Bob_McBob wrote:Obviously I'm not factoring in time costs, since I don't really consider sitting on my ass and monitoring a roast much different from the sitting on my ass I'd normally be doing

Don't forget the time spent learning how to roast with your Hottop. This can be interpreted as "I enjoy the time spent in this process - it is priceless, and I don't assign value due to the enjoyment that I derive", or "my time is worthless."

Learning how to "toast" or "smoke" beans in any given device is easy. Learning how to use your roasting device to its maximum potential in order to produce results that consistently approach, if not match, those of commercial roasters (and furthermore, to be able to discern those differences), is HARD.

You're learning how the device reacts to a given bean (and, if you're using different beans, you're hopefully learning how different beans react to the given device).

-s.

Michael Goldsholl: listen to what these guys are saying, they do know what they're talking about.

Roasting for flavor, and not just browning the greens, is anything but trivial; and home devices don't make it any easier. IMHO, the Hottop-B is the best available home device. If you have that, stick with it and you'll eventually roast as good or better than the bank-turned-roaster near you; you'll be roasting to the taste of one customer: you!

I'll repeat, roasting on home devices is tough, it takes time & experience and it takes lots of bad cups. You'll have to keep notes, keep trying with the same bean, mod your roaster, search the internet for info that isn't there and read (and try!) almost every roasting advice/tip you can get your eyes on.

Maybe home roasting isn't for you?

. . . . but if it is for you, and if you get there, you'll have alot more fun and variety of good coffee than if you continue buying from "professional" roasters; and you'll feel damn good about it too!

This thread is SOOOOOOOO tempting and might I say, delicious

I'm going to have to sit on the sidelines and follow the advice a former neighbor once gave me; sometimes you just have to step back and watch it happen . . . . .

ken

Ken Fox wrote:This thread is SOOOOOOOO tempting and might I say, delicious I'm going to have to sit on the sidelines and follow the advice a former neighbor once gave me; sometimes you just have to step back and watch it happen . . . . .

When I began writing my reply I first thought, "Huh. I wonder why Ken didn't beat me to it...?" and after I wrote it I thought, "Huh. That sounds almost like something Ken would write," and when I received a message from the board op I thought, "Huh. That must be like the messages Ken gets." It made me proud to be here..

And to add injury to insult, I had to edit before posting because:
"Your message contains too many smilies. The maximum number of smilies allowed is 3."

Ken Fox wrote:I'm going to have to sit on the sidelines and follow the advice a former neighbor once gave me; sometimes you just have to step back and watch it happen . . . . .

Ken, I have a hunch that is exactly what the OP is doing, while laughing of course.

In my impetuousness to state my point i didn't recognize the potential for both bandwagon and controversy posts to occur, especially in such numbers. Being my first post i must thank the responders and clearly would like to clarify my stance and in addition lay praise to those who have spend and invested great amounts of time perfecting their individual skills.

Do i think home roasters are wasting their time. Certainly not. Do i think home roaster can equal and surpass the threshold of a professional roaster? Sure why not.

But to reemphasize my point with an inference on the generality of bogus design is a must. I remember when i was a kid the Betty Crocker Easy Bake oven. Was it an oven? Certainly. Did it bake absolutely? What is nothing more than a piece of crap with a light bulb to make the cookies? Most definitely !

And so the beautiful Hot Top top of the line $900.00 roaster is an electric heater that turns beans to a pop. Ironically so does a presto popped corn maker. The difference is that the presto, one i purchased for $8.00 at the 2nd hand store.

Is it inconvenient? Absolutely. Clumpy? Certainly. Will you burn yourself? No doubt about it.
But will it at the end deliver the exact same product if temperatures can be manipulated and re regulated by means of a rheostat and other electronic configurations allowing the presto maker to slow cook. A definite yes.

Point being until you move to either an outdoor barbecue pit cylinder or machine that runs on fuel that combines a slow heat process and with that the natural smoke that comes with such a roaster, you are roasting beans that will not have the same potential nor beans which oils will be extracted to the same degree.

So when i look at the elaborate home electric roasting designs i try to look at the big picture and personally i'm glad i learned from my experience that had i paid almost a thousand dollars for a hot top that i would have had a roaster thats not going to achieve in quality what it soars in appearance.


Michael Goldsholl

Most "professionally roasted" coffee is mediocre, and some of it is truly awful. A small percentage is very good or excellent.

