another_jim wrote:Using the heatgun with an open bowl and manually stirring is an artisanal method that takes about two years practice to get great roasts.

I have some trivial quibbles (but at least they're vague)
1. This forum could turn brushing one's teeth into an artisanal enterprise.
2. I'd put HG/hand stirring at 2 yrs if one is starting from scratch with home roasting. You can subtract up to 23.5 months from that----depending on prior roasting experience, HB reading, and enough cupping discrimination to taste what you are roasting.
3. Bread machine/heatgun is promising, but has a disadvantage of being weighty, unsightly, and cumbersome--requiring dedicated space. HG/DB + stick fits under the sink.
4. I'd still love to buy a gorgeous SS PID'd, LED'd, Programmable, big-boy roaster if I thought I could learn how to use it right in a mere two years.

I ♥ my PID iRoast.

Just sayin'....

Ooops! I really did not want to offend anyone.
I actually praised poeple that achieve great result with the heat gun method. It is true that in a well put together setup with a bread maker that provide stirring, the experience could be a lot less labour intensive and probably easier to achieve good results. This is just a guess, having only tried the handheld in a dog bowl (literally!!) method.
Still it is my firm belief that an instrumented drum roaster with air flow control, is the set up that provides the best flexibility and ability to reproduce results.
Do not get me wrong. I still have my instrumented P1 pop corn popper that I can control for great results. At least the results are great for me. I still prefer to roast in a drum. The experience is more pleasant and the results are better to my taste buds.
On the other hand, I do acknowledge that to get a good performance drum roaster, the cost can get high compared to a home built HG/BM setup.

Here are my lessons learned (feel free to disagree and post your own lessons learned):
You get what you pay for.
The less you pay, the more you have to work at it to get the same result. This is true for; building the setup, preparing and doing the actual roasting and the number of roast batches to get the same roasted coffee quantity.
The bigger the batch the more forgiving the roaster is.
If you consume a lot of coffee, and are enthusiastic about roasting, a 100g roaster will just not cut it and you will outgrow it in very little time.
For drum roasting, electric roasting can achieve the same result as gas (liquid propane or natural gas) roasters but this is not easy to achieve. Similar to stove top cooking, gas can provides a very fast and precise control of the heat input. In my limited experience, the only electrical technology that can come close to gas is halogen heating and a very big amperage circuit.
Finally, the roaster is only a means to "cook the beans". It is more about the ingredients and the cook than it is about the machine that provide the heat. But there are a few machines that are just more pleasant to work with.
When I got my Toper drum roaster, I thought that I had made a huge and very expensive mistake. The roast results were awful compared to the P1 that cost a tiny fraction of the price. I was devastated. For a few months I kept on going back and forth between the P1 and the Toper. I just could not let the Toper sit there after the amount of money that I sank into it...
And then a miracle happened! I finally got the hang of it. The batches were starting to come out nice and I could control the roast. Now the P1 is on the side lines and I only use it for small batches.
All this to say that no matter the method used one can do well. It up to oneself to decide/find the best way to roast for oneself.

I like my HotTop. I have the old original D model from 5 or so years ago. I upgraded the electronics to the B version a couple months ago and really like the control I have. I added a bean mass TC So I can see what is going on real time. You can save 3 custom programs and you can modify those programs on the fly. I usually run no less than 150 grams and when doing coffee for drip I run 250 gram loads. Compact, full control over the roast and solid built. I have thousands of roasts on my machine and the only thing I have ever replaced was the filter in the back.

I've been roasting for 12 years or more. It's been a on again / off again relationship. I started with the modified air popper. Then, after a while did the dreadful Alpenrost deal. After that mechanical mess I went to a stove top manual turn popcorn popper on the grill. Went through several of those.

Last one has been a Behmor. It's really not bad but wished it were totally manual. I saw en earlier post on doing that but I'm not smart enough to figure that out without ALOT of details.

