I'm going to repeat what I said more bluntly. You are using shoestring budget roasting and espresso gear, and while that doesn't make good espresso impossible, it does set limits on what will work. By all means go beyond these limits to experiment; but if you want tasty shots while starting out, stay within them.

I've used upward poppers without problems. The knock on them is that they can set fire to the chaff. This can only happen if the roaster is overloaded, and it's not a big deal since the chaff is too light to be a fire hazard. Many commercial air roasters blow straight up, and the designers and buyers would be quite surprised to learn that their roasters don't work.

Again, the key to using poppers or air roasters without temperature controls is really simple. Ignore the mostly exaggerated weight they tell you to use, and find the weight that gives you an 8 to 9 minute roasting time to the 2nd crack. Stick with that weight you'll get acceptable roast. This is not my opinion, but Michael Sivetz's, who invented air roasting, and who still builds constant temperature air roasters that finish roasts in 8 to 9 minutes. Some of his ideas are out there, but he does know something about air roasting.

In most poppers, this usually means the beans are moving lazily, but steadily, and without needing to be stirred, early in the roast.

My opinion is that very light roasts are mostly problematic on poppers or air roasters without temperature controls. They tend to taste grassy since the beans don't have time to dry properly early in the roast. My advice is to initially roast to the beginning of a steady second crack, and go lighter and darker from there depending on taste.

Dry processed coffees from Ethiopia, Yemen and Brazil are by far the most forgivinig for low end roasters and espresso gear. You're welcome to try other beans, but if you want something tasty at the outset, use these alone or as the main ingredients in blends. You can also add robustas and darker roasts of Indonesian beans without going over the limit. You want to avoid Centrals or washed East African beans since acidic coffees don't do well on low end equipment.

Hmmmm, based on my reading throughout this thread I am indeed an optimistic doofus! Just got my SM's Whirlypop coffee "roaster" in the mail .......eeeek!

Haven't had a chance to try it yet but it sounds like I don't have the proverbial snowball's! Particularly as I was intending to roast for espresso.

Ted

Home roasters, be they thrift-store repurposed devices or HRiBs (HomeRoaster in a Box, AKA Behmor, GeneCafe or HotTop) seem to operate on a similar principle of progression to that of consumer espresso machines; that is, fancier or more expensive equipment isn't going to guarantee great results; it just widens the margin of error for success.

It'll take a lot more time to produce a "good" result with with a popper / heatgun / SC-TO than it will with a HRiB, even when taking into account the crema-colored lens* of experience. Even then, it'll take yet more time to produce consistently "good" results with low-end kit. It comes down to a personal decision of how much value you place upon your own time and how you'd like to spend that time.

Do you enjoy geeking out over roasting/learning about coffee, and are you willing to put in the "wrench time" to learn how your roasting setup works, or would you prefer the convenience of push-button profiles?

-s.

*Yes, your tastes will change. Those first few 20-minutes-to-1C-for-one-pound espresso roasts may taste wonderful. Those same roasts, after a year's worth of experience, may be immediately used for seasoning your grinder burrs.

Can someone please clue me in on why roasting for espresso is said to be harder than roasting for other grinds? I don't understand why this would be the case. I have SM's Espresso Sampler which I will be having a crack at in my whirlypop this weekend.
Cheers, Ted.

bigredted wrote:Can someone please clue me in on why roasting for espresso is said to be harder than roasting for other grinds? I don't understand why this would be the case.

Roasting is an art with many nuances that can be quite subtle. There is nothing "hard" about roasting coffee, it is a simple process....the hard part is getting really good at it. I might liken it to bowling. Most people can have fun and get reasonable results with just a little practice, but you can spend a lifetime developing and refining your technique and you may never bowl a perfect game.

Very few home roasters I know can compete with the better artisan professionals out there (but also very few of the commercial roasters can compete with those same artisans)


Espresso is an intense process that produces an intense beverage. Subtle nuances can be greatly magnified when brewing espresso, and so espresso is especially sensitive to bean type(s) and roast process.

When I started home roasting it was specifically for espresso. As my tastes developed so did my roasting technique. In the beginning I was ecstatic just to roast my own and thn watch the shots develop with amazing crema and body. I still enjoy those aspects but I have become much more particular about the taste of the espresso.

In my view, it is a journey that can be fun and rewarding. At this stage inmy development I feel like it's important for me to regularly sample some of the finer artisan offerings out there to calibrate and judge my own roasts...but that need has developed over time.

Does that make sense?

bigredted wrote:Can someone please clue me in on why roasting for espresso is said to be harder than roasting for other grinds? I don't understand why this would be the case. I have SM's Espresso Sampler which I will be having a crack at in my whirlypop this weekend.

From my experience, roasting for espresso has a narrower window of "acceptable" quality vs. roasting for drip. I recently experimented with a Sulawesi; roast A was stopped just past the end of 1C, and roast B stopped just as I heard the first snaps of 2C. In my vacpot, both were tasty albeit with different notes being highlighted. As espresso, roast A was cringe-worthy, but roast B was drinkable, and even gave me some ideas for blending.

-s.