What is the Best Home Coffee Roaster?

foreign [Music] thank you so coffee lab I'm Mike I'm glad to have you here today glad to have you guys join me PS people join in on the channel here I've just got a couple of little housekeeping notes to mention to you guys first of all can you hear me I guess that would be that would be a question um just want to make sure my audio is good and then we'll get started here in just a second okay all right good all right that sounds great okay awesome all right well you guys I'm so glad that you're here today again welcome to the virtual coffee lab this is only the second time I've done a live stream so you know I'll try to be as uh smooth as I can as we go along here just a couple little housekeeping notes as I mentioned the first is I I would love for you to participate in the chat I just ask that you subscribe even if you don't want to be a subscriber just subscribe during the chat uh the live here so you can participate in the chat and then if you don't want to be a subscriber you can unsubscribe after I just do that because it helps kind of uh eliminate some of the spam that can happen on some lives not that there's going to be in here but just in case that's really helpful and if you guys could check in Tell me uh where you're from and what roaster you have you can see that there on the on the message that would be awesome share a little bit about what you are doing in your roasting and what I'm going to do is tell you a little bit about what we're going to be doing today I I want to be sure that you guys don't think that I'm gonna tell you what the best roaster is for you you're going to figure that out for yourself we're going to be talking about what the best coffee roaster is for you and that's really what the purpose of this it's not about a popularity contest for a roaster it's not about bashing a different roaster something other than what you have if you're not happy with your own roaster and you want to bash it I guess you could do that but um you know we'll talk about that so that's totally cool all right so let me just say hello to a few people here this is uh sharks Town hey San Jose California that's cool so you guys are a few hours behind me here and you're using the popper from Sweet Maria's that's awesome you can see the popper right here in the background I've got the popper I've used it and I've roasted some really good coffee on the popper so that's great awesome congratulations all right Kelly Kelly's Home Cafe hey we've talked on uh we've talked online on some of the video comments thanks for being here you're from Australia dude that's I don't know what it's the other it's tomorrow there right now isn't it I mean that's uh you're up late or you're up early one or the other but I'm glad you're here uh thanks for being with me here today and supporting me in this channel that's that's awesome and yeah you do have the genie Cafe and hopefully you've been getting some great roasts out of that I hope my videos have been helpful for you so uh thanks for sharing that all right so uh Michael I'm in Michigan I roast on the Mill City owned by a friend all right uh that that was my son so I've got a little bit of family here watching and supporting me as well uh all right uh tempting fate long time subscriber thank you so much you guys for subscribing that's one of the best things you can do is to help me support this channel by subscribing that's awesome and more importantly hit the like button right now that would be wonderful if you could hit the like button that will help my live right now show up as people that are checking out you know or have looked for coffee roasting topics on YouTube if they happen to be on YouTube they'll see my um live show up in their feed hopefully so thanks for all the great content over the years be more and let's see baymore 540 so um be more you've got to be more right or is it an Sr 540 I'm not sure which one you've got there uh and you're from Half Moon Bay California beautiful place thank you for joining me today I'm glad that you're here all right uh this is Nathaniel Nathaniel is currently roasting on a popper and a free coffee I'm not sure what her free coffee is and Gary from Portland Gary is on a fresh roast sr540. all right Gary you can see my 540 in the background as well and you've seen maybe you've seen some of my videos that's a great roaster I've had a lot of fun on that roaster so feel free to share more comments along along the way oh we've got uh Ken Ken is joining us all right Ken uh Ken I've engaged in conversations with you on some of my videos thanks for being here today supporting me I really appreciate it Ken and you're using an sr800 uh that's the sister of the sr540 and I know that you've roasted some really good coffee with that roaster so what's the purpose here of this talk what is the purpose here of this live other than I really love the engagement I love the interaction with other home coffee roasters um it's one thing to kind of you know do it maybe on a social but to have a little more interaction like this um it makes makes the hobby maybe a little less lonely and we can learn some things and share some things and that's really what I love most about this hobby other than roasting some great coffee right but the purpose of this time here is to help to help those that are watching and those that will be watching on the replay later this will be available um understanding the differences of coffee roasters the home coffee roasters that we're going to be talking about today so we're going to be talking about Roasters that are in the range of 800 or less and really the most popular Roasters we want to understand the differences between these Roasters especially if you're considering possibly changing to a different roaster and maybe deciding on a purchase or if you're new to roasting especially if you're new to roasting you're trying to figure out what the choices are it seems to be a little overwhelming and sometimes the information online can be a little misleading and hopefully this will be a source for you that will be more helpful than confusing so if you're not happy with your current roaster and you're trying to figure out what your choices are this is another reason and another purpose for this live stream here um and if you're just not happy with your coffee roaster you know one of the things that I've even said when I've been roasting on some of these is man I am not really a fan of this roaster I'm not really happy with it and then I realized that um it had so much capability so much potential and that I just wasn't operating it to its most Optimum level and so I I learned that with the cafe the genie Cafe I learned a really important lesson which I share with you guys and that is is that we've got to understand what the limitations of our roaster is and then we've got to figure out ways to work around those limitations so that we can roast some really really good coffee so that's the purpose of our conversation today and that's what we're going to be doing and I want to share just for a minute a little bit