Without thinking about what I've gotten myself into (on purpose this time), I ordered 10lbs of greens to roast and gift for Christmas this year. My current plan is to roast roughly 18, 250g batches across two days. This way there's a chance to do a little cleaning/maintenance on the Quest somewhere in the middle. Last year I did a mix of oven and skillet roasting which could have gone better so this year, before the greens arrived, I wanted to see if anyone had any words of warning, tips, or suggestions for me.

Goodness, that's a pretty aggressive schedule. Hope your home venting will be sufficient. Considering that it's 18 roasts, each roast lasting ~15min, that's 270 minutes... 4 1/2 hours just for roasting. Adding in time for packaging, I don't envy your task.

Good luck, and I hope that the recipients have some appreciation for the amount of effort that you're expending.

That's certainly on-par with last year.

I know of one person who will appreciate the effort. She gets the Kenya Nyeri Ngunguru.

Sherman wrote:Goodness, that's a pretty aggressive schedule. Hope your home venting will be sufficient. Considering that it's 18 roasts, each roast lasting ~15min, that's 270 minutes... 4 1/2 hours just for roasting. Adding in time for packaging, I don't envy your task.

Good luck, and I hope that the recipients have some appreciation for the amount of effort that you're expending.

That's an average day for me!

Hopefully you're doing more than 250g at a time Marshall, otherwise I would say its time to upgrade!

I was going to buy a Quest but decided to make my own 2kg roaster , have it done now and roasting well. best part is I can get thru 10# in 1 hour or less
here is a picture working but not complete have to "pretty it up" either stainless or copper skin then powder coat the other parts.

Had a mini-marathon last night and plan on another tonight to finish up the Christmas roasting. Did three pounds of Kona from Lion's gate to FC and then two pounds of an espresso blend with Brazil Morenihina Farmosa, DP Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and El Salvador Finca Matalapa Peaberry. Roasted the Brazil to FC and the Ethiopian and El Salvadorian to FC+.

Overall I am pretty happy with the results. No tipping or scorching on the Kona or Brazilian and was still able to finish the batches at around 13-14 minutes.

No need to pretty it up, Bill. You can just deliver it to me as-is.

Sounds like there isn't anything too special I need to know that isn't already common sense. Greens arrive Wed. which leaves the roasting to Thursday morning and all day Friday. I'll post back with any relevant thoughts when I've finished.

Well, I was going to post on how things went and what I learned in the process, but I never got the box. UPS claims to have delivered to my porch, so I assume it got stolen.

Pretty unlikely that the thief has any clue on what to do with green coffee. So I've that small satisfaction.