What roaster to buy?

There are basically 2 kinds of purpose-built home roasting devices. The most common and least expensive are "air roasters," similar to commercial "fluid bed" roasters at least in concept. Examples of this are Freshroast Plus (FR+) and Caffe Rosto. A thriftstore hot air popcorn popper will produce similar results at a lot lower cost. The other common type is consumer level drum roasters, of which the Hottop (HT) and Alpenrost (alp) are the most common. The Z&D as I understand it works mostly by conduction of heat and this is distributed to the beans by an auger.

A third option if you are handy and after you get obsessed with the coffee, is to convert a home BBQ grill into a drum roaster; you can either fabricate a drum yourself or buy one from either of at least 2 alties who sell them.

None of the purpose built home roasters has a great reputation for reliability and service, although the HT is generally considered much more robust than is the alp.

Speaking only for myself I'd suggest avoiding the alp due to reliability issues and inability to control roast level very well unless you are lucky or have exceptional hearing. Any of the home air roasters will give you a chance to observe the process of roasting and to learn if you are interested in it. There are reliability issues with these as well so you might end up tossing those just like you might toss an alp.

My suggestion is to go over to the Sweet Marias site and read about roasting devices. A popper would be a very minor investment and enable you to learn whether or not you really want to do this on a regular basis. If you do then hang around here to read about how the current roaster crop is holding up vis a vis reliability. There is at least one new roaster out there now, the new Hearthware, which may merit consideration if people find it reliable. If it were me I'd either stick with the hopper or move on to a BBQ roaster if my interest continued and if a BBQ roaster was feasible for my living arrangements.

Best,

ken

I was asking the same questions several months ago and it seems that the most unreliable appliance ever made is a home coffee roaster. You get a handful of roast coffee and they all seem to me to be finicky. Some folks seem to like their popcorn air poppers especially after they rewire them with variacs and thermostats but I chose to make a BBQ drum roaster.

I have yet to hear one complaint from anyone about these and in my experience the results are excellent. I just wish Ron had come to market with his drum several weeks sooner so I wouldn't have had to build mine. See Ed's site for additional links:

Buy a stainless steel dog bowl for $ 8 and a commerical-quality heat gun for $ 45-60 and join the dogbowl side of the force. Details on heatgun roasting can be found at

in the home roasting talk forum. Do a search or look for postings with the words 'heatgun' or 'dogbowl'.

You will be surprised at how well this works.

Regards,

Michael Lloyd Mill Creek, Washington USA

To be fair, there are a lot of happy Alpenroast owners out there but I wouldn't get one. They can be cranky and have problems with smaller beans. A Z&D might be cool. It's not what I would get but I can see the appeal. A popcorn popper is a better deal than most hot air roasters.

If you really don't care about batch sizes, a Z&D or a popper would probably be your best bets. If you want larger batches some day, you could try a whirley pop, a bbq drum or a heat gun.

I think the important things are beans and heat. The rest is just what's convenient.

Jim

Yes

Yes

Is

Yes

Is a Zach and Dani's so much worse (at

Dunno

though infomercials make me suspicious)? I don't care how

Buy a hot air popcorn popper if you want a good cheap roaster. Buy a hottop if you want a great expensive roaster. Buy an Alp if you want a very good midpriced drum roaster.

A used Poppery II is the best low-cost entry into the hobby. You can find them on eBay for $10 or so. Search web pages for recommended modifications. With an added thermometer (I use a Weber food thermometer) and a can stuck into the chamber, I do up to 6.5 ounce batches quickly and very repeatably, up to and including French Roast. Total investment: about $25 dollars and one can of corn (but, you can eat the corn).

The Poppery II is also very reliable. There have probably been hundreds of thousands of Poppery IIs and their clones sold over the years. I don't think any 'home roaster" can claim the experience or reliability of a Poppery II, judging from the comments posted online.

A BBQ roaster is a good option, but unless you have metal fabrication skill, the cost of entry is about $100 (plus BBQ, if you don't have one). If you don't care about batch size, try the air popper route and put the saved money towards green coffee, a grinder, and a decent brewing pot.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com says... snip

Hogwash! If it were YOU there would be a palletized, 500 lb gas fired cast iron monster sitting in your driveway tomorrow. THEN you'd have a local guru hot-rod that baby up a trifle, just for shucks and giggles. You can't fool us.

Behold the face of the obsessed, OP. Run. Save yourself. Drink tea.