of my experience with these roasters um I've used each and every roaster that's here uh that we're going to be talking about today some more than others but I've had experience with all of them I roast every week on a 500 gram sample roaster it's a commercial drum roaster made by Mill City and you guys may have seen that in some of my videos so I'm using the roasters and I'm also talking to people like you guys about your roasting experiences and some of the challenges that you've had and um and while I'm roasting on these different Roasters I'm getting an opportunity to kind of compare the differences Hands-On compare the differences so hopefully my experiences will be helpful for you and the things that we're going to be we're going to be talking about today so what we're going to do is we're going to be highlighting briefly each of these Roasters behind me and I can kind of get out of the picture here for a second so you can see the other ones we're going to be highlighting these Roasters and looking at some of the specs on them just really briefly on each one so that we can kind of engage in this conversation so at any time if you have questions about a specific roaster that's here throw it down in the chat we can talk about that if you want to see something up close uh I guess I could grab something and try to give you a closer shot and let you maybe see some of the pieces and the parts of the roaster these are all really unique Roasters that I mean the way that they handle chaff is differently in the way that they handle how they uh you know use power settings for heat or for fan it's all different so if you want to get a little more of an up close look we can do that as well okay we've got a comment from Jerry Jerry's from Aurora Colorado using an sr540. welcome Jerry thanks for being here today thanks for sharing your comment and I'm glad that you're here today to support this channel so you guys I really appreciate you being here sometimes doing these videos and doing this channel get challenging for me and it gets a little lonely because I you know some of you interact with me but um it's really helpful to be able to see people come out and that encourages me so I really do appreciate that okay we are gonna get into uh slideshow here and we're going to be taking a look at each of these Roasters briefly and we're going to talk about price I'm mentioning all of these things because all of these points as you see there'll be some similarities we're going to be talking about how much they cost the type of roaster they are whether it's an air or drum whether it's a manual or automated roaster uh how you're controlling the heat on these Roasters temperature display whether it has a chaff system or not and whether you can hear first crack and see the coffee all of these things are really important when we roast coffee and when we'll be talking about that let's start with the sr540 the SR 540 and the sr800 we're going to look at here are very similar 210 dollars for this roaster gives you a great roaster uh the it's a hot air roaster so the way that this coffee gets hot is simply through hot air it's not necessarily through like a hot surface on a drum so this is a hot air roaster and this roaster efficiently roasts four ounce of four ounces of Greens in this roaster as it stands there are modifications for this roaster to have a longer extension tube which I have here and I can show you I've got a video on that as well totally changes The Roaster and you can roast more coffee so this sr540 can go from four ounces to six ounces of coffee no problem at all it's a manual roaster so you're not going to push a button and just walk away that's really not what this roaster is designed for and what it's all about it's a Hands-On roaster you're going to want to be there to watch the color change and you're going to be able to see the color change great and you're going to be able to hear crack really good but there's one knob on this roaster and this knob is a multi-function knob push it and it lets you adjust the air push it again and it lets you adjust the Heat and then if you twist it allows you to see the temperature that's being displayed as I mentioned there's a chaff system on most of these Roasters this one has a chaff system it basically blows the chaff up into the top and there's a little screen that keeps the chaff from blowing out of The Roaster there are modifications for that too so you can hold more chaff and you can allow more air to come out of The Roaster to help you with the um with the Loft and to try to keep your temperatures down this roaster likes to run hot you can really roast coffee quickly with this roaster so this is a good this is a good choice 210 dollars for for this roaster all right the sr800 is basically the same thing the capacity is a few ounces more you throw a extension tube on this and there's a couple different variations and you're roasting quite a bit of coffee in this roaster maybe eight or nine ounces maybe even more if you've got one of these and you want to share how many ounces you are roasting if you have the extension tube throw that down in the chat that would be awesome again it's a manual roaster everything else is the same with this roaster as well I've never roasted on an sr800 uh just the 540. a couple of you here have the popper and this is really a bargain roaster you know one of the things that I said when I started roasting was man you know I'm roasting on a popcorn popper and I thought if I could only control the heat and air on this roaster that's all I would need to do and Sweet Maria's did that with this roaster so it is I'm not even gonna well it's a glorified hot air popcorn popper in a sense but most hot air poppers they all function in the same way I mean they're blowing hot air out to roast beans with the ones you can control air you're controlling the volume of air that is being pushed through the greens as they roast and you're able to change the temperature as well so um and that's not a criticism for hot air poppers I really enjoy my fresh roast I get some great roasts out of it okay so here we have the ceramic roaster that's behind me and I did a couple of videos on this and it is surprising that you can get some decent roasts out of this roaster but it is Bare Bones it if there is no uh it's just manual roasting all the way uh two grams I'm sorry two ounces of coffee totally manual roast visibility is okay you can see in the little hole you'll need a flashlight to be able to see the color change and you can hear first crack pretty good uh the b-more I started roasting after the hot air popcorn popper on my b-more 1600 and then I upgraded the b-more from a 1600 to a 1600 plus 480 dollars is one of the more expensive home coffee roasters in this 800 and less range um my roaster is still working I haven't had any mechanical problems with it I have really kind of been hard on that Roaster at times it's been a great roaster uh the manufacturer claims one pound capacity we're gonna be talking about capacity because I would never roast a pound of coffee in the be more