by Amazon on Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:08 pm
Has anyone had any experience with the Garanti roasters, let us know?
I've have been interested in finding out more about these roasters. There are a few short low quality clips on YouTube if you type in "garanti coffee roaster." They look nice and seem to offer a good value for their price... BUT based on what I saw I would need to find out more before purchasing one of these.
1) The agitator moves very slow and doesn't mix the beans efficiently. Actually in a machine this size you really don't need an agitator at all. A cooling fan with excellent suction and a spoon does a better job of rapidly cooling the beans on a small roaster, however the agitator arms look nice spinning around in the roaster. You want a level layer of beans which provide equal resistance to air flow throughout the cooling tray, to evenly distribute the cooling air flow through the beans. Usually on the small roasters the air gaps behind the agitator arms in the bean cooling tray allows most of the cooling air to pass through without actually cooling the beans at all.
2) My second concern is that on one of the clips the beans do not move past the viewing window on the roaster. They just sort of jiggle around. Are they stuck or is something else going on? The beans should move past the viewing window at the rate of rotation of the drum, you want the beans to be mixing in the drum for an even roast.
I wouldn't compare the Turkish roasters (Has Garanti, Toper, ...) directly to the high end expensive European or American roasters, you get what you pay for. That higher price pays for leading technology, energy efficiency, support, R&D, etc... That's not to say that there is anything wrong with the Turkish roasters, actually you get a lot more roaster/$ for your money. And the good Turkish roasters make excellent coffee once you have the experience to know what you are doing on the roaster (ie: you don't need to buy a Probat or Diedrich).
If you are just getting into home roasting any of these roasters would be a HUGE jump to make. If you have the money to invest on a nice roaster go for it! Best of all they don't depreciate in value like a car does and with care they can run for decades. I like a number of the 1-2 kilo sized Turkish roasters and would love to have a few to play with in my office (the garage). I highly recommend that you get some training on roasting AND maintenance if you purchase any "real" roaster. Make sure the roaster venting is done correctly as well, that makes a big difference in how well your roaster performs.
You might also consider the Hottop "B" model, it is a great little roaster! It is perfect for home use, and with the manual controls over heat and fan setting it behaves very much like a full size roaster at a fraction of the price. It will give you the opportunity to learn about roasting and it will not cost as much on each ruined/bad roast (so you won't mind experimenting on your roasting to perfect it). It also does a great job on roasting coffee, the best of any home roaster in my opinion (that's why I have one at my house). The automatic program on it runs too long for my taste but it has no problem roasting a full batch on the same profiles as the Diedrich and San Franciscans at work.
) and skipping the "Buy small and upgrade within 3 months" phase. Came across a shop type Garanti (not "Has Garanti") roaster offered at a decent price. However, I have not read anything about it during my research. It looks just like any other shop roasters.
