Hi everyone! This is my first post. I've been digging and reading for 2-3 days and have discovered what a neat resource and community HB is! I brew my own beer at home and have been wanting to branch out and roast my own coffee too...tired of buying Starbucks and just can't find a decent roaster around so I thought...why not!

I've been digging through the FAQ's and How To's and just can't seem to put my finger on any threads or subforums giving recommendations for a home roaster for a newbie. I've been a coffee fan for a long time. I'm not a huge espresso fan but do love Americanos big time. I am a french press guy right now.

Anyway, if I'm looking in the wrong place I greatly apologize...please don't flame me!

Bottom line is this: What roasters would you recommend for a brand new newbie? I've read about the smoke involved so I'd probably roast in my garage. I've read a bit about the Behmor 1600+. That looks like a good starter roaster but wanted to ping the board and get recommendations.

Thank you in advance...I look forward to learning and growing as a roaster with this forum and all of your expert advice and assistance!

Jeff

There are three oft-recommended home roasters which have the potential of creating very good to excellent home roasts:
- Genecafe
- Behmor1600+
- Hottop [disclaimer: I am employed by them]

These fall into three distinctive price points, each roaster with their own plusses and minuses (control, cost, etc.). The Genecafe US representation has recently improved, and the other two have exceptional customer service by reputation (disclaimer: in the case of Hottop, if I do say so myself). Look into them, check the interfaces and controls available for each, and get back to us if you have any questions. There are many users of each of there here on HB.

All the three mentioned above are good choices. They are all around 1/2 pound capacity (give or take). The possible fourth one would be a Quest M3, but even though the cool factor is much larger, that beast is fully manual and getting a decent roast out of it can be quite intimidating at first.
I used to own a Gene Cafe, which I sold last week. A good roaster when stepping up from roasting in an oven. I'd say it's semi-automatic. (You can set a temp. and a timer on it and it will run by itself, but it's better and more safe to participate.) I got some quite good roasts out of it. The downside (for me) was the limited capacity as some friends started asking me for coffee. Anyhow, I learnt a lot with the Gene Cafe. Then the Huky 500 cought my eye... But that is another story...

If your interested in roasting and want to see if its for you I would recommend a much cheaper option. A popcorn popper or heatgun/dogbowl (I haven't used this) setup is a great way to start out. Sweet Marias website has a ton of information to get you going. You can get some great coffee out of a popcorn roaster. Roasting is very addicting and it is a lot of fun learning.

+1. I got started with a $20 popcorn popper, and got surprisingly good roasts out of it once I made a few simple modifications to it (adding a thermometer and a dimmer switch so I could vary the heat). I think it is best to learn on a simple, manually controlled device, especially if you can add a thermometer to keep track of changes in bean temperature over time. The automated systems are more opaque, so it will take you longer to learn how different approaches to roasting affect the results in the cup. Just my $.02.

+1 progression can be very fast. Still, start cheap and see what your staying power is. My first roast was in a Dutch oven on the backyard grill. Then, I spent many hours searching for a popcorn popper - finally found what I was looking for on e-bay. Then, I bought a 1 pound drum that fit my Weber rotisserie. I liked that for about a year then I bought a high speed motor, after a few months I bought a 4 pound RK drum. Phew!! Finally?? In July I bought a Huky 500. I suspect that progression is common and even though I now have plenty of capacity, what I'd really like to have is maybe a 5k roaster in the front of a little coffee shop. But, come on, that's ridiculous! Well, but it's my hobby. I grew into it and I enjoy every aspect of it. Start slow and see where you go.
DicKC

Wow thank you all for the replies and wonderful suggestions...that's just what I was hoping for!

Your replies brought a few questions to mind:
A couple of you said that starting with a more basic system would be a better learning method. I'm all about learning the method but a couple things:

I really wanted to roast in my garage and not on the stovetop. It gets hot as hell in Texas for 9 months of the year and can make the house really hot ( I learned this through homebrewing!)

i didn't want to have to stand manually over a pot cranking it continuously for an hour. I know you'll laugh at that comment because it's probably an incorrect assumption on my part. So the question is do you have to continuously crank a handle and for how long?

I don't have a ventahood in my house so I was concerned about the smoke, etc inside.

Lastly, while this doesn't mean I am leaning on direction or the other, for me, $300-400 on a roaster isn't "a lot".

Having said all that, I wouldn't want to choose a roaster than sort of handicapped the learning process by automating things or doing things for me.

Sorry, I'm rambling.

I was talking about an electric, hot-air popcorn popper. You could set it up in your garage, and put a bowl in front of it to catch the chaff. This is how a lot of folks try out home roasting; it does small batches quite quickly (usually in less than ten minutes), and there are no cranks to turn. I used this one.

The small batches are nice because, at first, you will ruin a fair amount of the coffee you try to roast. Losing a 60g batch hurts a lot less than losing a pound!

[creative nickname] wrote:I was talking about an electric, hot-air popcorn popper. You could set it up in your garage, and put a bowl in front of it to catch the chaff. This is how a lot of folks try out home roasting; it does small batches quite quickly (usually in less than ten minutes), and there are no cranks to turn

This was exactly part of my early steps into roasting. If it excites you, move on to something you think will excite you even more.

[creative nickname] wrote:I was talking about an electric, hot-air popcorn popper. You could set it up in your garage, and put a bowl in front of it to catch the chaff. This is how a lot of folks try out home roasting; it does small batches quite quickly (usually in less than ten minutes), and there are no cranks to turn. I used this one.

The small batches are nice because, at first, you will ruin a fair amount of the coffee you try to roast. Losing a 60g batch hurts a lot less than losing a pound!

This is exactly how I started roasting about a year ago. I was reading on the forums about it and thought I would give it a try. I picked up a West Bend Poppery I off Ebay. I think I paid $50. I set up a table in the basement and started roasting. I was blown away by the coffee I was creating. Next step was modifying it by separating the fan/heat circuits. I ran the heat circuit through a router speed controller and plugged into one of those Kill-a-Watt meters. So now I have control of the heat and a wattage displayed. The fan simply goes through a dimmer. BTW this is all pretty easy to do if your just a little handy. I also added a bean temp. thermocouple. I now have full control over my roasts. (BTW you don't have to modify this thing...it was just part of my roasting progression). I think I have about $100 total into my setup. I'm happy I went cheap and then upgraded.

I now have a Quest M3 on the way.

+1 on the smaller batches. You don't want to throw a pound of beans away when you mess something up.