that's just not a way for me to be able to get really good tasting coffee so if you've roasted on a b-more if you're doing that and you're roasting one pound of coffee and it's taking you 15 minutes to get to a roast I would encourage you to cut that that volume of coffee in half and then try your roast again you'll find that it moves a lot quicker and it'll be a totally different coffee roasting experience for you okay it is a drum roaster it is not an air roaster uses a quartz heating element it's semi-automatic where you can push a button P1 and it'll roast a temperature profile but it's not going to drop the coffee it's not going to turn the cooling automatic cooling on unless the timer kicks in and then it will do that so I guess it's I'm calling it a semi-automatic roaster you can control the heat and you can control the Drone speed you cannot control any air movement there's a fan that turns on automatically at depending upon your what load you choose one pound half pound or quarter pound setting see that in my videos I talk about that it's got a temperature display for both the beans they call it a bean temperature and then a uh it's b and a a is the air temperature when the fan kicks in um there's the chaff system it's a really pretty good chaff system if you keep the door closed and it has a smoke system an afterburner where at the very top of the roaster it will burn uh some of the smoke off so this roaster May smoke less than some of the other Roasters that we're talking about here today it's got visibility is okay or good for looking at beans sometimes you have to crack the door open or you've got to use a flashlight to get a really good look on my 1600 plus my light is kind of yellow I think most of your lights are probably that way and so it's kind of hard sometimes to you know judge color change all right we're just got a couple more here and then we'll get back to the comments if there are any uh The Hive roaster this is a surprise um I've got the hive roaster here this is one of my favorite Roasters uh I really enjoy roasting on this it's totally manual you can roast six ounces of coffee uh you can control the Heat and the air in this roaster based on the way that it's designed you control the heat on how far away from the flame you're basically holding this pan over a flame and the design there's a hole in the center on the underside so the heat comes up into the Dome and circulates so the more you circulate The Hive roaster the more air movement you get and honestly you get some really even roasts on this roaster so I'm really happily surprised and just for uh for your information The Hive comes in three variations it comes in like you see here just the the saucer base with the dome but it also and that's 75 dollars and it also comes in a digital version which I use in my videos which shows a temperature display there's a bean probe that goes down into the bean mask while you're roasting it so you're able to see your bean temperature and then there's a um it's uh other it's not digital I forget what it's called but it basically instead of showing a temperature digitally on a digital um like thermometer display it actually plugs into artisan and you can use this hooked up to Artisan so this is a really really great roaster the chaff system the way that this is designed when I'm done roasting all of the chaff that was in there is burnt up and it's in little tiny pieces so it's really easy to sift out the smoke system if there isn't really a smoke system but by its design that gets so hot in that air that a lot of the smoke is evaporated from the the temperature so there's not as much smoke with the hive that I've seen in other Roasters and uh visibility on this roaster is not that great there's a small hole in the top and you're going to need to be able to have a flashlight and a quick look to see Bean color but it after you you get used to that it's it's not bad and you can hear crack just fine on this roaster Hive is definitely a really great roaster to consider you could take it with you somewhere you can you know if you all you need is a flame I guess you can use it with electric stoves but you should check with the manufacturer before you make a purchase and have a conversation with Matt just tell them what it is you're using for your heating device and he'll make some recommendations also a hot air popcorn popper that's what I started out with here 25 bucks 30 bucks you're gonna get a hot air popcorn popper that has no control four ounces Max for your beans you can't control heat or air and quite honestly if you want to roast good coffee you need to be able to control at least your heat at a minimum during the roasting profile and you'll be able to roast some pretty good coffee um visibility you got to take the lid off in order to see the color and um the cracking sound is very clear on this roaster no problems there all right last but not least is the genie Cafe uh the last couple videos I did roasting coffee I did with the genie and it is a surprisingly really nice roaster 8.8 ounces is what the manufacturer says you can roast again that's what they say you can roast but you'll probably want to use less coffee than that when you're roasting totally manual roaster you can control the heat there is a temperature display it is a hybrid roaster so this is using hot air and the glass drum turns so it's kind of not a drum roaster and it's not just a hot air roaster it's kind of a combination it's it's pretty cool you'll have some conduction where the beans are touching each other because the drum isn't turning really really quick at all but it's turning enough where it's getting great um consistent roast color in the roasts um Chef system it has a probably the best chaff system of all the roasters I've talked about because the air blows through the roasting chamber and it blows the chaff out and it goes into the end you can see here on the left side of that roaster there's that little box with a little chimney that is awesome and you can even hook up a flexible dryer vent tube to that exhaust and then vent that out a window so if you're you know somewhere and you need to deal with venting this this probably is one of your best solutions for that so the visibility seeing the coffee is really really good and the cracking sound is not so great it's really important to be able to hear first crack there are some tricks that you can use to get a better ear on hearing first crack take place on this roaster but it is not it's difficult to hear first crack on that roaster okay so that's the overview of the coffee roasters and I've got them all here and if you guys want to ask some questions go ahead and do that and let's see uh let's see greetings from Connecticut let me get to be back to where I left off here um all right Nathaniel's from Connecticut uh great to have you here I think we talked about that already let me get back into the comments guys okay all right we've got a guest user from Japan that is uh act I'm sorry Taiwan currently roasting on a sr800 uh enjoy your videos thank you very much yeah what time is it in