Dogshot wrote:Now that Diedrich makes a home roaster, the ability to use pro-level equipment is now available to anyone interested in home roasting. Given that really high-quality coffees are becoming available in green, home-roasters will have the freedom to buy COE coffees when available and roast and consume them as desired.
How do you see your future investment in the quality of espresso in your home? Do you think that your ability to make great espresso would be improved more through a super-machine like the GS3, or through a pro-roaster like the Diedrich?
Going from a decent espresso machine to a GS3 should help the HB to get better, or at least more consistent results. I suspect that going from the typical HB's roaster (i-roast, SC/CO, Hottop) to a roaster like the Diedrich would give a bigger bump in overall results. As a bonus, I would hope that the Diedrich would be able to offer more consistent results than the i-roast/Hottp/SC/CO, thereby rewarding learning more quickly.
Mark
In answer to the first question, and what is implied by it, once one has a certain level of espresso equipment (for the sake of argument I'll put this level at a basic E61 home espressomaking box plus a very competent grinder, say the Mazzer Mini), increases in the quality of shots pulled will be minimal per each $1000 dollars additional expended. This is not to say that a GS3 wouldn't produce a larger proportion of very good to excellent shots with less effort -- presumably, it would, but an experienced home barista with the basic E61 box plus MM would do very well and have nothing to be ashamed of.
If one then takes the raw materials side of the equation, i.e. the coffee, using high quality beans recently and properly roasted will produce a HUGE benefit over lesser combinations such as great beans which are stale or mediocre beans which are fresh or any sort of bean that is over roasted or has other obvious flaws such as poor bean development (e.g. beans whose exterior is more well roasted than their interiors, something that could come from poor technique). The difference between bad and mediocre, mediocre and good, good and very good, or very good to excellent in the bean department will dwarf the differences between the output of a basic E61 and a GS3. So, beans are very important, in fact they are the very most important variable assuming one has at least decent equipment to work with (this discussion focuses on espresso and one could certainly make a very strong argument that a teakettle and a $2.50 Melita cone would allow great coffee production of another sort; one could also argue that a Silvia level machine would be more than adequate as the lower end espresso machine in the comparison although I'm not sure I would buy that, especially in the stock configuration).
But I digress
These little enclosed roasters are to me the equivalent, in coffee terms, of the meticulous model train aficionado's perfect rendition of a Swiss village, complete with well manicured houses and a mockup version of the alps, maybe even Mont Blanc
They are cutesy scale models of full scale roasters and they look very very cool! One could impress even that neighbor with the $100,000 Mercedes by giving him a garage tour with the roaster as the highlight!
In reality these things are too cute for their own good. I doubt that very many real roasters would be interested in them for their stated use, as sample roasters. They are way too expensive and the capacity is too large for real sample roasting. I doubt they sell very many, if any, of these into that market, to people really trying to make a living from coffee, a fairly low margin business.
Many here have seen pictures of my own modified sample roaster, an earlier model that used to be sold by Roaster's Exchange, aka US Roasting Corp or somesuch. It's not pretty and it does smoke up the garage somewhat in spite of it now being operated under a smoke hood. I would not recommend my own personal odyssey to anyone who wanted a cost-effective solution.
If I was seeking a roaster along the lines of those little "Lionel Train" type roasters referred to in this thread, I would instead look at 1kg, maybe 2kg, sized roasters as offered by some of the same players and some other ones such as Ambex. I doubt that one would pay all that much more for the bigger size, and one would get a real piece of commercial equipment with a real resale market should one change one's mind and want to get rid of it later.
I am assuming that any of these roasters, 1lb or larger, will competently roast coffee although I have no actual experience with any of them. Roasting with my own modified sample roaster is a highly labor intensive process and demands time and attention from the human behind the controls, just like an espresso machine, whether it be an Isomac or an LM.
ken
