Why I am thinking about home roasting...

I live in Montréal and I haven't been able yet to procure local high quality roasted beans. I therefore have to rely on known established roasters. The problem is that most are far away (mostly West Coast) and/or South of the border. Both add transit time (distance, customs). When I receive my roasted beans, they are often already 8 days post-roast. I deep freeze them as soon as I can in small Mason jars and get them out a day before I use them. As I'm the only one drinking espresso at home, and that I can't consider myself caffeine addicted (not a regular addiction at least!), the jar can spend another 2-4 days on the kitchen counter. Therefore, most of the shots I pull are not as fresh as one might want, even close to staling in some cases. Also, I can't avoid considering the total cost per lbs/kg when I add on the cost of coffee, shipping, custom brokerage fees (as UPS call them), especially when I remember that stale coffees all taste the same ("what do you mean by floral/fruit notes!?!...").

Having already crossed the usual steps: good grinder, good espresso machine (beginning with a Silvia/Rocky 2 ½ years ago), starting to have a steadier mano, I'm starting to scratch my head and grin (or wince, not sure yet...) as I look at home roasting.

So... what is home roasting about...

I perused through the roasting FAQs and home roasting resources, and tried to learn some lessons before I consider embarking on this new endeavour.

Sweet Maria's web site wrote:Roasting is fun and easy as you want to make it, or as exacting and technical as you care to be. [...] The basic process is simple: take green (unroasted) coffee and turn it brown.
(http://www.sweetmarias.com/instructions.php)

Ken Fox wrote:In order to become a successful home roaster, you are going to have to roast a lot of coffee, including many different types. You are going to have to roast a very large number of batches, and to play around with the variables, listed above, that you can control. You will have to look at the beans after you roasted them for any obvious flaws you may have caused, and most importantly, you are going to have to taste the coffee that you roasted, trying to correlate the results you get in your cup with the variables you experimented with on that particular roast or set of roasts. The specifics of exactly how you will need to modify these variables to get the results that you want will only become clear with your own hard work and experience. No one can give you more than general guidelines unless they personally have a lot of experience using the same roasting device that you are using, and in addition, know your taste.
(How to Home Roast)

another_jim wrote:Finally, homeroasting machines are not very good -- there are no semi-commercial home roasters. You'll get results better than most medium sized commercial roasters using a popcorn popper, just like you get better espresso than an average cafe at home with almost any machine. But this is a fairly meaningless standard unless you are really inconveniently located; it will take time, learning, experience, and lots of roaster mods before your results will compare with the coffees we talk about here."
(Home roasting - what's the big deal?)

miKe mcKoffee wrote:There are many excellent Artisan roasters roasting high quality greens with superb results. Can an experienced serious home roaster who can control their roast profile match their results, IMO sometimes yes sometimes no. And I say this as a 99% home roaster for home consumption 6+ years."
(To roast or not to roast)

Equipment...

I'm ready to buy a quality home roaster, considering it will pay for itself in the long term. After reading about the different technologies (fluid bed, drum), their build quality, expected life time, end result, batch size, control they offer, etc., I'm currently looking at the Hottop KN-8828B-2 (US$720).

Often, newbies to home roasting are directed toward cheap fluid bed roasters, to see if they like or not this new hobby.

I look at this from a different angle: if home roasting can get me a good cup of espresso, save me money (both from roasted coffee premium and small batch shipping costs) while allowing me to periodically try new coffees / alternate between them, I am willing. I enjoy making espresso and I easily see myself taking an hour or two on week-ends roasting. Added to deep freezing of roasted beans, I could probably roast when I want/have to.

Should I make the move...

I'm ready to learn but when I think about espresso and roasting skills being both science and art, I consider myself better in the former than in the latter. I would then probably rely on cupping reviews (e.g. buying green beans from Sweet Maria's and using their roasting advice) and forums to find out what roasting profile/level works best; adjusting this existing knowledge to my particular setup when needed, rather than exploring the whole roasting space myself. Am I right thinking that by having a standard home roaster (Hottop) and standard beans, this would be realistic?

Coming to my main question...

While I don't expect to get the same results as first tier professional (artisan) roasters, should I expect to achieve excellent home roasted coffees at home, providing I get a good roasting machine and invest a reasonable amount of time in the beginning of my endeavour, learning how to roast?