Japan I'm sure it's it's really late there as well thank you so much for joining me today I really appreciate it and I'm glad that you've watched my videos and they've been helpful for you that's awesome okay oh and it's Tom hey Tom all right good great glad to have you here Tom thank you so much for being here again okay so uh eight ounces um without the extension tube and 10 ounces with the extension tube on the sr800 thanks for sharing that uh cgw sales thank you so much for sharing that yep Ken is agreeing eight to ten ounces with the Razzle extension so yeah so there are Factory extension tubes for the SR series and then for I'm not sure if the 540 has a Razzo does it I'm using the factory extension tube but the um the sr800 a lot of people are using the Razzo extension tube and there is an artisan Port like a probe Port that you can slide through the glass which is pretty cool all right question from attempting fate is there a substantial difference in coffee flavor upgrading to a drum roaster from say an sr540. oh man that's a great question um substantial difference let me answer that question this way because I do you're right I mean I roast on a drum roasters so Mike what's the difference between your drum roaster and all these other Roasters um honestly I think consistency is one thing that is a big difference that I can achieve here with my drum rolls or so consistency um but you're asking about coffee flavor so let's just say that that everything goes exactly as planned is there a difference in the coffee flavor the answer is for the most part no um I had a conversation with Rob hoose he's a professional roaster he's a consultant he's written some books and I asked some different questions with Rob I've got a video on that conversation you can check that out it was pretty interesting but he said um when I asked him about different Roasters kind of like what we're talking about today he he introduced me to The Hive and he shared with me that he had some people coming in to taste some coffee and he roasted some of these different profiles for this coffee on the hive and I think the best coffee they picked who happened to be a roast from The Hive so I'm sharing that with you just to say that it's possible to roast some awesome unbelievable coffee on almost any roaster for most of the roasters we're talking about here uh I'd say the probably two-thirds of them you'll be able to roast some really good coffee with them and but it's the consistency and it's really you know sometimes there are things like um changing up your profiles right so if you're trying to work with different profiles going from a light roast to a dark roast trying to do something for espresso where you want a low and slower roast it's easier to do that say on a drum roast but it's not impossible to do it on these other Roasters you just got to figure it out so does that answer your question I hope it does all right uh Kelly's Home Cafe and Roastery I started out with a popper popping back back in two thousand 20 uh when I first started roasting yep popper is a great entry-level coffee roaster and when I say entry level uh I'm just I'm talking you know because it's not real expensive it's not a huge commitment and it gets you started really quick with both variables heat and air so I'm glad you're happy with that yeah 2020 gotcha all right uh Frisco or fry coffee is a hot air roaster up to 100 grams manually and auto settings great visibility but on the loud side purchased on Amazon interesting I'll have to check that out um what does that cost Nathaniel just curious um that sounds really interesting I'll have to check that out okay uh let's see have you used the bullet roaster yet okay the bullet I I'm I want to use the bullet I've talked with people that use the bullet I know somebody um from this channel actually Lou who's been on one of my b-more videos he has a bullet he's offered to let me use it I don't know Lou if you're watching here right now but um so I will be roasting on the bullet one way or the other you'll see the bullet on this channel and we'll be doing manual roasts we'll experiment with it um so yeah we'll be taking a look at the alio bullet you know I've been on this channel for two years and all of these Roasters that I have here except for the genie Cafe I've had to buy myself or they were given to me as gifts from like my family so um I'm not making money on this channel I mean this is not like something I'm going to retire on and you know I've got to make a little bit of a commitment when I buy these things so I want a roaster that I think is useful for me that I can use and I want to be able to relate to you as I'm talking about coffee roasting if I just had the drum roaster I I wouldn't really be able to relate to you as well as I can um right now because I've had experience with these roasters so uh yes the bullet will be here uh eventually and we'll we'll get that on the channel all right all right um bet medicine bet medicine have had to use mechanical stethoscope with the genie Cafe to hear first crack as originally only hearing large beans crack have heard that every time regardless of the bean type now that is awesome I mean you can get a cheap stethoscope online that that's a great suggestion I've heard other people where they'll take a paper towel tube and they'll hold it up close to the air vent the exhaust vent to be able to hear first crack and that's what happens when we use Roasters that have limitations we try to figure those out 9 26 in the morning in Japan good morning good morning and thanks for being here again Tom I really appreciate that it's great to have you here all right is that Ken from Razzle I have the radzo chamber so yeah I think that's um I don't know if that's the Ken that I've been talking with if it is that's kind of cool um but yeah the Razzles are very popular extension tube uh Jim Miller can roast with the genie in the cat in the kitchen with dryer vent out the window and no smell yeah that is a huge thing and we're going to be talking about this um real briefly here I've got really four or five points for us to kind of consider as we're trying to figure out what the best coffee roaster is for us and our needs so um yeah we'll do that all right um Gary there is a 9.5 Razzle for the 540. that's cool I might have to check that out I prefer the factory extension with the 200 225 grams of coffee the razzlechef extension in my mind is a must-have so I I've got the Razzle chaff extension on on this I think I'm pretty sure I do um and but I I've got the factory extension tube so that's cool and that's a lot of coffee that's a lot of green coffee for the 540. so um that's really good um that is really good thanks for sharing that all right Nathaniel says the fry coffee is 165 bucks so yeah I'll definitely check that out yep uh any thoughts on the collidio roasters um is that the snipe and those Roasters um I I've reached out I actually found one I thought was a really reasonable price and I guess that that roaster is I think manufactured under a couple different brands that's the one that has the sides