For me roasting is not really therapeutic it's a means to an end. I don't mind sitting through a roast but I dont really want to sit through 3 roasts. I go through about a pound a week of coffee so these small batch roasters are like a job.

Guess the bread machine/ air gun deal might be worth trying if folks are getting good results on 3/4 to 1 lb batches. I read a on of posts on this but can't really see two deals

1). How do you mate the air gun nozzle to the top of the bread machine in a fixed position?

2). Any way to automate the trigger to a switch style? I don't own one of these but would think this would grow old squeezing a trigger for a while

Brian

Brian,

If the BM has a viewing window on top, it's very simple to remove the glass and stick the HG in. The HG will sit in there quite nicely w/o any additional support really. It doesn't need to be perfectly sealed for maintaining temps either. Most HG's have a switch. You shouldn't have to worry about holding the trigger. FWIW - I use a Porter Cable brand gun and it has a switch with a hi/lo setting. It also has a power dial on the side which is very helpful for adjusting roast speed. A router speed controller can do the same thing for a cheaper gun.

cheers,
~j

Bkeef wrote: ((1))For me roasting is not really therapeutic it's a means to an end. I don't mind sitting through a roast but I dont really want to sit through 3 roasts. . . . .
((2))Guess the bread machine/ air gun deal might be worth trying

#1. Somehow HG/Dogbowl roasting has gotten tagged with "artisanal," "zen," and has morphed into therapy. I find it satisfying, but I can't say that it does more for my soul or psyche than would using a plug-and-play roaster. There's no magic involved that lets one get by with more or less knowledge and inspiration than any other form of roasting. Now let's add a big IMO because I haven't tried most other forms. But let me ask (Bkeef) how long are you willing to "sit through" a roast?

In my experience, starting at roughly 8 ounces, increasing the batch size of HG roasts adds about a minute per ounce per roast. 10 oz is my sweet point for 9 to 11-minute roasts, generally targeted to start of but not into 2nd c. and following color and smoke cues. I can focus, think about stuff, for that amount of time. A 16 oz roast takes about 16+ minutes. That gets too tedious. Also, I have slightly less control at the larger sizes, and I've never been able say that my roasts benefited with the extra time. In sum, 20 oz in 2 roasts or 16 oz in one roast.

My routine is to do 3 or 4 10oz roasts every 2-3 weeks +/-. I vac seal and freeze. Elapsed time for the whole process netting 2 lbs is about 1hr 15 minutes including set up, weighing, freezing, etc. I haven't seen comparable start-finish times posted for many other methods, but this seems to be in the ballpark. Also, most people agree that they give their roast their full attention, so "hands free" doesn't mean you can go read a magazine.

#2 I'd suggest you start with a Heatgun. The Porter Cable that I tried puts out the highest and loudest air volume available and having tried it I'd recommend the hotter and more controllable Makita 1100. I've only given the Bread Machine a few tries but it seems that it adds layers of complexity with no discernible added value.-- unless, of course, you are committed to a permanent set-up and aspire to thermometric roasting and logging. But that doesn't seem consistent with "means to an end." Also, I really question whether the mass of the BM body adds a worthwhile thermal mass for temp stability beyond a double-walled bowl. I wouldn't trade off the mass for the completely visible view of the beans. If you are confident about the returns obtainable from a higher-tech and more passive set-up, you can add the BM.

Martin wrote:#1. But let me ask (Bkeef) how long are you willing to "sit through" a roast?

.

Id give it about 20-25 minutes of time..

Ideally my better roasts are around 15 minutes give or take

On the Behmor with 220grs I am starring at about 18 minutes to get mildly into the second crack, which I think is a little too long.

I like farmroasts roaster
I remember when he first posted the build details I was working on a similar design myself

I have built similar roaster to Ed's
Many people liked my design idea so much that they built there own roaster
That left the NON DIY folks emailing me every day for build help so a kit was developed
It ticks all the boxes of the OP without a high price tag
I hope posting a link is OK with the mods - http://koffeekosmo.com.au/

KK