My fear would be to end with sub-par home roasted coffees, compared to "good" (not top) professionally roasted coffees, 8 days post-roast. It this would be the case, I'm better leaving home roasting alone.

To put it another way, is home roasting only for:

• geeks of the coffee geeks, devoting huge amount of their time to this geeky hobby: Playing in the same league as professional roasters in terms of quality;
• someone living 15 shipping days away from good professional roasters: Mediocre home roasted coffee still being better than completely stale professionally roasted coffees;
• or, someone finding in home roasting something to do with his spare time: Getting sub-par roasts, but not caring as his coffees buds are not very developed and/or he doesn't really care, as the fun is in the journey, not in the cup?

To put it bluntly, is there a potential in home roasting for someone who likes a very good cup of espresso, doesn't want to devote his entire life to it, trying to compete with the best professional roasters on their own ground?

Thanks in advance for your answers...

Roasting isn't hard to learn. What I've found is that once roasting is under control (there is always room to learn), the fact is unless you start out with great beans, you won't get great espresso. If you don't have a good grinder, you won't get good espresso. If you don't have an adequate machine, ditto. If don't have the skills for the machine, ditto.

Bottom line, there are several factors, some easy, some less easy, but none of them too hard, except one: how do you get beans as good as the ones the "name brands" are using.

Go for it. I think you made a good choice of roasters and stick with SM for beans, trying their samplers and espresso blends. It will take a while to learn but you are not in a position to get good roasted coffee. I was in a similar situation when I started home roasting about 13 years ago and now that exorbitantly expensive roasted coffee can be avoided, I still prefer to do my own when I need it and have a greater choice of beans after vac sealing and deep freezing my greens. There is a sense of pride and accomplishment when you get to the point of roasting beans that the professional would be proud of. And you never stop learning.

Marvin

In my opinion, not shared by many, home roasting is a hobby, specifically for getting to know about coffee in depth. When you home roast, you can, for instance, try several variations of roast on the same coffee, or flexibly source exotic coffees in ways one cannot if ordering roasted coffee only.

But if your goal is just getting very good coffee with a minimum of fuss, home roasting is mostly a waste of time and money. You'll spend about an hour roasting a pound of coffee. You'll spend a year before those roasts are in the same ballpark as professional roasts. If you value your discretionary time even at minimum wage, you have already paid more than the difference between green and roasted coffee.

There is a contingent of home roasters that roast in bulk, for office, church, neighbors and family. They do see significant savings by doing it themselves. By using larger capacity roasters, they don't waster their time. By roasting coffees that don't have to be prize winners, just fresh and appealing; they save money sourcing green. But this is definitely not "exceptional espresso" roasting.

I think there are a few roasters from eastern canada in this thread
List of our favorite Roasters

For your question, I home roast, and I enjoy it.
If I put a value on my time, as Jim said, I will probably break even in 2020 or so
Since I am paid an annual salary, with no chance at overtime, I don't put a price on "leisure" time.

If you want the best espresso possible, go buy your beans from someone who can get them to you in less then a week. Beans should be good for about 2 weeks, so even your 8 day old beans have about a week left in them.

If you want to learn more about coffee, and are looking for a new hobby, get a roaster and some greens, and have at it.

Randy

Louis,

Being in Montreal, you have access to several "3rd wave" cafes that carry coffees from some of the best roasters in North America. Why not buy some whole bean around town and support your local retailers instead of paying hefty shipping fees?

Here's what I came up with, but I'm sure there are more:

Cafe Myriade, serving 49th Parallel, Ritual Roasters, Phil & Sebastian, etc.
Caffe in Gamba, serving Intelligentsia, Zoka, Novo, Vergnano, 49th Parallel
Cafe Veritas, serving 49th Parallel
Caffe Art Java, serving JJ Bean (previously Gimme! Coffee)
Flocon Espresso, serving Stumptown
Cafe Neve, serving Metropolis

Ryan

another_jim wrote:In my opinion, not shared by many, home roasting is a hobby, specifically for getting to know about coffee in depth.

+1. To get good at roasting, home or otherwise, takes considerable time.
IMO, many home roasters have fresh, not great, coffee.

I'd council avoiding green samplers. Buy a reasonable quantity of an espresso suitable green so you can test, make notes AND repeat. If you can't repeat the same roast time after time, you're wasting time.