the kind of uh like a gull Wing kind of open up um I don't really have a whole lot of thoughts I know that it uses what an infrared heat source and I think when I looked at it I was you know I was looking at the capacity on it and I think maybe there's a couple different sizes so I don't have any immediate thoughts on it I know that there's a couple viewers here that have um one of those Roasters and they seem to be happy with it so another nerd a buddy of mine has the bullet roaster awesome compared to my b-more love the PC interface grass are always cool for the price I'm happy with my B more for now so um yeah the bullet so I was on vacation a couple weeks ago and I was up up north northern Michigan and I ran into a viewer this Channel and he is um roasting coffee out of his house cottage industry and he's selling it he's selling it at the local markets and he uses the b-more or not be more he uses the Elio bullet and he's working that thing it's a Workhorse he's roasting a lot of coffee in that and that's what a lot of people are doing the b-more was The Roaster to use to kind of get started in the you know selling coffee at the local farms and all that and it's still popular people still use that I know um Sabbath coffee Trevor started out using a b-more uh in his business and now he's got a 12 kilo roaster he's roasting thousands of pounds a year Sabbath Coffee Roasters rules Trevor has been a great supporter of this channel um and yeah so I'm hoping to actually roast on that 12 kilo roaster so you may see a video on that soon so yeah people that have the bullet love the bullet uh it is pricey but you know what um it's a good piece of equipment and I haven't heard anybody tell me that it was overpriced and they weren't happy with their investment so there you go uh Daryl's got the sign of Fresco his first roaster mid-range in price but the roasting is fantastic so your son of Fresco I think aren't there different sizes what did that cost Gary or Daryl if you don't mind uh sharing I'd be interested to hear that Santa Fresco is a uh a name they do roast some make some commercial Roasters uh air Roasters that people are using Ray Ray's here I've been talking to Ray online great to have you here Ray and I'm glad that you're here supporting me and listening so welcome to the virtual coffee Lab live stream uh cgw sales so this is uh Mr Razzo Ken Razo no that's not who is that I'm not sure what yes is referring to sorry about the I've maybe forgot the question uh you're let's see tempted fate your favorite roaster under a thousand dollars for the most consistent results [Applause] asking me my favorite roaster uh I have a couple of favorite roasters I really love the hive The Hive is one of my favorite Roasters um I can't ignore the be more because I've used it for so many years I kind of have a love for a b-more I am biased when it comes to the b-more um but I mean every time I've roasted with the hive it's just been it's fun it's a little tiring but it's been fun uh the fresh roast again surprises me every time that I use that roaster I roast the fresh roast on low like a two and it just it's very powerful so very impressed with that roaster but I think I want to come back to you know you ask the question it's a great way to ask the question because you're not asking what the best roaster is you're asking what my favorite is so I really enjoy I enjoy the hive I think I've really enjoyed the genie Cafe because it's so easy um that's a tough one it's really a tough one I can tell you what it's not the Popper's not my favorite I like the popper but it's not my favorite the ceramic roaster is not that's my least favorite roaster and I'm not really a fan of the ceramic roaster you can really it's hard to get a good roast on that hopefully I didn't dodge your question too much there Frederick if you're looking to learn how to become a professional roaster where would you go to learn and how many classes or how many different roasteries should roaster roasteries should be busted that's a great question that really is a great question um so there's a lot of different ways to do this right you can learn on your own I learned how to roast coffee from trial and error and from watching Mill City videos coffee videos and also from like reading online and also reading some really good books Scott Rayo has some really good books that talk about roasting Concepts and roasting theory that are really helpful um Rob hoose again it's another person that is really really good at what he does and he's good at explaining it too so I think those are really helpful I took a intro class at Mill City understanding basic concepts and honestly what I'm sharing with you here are a lot of those basic concepts mixed in with my personal experience and things that I've read and learned about so you can learn a lot online where I would be very careful is just the real General Social forums where there tends to be a lot of comments with um and some of those you need to be guarded with because you really don't know you know what level of experience they have and ultimately you know what that coffee is like and I guess you could say that with me too you haven't tasted my coffee um you know I've had other people taste my coffee and they've been very happy with it I don't always roast great coffee but I would say um you know classes you can do online classes there's a couple really good sources Rob hoose has an online class that he offers a whole training program he's a consultant and so you're going to pay for that but if you want to be a professional then that's an investment right depending on the roaster you're going to buy you know Mill City offers some really good roasting classes in person there or online and their training seem to be reasonably priced I was at the sca we got to watch our time here I was at the sca uh out in Portland this year and I met a few viewers from the channel and one guy I think he was legit you know if my family always plays jokes on me but but he watched my channel and he was a professional coffee roaster and he said that my channel was a huge influence for him so I think a lot of the things we talk about and if you take these things that we discussed my videos the concepts and you work with those and try it yourself and experiment uh you will be able to roast some really really good coffee I think one of the most important things you can do is share your coffee you really need to have other people taste your coffee start with family and friends and then kind of work your work your way out so I hope that that's helpful uh Daryl is that the three thousand dollars that's the Santa Fresco right uh yeah so professional Roasters a lot of cafes are using a Sana Fresco and um I saw them at the sca and they had some really nice looking equipment so uh I'm glad you're happy with your roaster awesome okay uh Batman bat medicine um I'm having trouble hitting a five minute try on the genie Cafe tried limiting the weight down to 130 grams but still around six minutes dry any tips on dropping it down to five so the preheat is going to be really important