While I hesitate to submit my questions for fear of ridicule, I think a few of you may be genuinely amused by my situation here! I first got into home roasting about 3 years ago. I have yet to purchase designated equipment for it.
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I began using popcorn roasters but the consistency was always off, not to mention the yield not really being worth the effort. At one point, I had about 5 popcorn poppers going at once. Mania.

So, my current rig is an improvised roaster consisting of mixing bowls, stock pot, an industrial heat gun, and a lot of elbow grease. I'll post some photos if anyone is interested. I can roast up to a pound per batch, but.....wait for it.....it takes close to 30 minutes to reach 2nd crack. All the while stirring my beans with a wooden spoon.

My questions are, basically, (I roast primarily for espresso, brown sugar-y, chocolate, deep low end profiles) what coffee would work best with an extremely slow roast? Would I benefit from dumping them a bit earlier, or later considering my stages of roast are proportionately longer? I'll typically take my roast to about 30 seconds to a minute into second crack. Thank you all in advance.

Instead of aiming for a particular coffee, I'd roast 200 grams or less per batch as opposed to a pound. Shorten the roast time.

Yes, smaller batches...or more heat rather than a change of bean. I don't mean to sound critical, and I've never done a roast for so long, but I'd expect your roasts to be rather lacking in flavour (i.e., flat), as such long roast times would totally eliminate the natural acids that our taste buds associate with fruitiness.

Thank you guys for the tips. I'm curious as to what the "acceptable" time is for a roast taken slightly into second crack? I'm going to try a smaller batch and see if I can drop my time to limit exposure. Thanks again, and I'll keep you guys posted!

I'm not a 2nd crack roaster, but I'd say 15 minutes or less would be a big improvement over what you've been doing. Let us know how it goes!

On my Behmor 1600+ I reach 2nd crack in 14~ mins with 350 grams. I never take it far past 2nd crack, and dont often even take it all the way to 2nd crack though.

Depeding on batch size and coffee and what your doing with it, a rough window of 10-15 minutes would be what you want to shoot for.

I did plenty of HeatGun/DogBowl roasting in my early roasting days, and its certainly capable of tasty coffee. The problem your having is you dont have enough heat going into the bean mass, for how big of a bean mass you have. ALSO, I would bet, even if you did get enough heat from the gun(s), you arm would fall off with how vigorously you would need to stir to properly(or even halfway decently) keep a pound of beans moving.


If it is funds that is keeping you from getting a Hottop or even a Behmor, thats fine. Check out the heat gun/bread machine method. A cheapo bread machine, maybe you even have an old one you dont use, or can make a trip to the local thrift store, would be easily frankedsteined into a roaster. And those usually easily handle a pound or more.

A half hour is baked coffee not roasted. Times vary by machine but as many have mentioned 14-17minutes to the onset of second. My first crack hits at around 10-12 minutes depending on the bean and profile I am using. Lower bean mass with get more heat in the greens faster. You can always go with one of the gas grill rigs. I have a co worker that went that route after getting a Behmor and being unsatisfied with the roast capacity. He runs 2 pound batches in around 15 minutes now.

Katsuji Daibo hand-roasted coffee in his little Tokyo coffee shop for 38 years. Here's a nice little story about him: http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2013/daibo/

His shop closed for good in 2013, but thankfully, he wrote a wonderful little book describing his life in coffee. I just received a copy of "A Daibo Coffee Manual" yesterday. This book probably deserves it's own thread, but I haven't digested it all yet.

What I've read so far has me mesmerized by his attention to detail and reverence for everything he did. From the wood selection for the bar, to the lighting, to the chairs, to the music he played (records only) everything was given diligent attention and chosen for a reason.

His comments on roasting are most interesting. He says, "If we're working from a scale of 1 to 10, let's say 7 is the point where you lose acidity from deep roasting". He says his goal is to try and leave behind a hint of acidity at levels of .1-.2 minus 7. For example A Colombian might be stopped at 6.85, or 6.9 for a "softer sweetness".

He roasted on a hand-cranked drum roaster over an exposed gas flame. The only control was the level of heat. He describes how he turns the heat down at certain points of the roast, but the part that stopped me is when he said the whole process takes 30 minutes! I've very curious how there could be any acidity left after that long. Very interesting.

So either the Japanese really like baked coffee, or there is something to longer roasts.

Total roast time may be hard to compare when you're talking about such different roasting equipment such as heat guns, Behmors, drum roaster, and open flame. The different chemical reactions that take place often happen within a certain temperature range, if you're spending more time below that range I'm not sure what the effects will be. Lowering the batch size is a great way to fine tune your roast for equipment without the controls or capacity to roast larger batches. Smaller batches will be more responsive and you'll have to watch them closer to make sure that they don't get away from you. Larger batches have more momentum and can take longer to take up and shed the heat to you have to forward think the roast more when your applying profile changes.

Taste is the ultimate judge, but you might want to look at the color of the roasted whole coffee beans (outside) compared to the ground coffee beans (inside). The difference will tell you the difference in development and roast between the inside and the outside. It's quite normal to see a difference, but if it's a large difference you could be scorching the outside without fully roasting the inside. Little to no difference is usually the sign of a longer roast and could mean baking, resulting in dull, flat tasting roasts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the Loring roaster results in little difference without baking the coffee so this may not be a complete picture.