IMO, a stock HotTop is not a suitable espresso roaster as it is inconsistent.
If it were, I wouldn't have had to do this :



Knowing what I know now, I'd opt for at least a 1kg roaster.

another_jim wrote:But if your goal is just getting very good coffee with a minimum of fuss, home roasting is mostly a waste of time and money. You'll spend about an hour roasting a pound of coffee. You'll spend a year before those roasts are in the same ballpark as professional roasts. If you value your discretionary time even at minimum wage, you have already paid more than the difference between green and roasted coffee.

It's a hobby, maybe, but really, an hour for a lb of coffee?
I can do a lb with a heat gun in 15 minutes, then toss it in to cool while I do other things.
And my PID controlled iRoast requires less fuss, once a program is settled upon. Just run the cycle, and bump the cool when it's done (haven't automated that part yet). Most of my "maintenance" roasting is done while I'm doing other things, keeping an eye on the roaster.

When I want to tweak things, I pay attention. That's the hobby aspect.

I find that the results I get are far better than anything I can find locally. And <$8 for a lb of espresso? That's pretty decent savings. I don't strive for consistency, though - I like to mix it up and experiment with single origins, and blends, but I have my go-to brazil or Espresso Monkey. As I say, with coffee I don't care for consistent, but I do go for consistently good.

But I'll agree, it's not for everybody.

I've been at it for years. I started with a popper, bought an iRoast2, got frustrated with the iRoast2's lack of control - it claims to offer profiles, but they L * I * E. The underlying hardware is okay, but the firmware stinks, and a major shortcoming is the lack of temperature measurement of the bean mass.

I then worked with a heat gun for a while. I recommend that anyone wanting to homeroast, or who currently homeroasts, try a heat gun for a while. There is something so raw about it - roasting with a bowl of beans in your lap, watching them intently, breathing the smoke, hearing every sound, seeing the surface changes before your eyes (and brushing chaff out of your hair). You can really be the bean.

I also recommend playing with a manual control roaster that gives good bean temperature feedback. It's hard to understand what the beans are doing if you can't see the temperature. It's the best way to learn when to apply heat, and when to hold back, when the beans are "climbing a hill", and when they're trying to run away from you.

But I'm totally spoiled now - I love love love my PID'ed iRoast. I can get awesome repeatability and pretty much total control (as long as I don't run against a rail) with up to 160g loads. That's enough to keep up with my home drip (5 "cups" a day) and office espresso (4 shots a day) needs. And if I need to roast more for an event or to share, I can use the heat gun, which gives less control, but I can do a lb at a time that way.

Here's my iRoast, with dimmer control over fan, PID control over heater (can hold 4 programs with 8 steps each), and exhaust fan (variable speed, controlled by 24V bench supply, just out of shot):

Thank you all for your answers...

another_jim wrote:In my opinion, not shared by many, home roasting is a hobby, specifically for getting to know about coffee in depth. When you home roast, you can, for instance, try several variations of roast on the same coffee, or flexibly source exotic coffees in ways one cannot if ordering roasted coffee only.

But if your goal is just getting very good coffee with a minimum of fuss, home roasting is mostly a waste of time and money. You'll spend about an hour roasting a pound of coffee. You'll spend a year before those roasts are in the same ballpark as professional roasts.

cafeIKE wrote:+1. To get good at roasting, home or otherwise, takes considerable time.
IMO, many home roasters have fresh, not great, coffee.

Fair advice, even if it doesn't either motivates me to go for it nor does it prevent me from doing so...

I guess I'll have to think about it and eventually come to a decision for myself.

cafeIKE wrote:IMO, a stock HotTop is not a suitable espresso roaster as it is inconsistent.

The good news is that the Hottop -B provides most of these buttons (element power, fan control), without a clear choice though between automatic and manual modes.

What would be considered a "suitable espresso roaster"? A commercial sample roaster?

Louis wrote:To put it bluntly, is there a potential in home roasting for someone who likes a very good cup of espresso, doesn't want to devote his entire life to it, trying to compete with the best professional roasters on their own ground?

In a word: "no." If you want to roast "very good espresso," you will, in fact, have to devote a significant part of your leisure time to it over months and years. It is no coincidence that some of the most proficient home roasters on this forum are retired or semi-retired.

The most likely scenario is that, after several months of effort, you will convince yourself you are roasting very good espresso, because it is better than the truly awful results you started with. Then, you will have an opportunity to have a "very good espresso" somewhere else, and you will know how far you still have to go.