you need to do a preheat um not just until it gets to that temperature but let it run at that temperature for um you know 10 minutes 15 minutes just let it get nice and hot and then have the hot gloves on and when you do your transfer just do it quick get that roast started and if you're down to 130 grams you should be able to get close to that dry it sounds like you must be using a higher density um like an Ethiopian or high higher density coffee because if it's like a Brazil or something like that that should easily get there in the five minute hopefully that's helpful uh visited okay Frederick thank you all right Michael do you have home roasting home roaster recommendations for someone that prefers light roast Style with a Snappy acidity Michael and I have been experimenting with lighter roasts and I've been mostly a medium roast guy for a long time and so we've been experimenting and you saw one of my experiments with the genie Cafe and the light roast that coffee was amazing it was really really delicious very happy with it um so as far as recommendations go is that the question do you have any recommendations roaster recommendations okay so that's a great point one of my points in the genie Cafe video was that once you learn the limitations of your roaster you make adjustments and you try to work around some of those limitations and I think that would be interesting to do for all of us if you want to try a lighter roast then one of the like the fresh roast for me I've really had challenges getting a good light roast because it seems like I'm really getting the Heat or the temperatures really get high in that roaster maybe higher than I want so that when I try to kind of back the heat off I always seem to overshoot my light roast in that roaster so I've got to figure out a way to get around that so it may mean that I need to stretch my roasts out a little longer and have a little lower temperature approach and see how that affects you know Snappy acidity for me is a shorter development time so you know you're balancing your cup right so you've got you got acidity you've got your sweetness you've got this overall balance that you're trying to achieve if you don't want a fruit bomb you use a little more development time to kind of uh you know slow down or soften soften the acidity right so if you want Snappy acidity you're going to probably have a little shorter development time and you may even want to depending upon the type of coffee you're roasting you'll want to mess around with that middle phase time so if you're using percentages you know you might want to go on the shorter side of 30 percent if you're looking strictly at times you know you may want to look at about a two minute two and a half minute development time not development time middle phase time it depends on the roaster you're using so it's kind of hard for me to describe that um but can you do it on each roaster that's a great question that's something I'm going to be experimenting with and I would encourage you guys to do that as well all right Daryl they make a one pound and a two pound and he has the one pound in the PC interface so this is the Santa Fresco awesome awesome thanks for sharing that all right Frederick I tried the online classes I'm more of a Hands-On person I don't like online training or I like the online thing I get that so one of the things you could do is kind of befriend a local Coffee Roastery so find somebody that is there and then ask them maybe if you can hang out and watch a roast don't bother them don't like pester them but you know first patronize them you know buy their product and talk about it talk about roasting talk about your experiences and a lot of those people will engage you and they will talk to you and they may even sell you some of their greens so if they're roasting some really really good coffee they can talk to you about that maybe talk about their profile and then maybe you can buy some of their greens and try to roast a similar roast that's something that I've wanted to do I was just talking with my son about that this week there is somebody who is selling green coffee and roasted coffee they're really known um it's Scott route he sells greens and he sells his own coffee and I said to Michael it'd be really fun to roll most a green coffee that that he's selling and then buy the green the roasted coffee as well and taste both so um Hands-On Frederick I get it I would try to connect with somebody that has a Roastery that'll give you some time just be kind to them encourage them and patronize them and they should respond nicely Gary I can do 225 in my sr540 basically mainly because I have the fan upgraded to the 800 fan interesting so is that the same size base as the 800 have the same size base uh Frederick I picked up a buckeye bc5 and need more training oh okay so you've committed to a drum roaster and you need some more training I get that um I would definitely watch The Mill City's roaster schools videos and watch what they talk about um I've got a couple videos that talk about charge temperature they talk about um you know the dry phase and why it's important and what the purpose is and it talks about each of the phases and so I would encourage you to check out my essentials playlist start with that and then maybe you know email me you can reach me via email and if I have time I'll try to give you some other suggestions Frederick so hopefully that helped a little bit um I can I'm sorry Kelly home coffee Home Cafe and Roastery I love doing medium light roasts and I can get some really strong roasts and many people have said my coffee is like rocket fuel share your coffee you guys it's one of the best pieces of advice that I can give you is when you roast share your coffee and get feedback from others um that's that's what I would just encourage you to do I've got a video on how beneficial that is and you know what you may get some criticism so um you know you don't want to find people that are just looking for Starbucks type coffee because that's not really going to be helpful for you unless that's your goal um but if you're really trying to roast specialty coffee and you're looking for origin and notes that are definable then you want to find people that are into coffee that are into specialty coffee and then have them taste your coffee uh Richter Stitcher purchased the fresh roast sr54 only already only have used it two times still need lots of learning thankful for the Discord coffee group that I am involved in uh with just need more time so yeah and that's really cool so a lot of these Roasters have their own groups whether it's Discord or Facebook and all that so I'm glad that you're able to engage in that type of community as well uh yes you did so you watched the The Mill City videos I've watched The Mill City videos several times and I've gone back because um there's some really there's a lot of wisdom in those videos and there's some really even when they do some of the roast alongs especially the older roast alongs um there's some really helpful clues that they share as they're roasting uh and Richter