Most coffee roasting devices sold to home users are very limited in their capabilities, especially in an unmodified configuration. This is true because the selling prices need to be low enough to attract buyers, due to the desire on the part of manufacturers to limit the liability of themselves and their resellers, and because most buyers of such devices don't have the knowledge nor taste to tell the difference between a roast product that is "drinkable" and one that is exceptional.

Most home roasters appear to believe that their results from home roasting are very good or excellent, when in fact most are highly variable (with the average roast probably not much better than "drinkable,") some are horrid, and a few are of high end professional quality. The results individuals will get will depend in part upon the green coffee they buy, the actual equipment they use, their experience level, and how much effort they put into the process.

I think a lot of home roasters, perhaps the majority of them, would have better coffee to drink if they bought it already roasted. You could change this sentence around and make the subject amateur photographers, and no one would argue with this result: "Most amateur photographers take worse snapshots than the postcards or picture book photos they could buy, even if they think their snapshots are terrific." So, the idea expressed is far from profound.

None of this says a thing about whether or not any given individual should home roast or not. Hobbies are like that.

ken

Ken sums it up perfectly for me. Much of what I currently roast is drinkable, but needs work. Some (oh that ophiolite) is some of the best coffee I've ever had.

Home roasting isn't easy. But neither is grilling a steak properly. Took me 10 years to really get the steak down, I figure I have another 8 to go on home roasting.

But I am enjoying it. I might even be saving money. And even my mistakes (which get turned into drip) get real compliments along the lines of "where can I buy that delicious coffee?". Granted they say that because they are comparing it to Suxbux and other dreck, but still, it makes me feel like one day I'll be consistently good.

And currently, its NOT my hottop that is holding me back, its my own skills and knowledge. I think before the roaster matters, the person doing the roasting has to be pretty decent - for most that's going to be the limiting variable.

goldsholl wrote:Point being until you move to either an outdoor barbecue pit cylinder or machine that runs on fuel that combines a slow heat process and with that the natural smoke that comes with such a roaster, you are roasting beans that will not have the same potential nor beans which oils will be extracted to the same degree.

So when I look at the elaborate home electric roasting designs i try to look at the big picture and personally i'm glad i learned from my experience that had i paid almost a thousand dollars for a hot top that i would have had a roaster thats not going to achieve in quality what it soars in appearance.

Would you please elaborate what you level of experience is (in years), and where you learned about the intricacies of coffee roasting. Up to this point, using (both) your posts in this forum, it appears that you are either a total novice when it comes to coffee roasting or you are a troll. If the former we can help if you ask instead of tell us about roasting. If the later please let us know so we can filter accordingly.

I will tell you upfront that I was the first person to post a review of the Hottop roaster (in the world as far as I know), I received the first pre-production model in the US (with the possible exception of one other person who worked with Cheng Yue during the design and prototype phase) and still do work for them. I mention this because while working the Hottop at the SCAA shows I have sold the Hottop KN-8828B to around two dozen small coffee growers and small roasteries around the world who are using them as sample roasters. To my knowledge, none of them have the complaints or problems with the Hottop that you seem to perceive as indicated in your posts.

You mention the KN-8828P (the $900 model) and while it is a quality machine capable of producing excellent coffee, it is not the model I would recommend to folks who are serious about coffee roasting. But then again, if you like the taste of smoke in your roasted coffee does it really matter?

A BBQ drum roaster is more than capable of making very bad coffee if the person operating it does not understand the roasting process. Even a simple tool like a hammer will fail to achieve satisfactory performance if given to a chimp and used to drive in screws. Knowledge of the device, knowledge of the process, and experience do count in all cases.

As charlesaf3 stated, it takes time to LEARN the process. If you had poor results from the Hottop you are really going to have difficulties with the BBQ drum. I would suggest having a fire extinguisher handy and that you learn something about the combustion process and flash-over before beginning or you will be in jeopardy of losing your eyebrows. I have been home roasting for 9 years, and am still learning- a LOT. And as Ken stated, sure, there are roasters who can produce a better product than I can, but if you think that a BBQ drum will solve the perceived problems in home roasting that you have mentioned then you are living in a fool's paradise and will be disappointed.

Very well said Ken. As a home roaster those statements were hard to hear, but I've recently switched to almost exclusively commercial roasts and my espresso is finally consistently good. I still really like my home roasts for brewed coffee, but for espresso I couldn't get things just right. At least not to a level I wanted. I probably could, but frankly with a little girl I can't spend that much time in the garage.

Its a point that Marshall Fuss opines as well.

Frankly you guys are right, if I hadn't have spent so much time home roasting I would have become better at making espresso much faster. My roasts were my worst enemy.