BTW, I would do just what Ken said... popper then something bigger.

Ted

^^^^^^

That's gotta be a freudo rather than a typo. The h is a long way from the p.

Well, at least the folks here are being a little more open minded. Not all have been very charitable about the Z&D even though they probably don't own one. I have a Z&D roaster that I got a few months ago and have cheerfully roasted about 30 pounds of coffee in it without a hitch, making it pay for itself about 3 times over (in savings)from what I was paying at the local roaster for "the good stuff". It works as well as it did the day I got it, and shows no sign of wear at all.

I bought it after contacting a couple of folks of the group found by searching the archives that *actually owned one* to see how they liked it. All but one were really positive. The one that wasn't was sent a cheerful refund.

The best tip about this machine I can give you is to put on the mitts and pour out the coffee on cold stoneware plate (put in the freezer when you start your roast)as soon as you are through roasting. The auger is hot and I think it continues to cook the beans that touch it at the base. Although the cool cycle works pretty well, spreading the beans out on a cold plate cools them almost immediately. Pros: Excellent for medium roasts. Your roast timer has a five minute cool down cycle in it, so it actually doesn't roast as long as some folks think. Further, it will indeed roast a DARK(black)oily roast for the espresso machine with no problem. Larger roast chamber than its competitors translates to around 6 oz of coffe per batch. And with the auger system, all beans are stirred vigorously throughout the roast making the roast very even. Replacement parts are available through their excellent customer service (DAMHIKT)at a reasonable price. Last, it comes with 3 full pounds of coffee to roast. Best of all, if you don't like the quality of coffee it makes, send it back within 30 days for a full refund! No harm, no foul. This is tough to beat.

Cons: If I don't get the top on correctly, it will shut down the machine and sit until I reset it. I think this is more of an operator problem than a machine fault. It does put a little chaffe out on the counter, more or less depending on the coffee beans. I think this is far outweighed by the fact that I can roast inside anytime since there is NO smoke at all.

Try it, you'll like it. You may or may not outgrow it. I cannot see

*me* spending hours modifying a popcorn machine to save $50 to make a machine that roasts about 3 ozs of coffee and makes smoke in the house. I was seriously looking at the Alpenroast, but after reading the archives to this group on the machine I decided against it.

The best advice you received so far was to get something affordable to see if you will actually enjoy the process enough to keep roasting. I roast coffee for the next day or two while I am fixing breakfast on Sunday. I roast again on Wednesday and again during the week as needed. I drink about the normal pound a week. This little machine makes that all incredibly easy for me to hav efresh roast on hand.

I can't imagine anything to do with roasting being too much easier, although this dog bowl business sure looks interesting...

OK, before I get blasted: I am not affiliated with Z&D company, not a family member or godfather to the kids and I don't even live in the same city. They don't pay my rent or send me free coffee.

As a general contractor I have bought so many crappy machines I am just happy to buy something that works as advertised and has actually payed for itself.

Robert snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

I've had my Z&D for a year now. I've not had any problems whatsoever with it. It's very easy to use, no smoke, no problems, no hassles.

Stan

I will add my ditto to all of the other Z&D owners that have posted their positive comments. My Z&D has been performed flawlessly for over a year now. Quality, price, NO SMOKE, and too many other pluses to list. Alan M

Ken, I got a Freshroast Plus for Christmas and I am quite happy with it. I can get a good dark espresso roast or a meduim roast. I don't mind the smoke as I roast in the garage. I am still keeping my fingers crossed since I read of a few people having problems with their FR+'s. When I do multiple roasts I have to reduce the time since it gets hotter the more you roast. That may be why some people have problems with it. I do look around the thrift shops for the poppery to see what all the fuss is about. Anyhoo, I'm not affiliated...just a satisfied newbie roaster. Finally! A decent cup of coffee! Had I known it was this easy I would have got into this a looooong time ago. Cheers! Dominick

Thanks for the warning! I just saw these in a shop in Freiburg (DE) during Christmas and was precisely wondering how the chaff was supposed to be collected... Luckily my Christmas shopping had already ruined me so that I couldn't afford one.

Serge

Aw heck! I meant Hoptop. Sorry about that. Or was that Pottop? Pophot?

Bruce "cold bottom" B

completely

Hi Bruce

Thanks for a well written essay on roasters.

Do not hesitate and open the Alp to clean the interior after 12 month of use. The first indication that the machine is becoming too dirty is the need to increase the setting to a higher number to obtain the usual roast color.