Stitcher says the sr540 up gotcha uh yes same base same heat for the sr800 all right awesome uh one of the things you can do to roast some really great coffee is to buy good quality beans as well that's probably the biggest thing you can do um Richter Stitcher I have some good Brothers green beans need to get a few more roasts under my belt all right awesome last comment here and then we'll get to my points real quick and then we have to wrap things up what are your thoughts on The b-more Roaster I've had a b-more for 12 years I love it I've roasted some really really good coffee with it and you have to kind of push its limits so you have to know what its limits are so it has limits on its total heat capability like um there's an emergency shutdown if you get too hot earlier in the roast so there's some safety features you got to kind of know how far you can push it you really can't roast a lot of coffee in that roaster if you're trying to get a good medium or even lighter roasts now you're going to want to um have a lighter load in that so I I love the Beamer I'm a fan of the b-more are there other Roasters that are roast great coffee most of these that are up here will roast great coffee um it's all up to you know what it is you're interested in doing with your coffee I wouldn't mind an M10 someday if I get the hang of it M10 is that the um collidio roaster no I'm which roaster is that Lou Lou I just shared with Lou that Lou that you offered to share your bullet with me he's using a bullet roaster and have standardized on 350 gram batches and my best light to medium roast I usually have a three minute mired phase never scrimp on the middle phase yeah the middle phase is so important for flavor development you guys the middle phase of roasting coffee is where a lot of the magic happens and then you kind of work that later third phase in to kind of balance things out to your own liking for what you like right so um that's really important for newer Roasters one of the biggest challenges is to control the roaster and when we don't control The Roaster it gets out of control and it pushes too fast too much heat through that middle phase and you end up with coffee that isn't as good as it could be so great recommendation great con uh great comment Lou thanks for sharing that okay you guys I have just a few points here so if you're looking for um looking for the best roaster for you these are some things to consider I shared some of the different features of these Roasters but some things to ask yourself uh some things you need to consider when you're looking or shopping the first real thing is ultimately it's going to be price you may have a limited budget so that's going to more or less kind of push you right into a certain roaster or a certain type of roaster so price is something that is going to be a major factor in finding the best home coffee roaster for you your roasting environment is really important I have so many questions from people that ask me uh hey you know Mike I I'm roasting in an apartment and I've got neighbors that complain about smoke what can I do so you know there's issues with smoke and ventilation some people roast out in their garage and some people don't have garages or they don't have a like a house they have an apartment so there's some limitations some people end up roasting outside in like in the winter months that's really really hard for consistency when you've got outdoor temperatures those are going to influence your total roast time neighbors smelling smoke I was talking to somebody several people online who have drum Roasters or roast outside and they've had neighbors complain about some of their smoke or smell because they're really close together and um chaff mess is another Factor too so your roasting environment and you know what you can stand you know can you have a little chaff blowing around can you have a little smoke not quite enough to blow the smoke alarms off but it'll create a little smell or those limitations for you those are things you need to consider the bmore is low in smoke unless you go dark on all of these whenever you go really dark on your Roasters you're going to get smoke so if that's the case then you're going to need to have good ventilation a hood fan or figure out a way to get some sort of um venting to draw that air out so that you don't have that take place um what are your roasting goals do you just want the ability to control your roaster and you want to use this this roaster that you're going to buy to be able to roast the best possible coffee well if that's the case the more control you have over your roaster the better and consistency is another thing consistency in your roasts is really important and some of these Roasters are a little more squirrely than others the popper is kind of squirrely um the ceramic I don't I don't even want to talk about the ceramic uh I have good days and bad days on the fresh roast and it's not the problem with the roaster it's the problem with me trying to um use both the air and the the heat to control the profile of The Roaster that's really really challenging for me if I could use the example of of a joystick like a video game back in the day in an arcade game you'd have one joystick right it was fairly easy a joystick and a button and on the new stuff now you've got two joysticks and you've got four or five buttons it's just a little bit more and it's a little harder to be able to get the hang there's a little bigger learning curve to get the hang of some of these Roasters that have that like the fresh roast what some people do is they you know try to not change both settings at the same time they'll change the fan a little bit early on and then they'll change the heat maybe for the second half of the roast so that's just something that you're going to have to kind of consider is um you know if you have a roaster that has full control then it's going to be a little bigger of a learning curve for you to work on but it's going to get you one step closer to being able to roast more profiles more different different types of profiles ease of use if you're looking for something easy a push button in this range of coffee roaster the genie Cafe is easy The Hive is not that hard there's a little bit of a learning curve it's a totally manual roaster but it's up and down it's just the up and down and then the amount of coffee you roast and you'll be able to time your roasts I've got a video called taking control of your roast if you're interested in a hive watch that I can nail my event times within a couple of seconds with that roaster it's really really a cool roaster the flexibility of The Roaster is another Factor you need to consider with your roasting goals is if you want if you're only interested in dark roast coffee then you know that's not so difficult but if you want to roast dark and you want to roast light roasted coffee and you want to roast really really good coffee and really focus on your profile you're going to want to have a lot of control and it's not going to be as easy to use it's not going to be a simple push button