or tiny peaberries from Costa Rica? The large ones will take nearly the full clock, while the tiny peaberries will be done crazy fast, so be ready
4. Put the lid on, preferably with the thermometer
5. Crank the timer all the way up to the end. Do not bother trying to time it. All beans are different. Even the same beans will roast longer/shorter depending on the ambient air temp.
6. The beans should begin agitating. If they don't, I carefully lift the machine and give it a few shakes until the beans start to lose moisture and move on their own
7. Wait for "first crack". You won't miss this, it's fairly loud. If you have a thermo installed, it will be about 380-415 depending on the bean and environmental variables and amount of chaff produced.
8. After first crack comes second crack. You want to stop just before that, or maybe a few snaps into second crack at most. If you have no thermo, you'll have to listen for it. It sounds like crinkling paper. If you are watching with your pen light (not visible otherwise), you will see a lot of smoke starting to develop. This is a good clue to stop. Going too deep into second crack burns the oils and hence the flavor of the bean. Stop anytime past first and before second crack and you will be just fine.
A note on the thermo: don't expect to get cracks and degrees of roast as per the tables in the books. It's all relative. On my machine I get a perfect Full City roast by killing it at 450, which is a little high by the book. Try a little higher/lower till you get results you like and stick with that. Just be aware that a tiny peaberry type bean can be done from start to finish in 4 minutes, proceeding directly from first to second crack, giving you very little time to react. With a small bean, or beans that produce a lot of chaff, the thermometer is indispensible to prevent over roasting.
9. Turn the knob to off, carefully remove the blistering hot lid and dump the beans into your colander.
10. Give them a shake and spray them with your mister a few times. Shake and spay again. Don't go crazy with the spraying. It should all vaporize and not stay wet. If you have the shop vac handy, a quick pass of the hose under the colander will cool them lickety split. Otherwise, set them aside until they are room temp.
11. Look at them. They should be nice and brown, almost dry looking. A few spots of oil dewing through here and there means you nailed a perfect "Full City" roast.
12. Put them in an air tight jar. You can roast them right away, which will not disappoint, but they will be the best with a 12-24 hour rest. Some beans, like Yemen, are best after a 72hr rest.
13. Brew and enjoy. Try the Aeropress to elevate your experience yet higher!
[Sunday, September 14, 2008]
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