um so it's going to take more effort whether it's a manual or Auto these are all manual Roasters except for the bmore which has kind of a semi-automatic so if you're just looking for something like that be more maybe a little easier for you the b-more and the cafe Genie Cafe seem to be kind of I'll call them slow motion Roasters things seem to happen a little slower during the roasting events then you would have with like say the fresh roast or even the hive so yeah those are things to consider about your roasting goals how far do you want to take this this hobby right and that really kind of goes towards future plans you know one of the next steps if you've already got a hot air popcorn popper and you want to move up you know what do you want to do do you want to is this just for you and your family to share coffee then the choice is you know pretty easy but if you're looking to use something as a stepping stone to move into a drum roaster there is some thought between using air Roasters versus Drum Roasters because they operate differently it's a little different style of roasting but understanding the basic principles of roasting if you've got a good grasp on that it's not going to be a problem um but that might make a difference in which roaster you want you might want to start off with a B more or a genie that's not like just a full-blown air roaster if you're interested in drum roasting that might not be a real Fair uh analysis and you guys can share your thoughts if you want on that so um and then lastly how much coffee do you need in a week if I'm trying to roast coffee on this ceramic roaster for me and my family and sharing with Friends uh I I'm gonna end up getting really frustrated and I'm not going to have consistent roasts using that so I want a roaster that's got a little more capacity so I would stay away from like the popper and I would probably go towards something that has more capacity if you're an air roaster lover and you really like that style of roasting get an extension tube and the sr800 then you can roast a lot more coffee or even the genie Cafe maybe not as much for volume there's some people that do a lot but those roasts tend to get really long um so it all depends what your you what you're interested in but those are things that are going to help guide you to find the right roaster the right type of roaster for you all right um all right Jay uh thanks for your feedback about the be more you're you're very welcome uh the M10 is the snipe and it is from uh collidio yes awesome yeah I've that's the one that's got the little Gull Wings right so um yeah are you did you say you used that are you happy with that roaster M2 is probably a better size for my needs just roasting for my husband and I okay so yeah you do have that roaster yeah so uh what's the capacity of that roaster all right we're getting back we're getting close to the end here gentlemen and ladies uh what about aromatic finish to the roasting process how to get certain Aroma out of the coffee boy that's a great question um that has been something that has really um kind of surprised me some coffees that don't necessarily have like some of the high density coffees it seems like it takes longer for those coffees to give off a really good uh Aroma you're talking ground coffee uh whole bean um or are you talking brood aromatics um I had a coffee today it was a no it was yesterday it was a Honduran coffee and it smelled like a great popsicle it smelled like it and then when I tasted it it was like grape fruit juice like Welch's grapefruit juice it was uh quite quite something and that was a light roast coffee um so I think if you're not getting Aromas I would ask you know what roast level how long what kind of development you have are the quality of the beans good what type of Bean is it that those are great questions I just don't know how I can answer that right now I wish I knew what time you were going live yeah I you know I put it out I think what a day and a half ago um and I did so I didn't have it originally in my social post but I added it later for 8 PM sorry about that I'll try to do a better job the next time uh thanks for that comment and thanks for being here I really appreciate you being here and supporting me and and being a part of this live stream all right uh actually no I'd love to get one only uh user of the 540 currently okay so you don't have the snipe gotcha yeah if you've got a snipe I'd like to hear a little bit more about your experiences with it anybody that's using a snipe uh I really like my Boca Boca it is hard finding info and on it and ways to improve my roast okay yeah so the Boca Boca is isn't that the wood box and it's got the glass drum inside of it and I think that's an infrared roaster as well so I think the best thing you can do is um if you're interested in looking on my channel look at the essentials playlist that I have I know there's some older videos in there but the concepts the things that I talk about are really helpful to help you understand what you need to do to get your roaster to do what you want it to do and that's kind of how I try to share things here on my channel I try to do this so that I'm not giving specifics for a specific roaster unless I'm actually roasting on you know and I'm trying to explain how I'm using that roaster in my um tips and my roasting Theory videos like the essential playlist videos those I'm talking about Concepts and those Concepts can be applied to any roaster so for the Boca Boca you know you need to be thinking about you know how powerful is your roaster how long will it take for you to get that roaster to dry your coffee that helps you understand the capabilities of that roaster and what you need to do to kind of tweak that if you're packing a ton of coffee into that roaster and it's taking you 10 minutes to get the coffee dry then you're going to need to use less coffee so watch the essentials playlist and experiment a little bit with your roaster trying to achieve and trying to control your roaster to these events that we talk about like dry end and first crack and second crack if you're going really dark M2 is a smaller capacity than the M10 but I like their features maybe someday yeah they've got their own roasting software too I think don't they yep wood box and infrared on the Boca Boca yeah yep awesome okay well you guys it is time to wrap things up thank you so much for being here today thank you for joining me here at the virtual coffee lab again hit the like button you guys that really helps me out I would really appreciate that this video will be available on replay after I um you know basically let it process on YouTube so this video will be available for later viewing and I really appreciate you watching thank you so much for being here today and I hope you guys have a great week roasting we will see you next time take care bye for now

Channel: Virtual Coffee Lab - Home Coffee Roaster

Views: 8,043

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Id: e4q6rC6k3AQ

Length: 68min 48sec (4128 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023