Really nice looking roaster. I noted that it uses a perforated drum, didn't see how one controls airflow, and I wonder if they have factory spots for thermocouples.

Thanks,
Terence

At first glance, it looks like a quality product, but I didn't see many options for thermocouple placement or even a bean tryer.

It looks it shares some parts with the to the Solar from Coffee-Tech, it just looks like a cheaper striped down version.
And since both are fully automated it would not surprise me if there is some kind of cooperation going on.

Hello friends,

Being a part of Coffee-Tech I take care in usually not posting anything since I'm afraid anything I'd add would be conceived as a sales-pitch of some sort.
In this specific case I'll break my own rules, and this is the reason why:

This Italian company has simply stolen our Solar's software and embedded it in a "new" machine of his own.
The person was once a distributor of ours in Italy and, us being naive and trustworthy at the time, we gave him the Solar's software codes which we designed ourselves after years of R&D.
For several reasons we decided never to sue him or something of the sort - just simply let him live with himself and the dishonest deeds that he has done.

Anyone is more than welcome to pass on this accusation of mine to the person and we'll be more than happy to see him in court as the saying goes.

We would have nothing against anyone who decides to buy a roaster from him; that would have nothing to do with the fact that he stole from us an idea, code and design.

That's very unfortunate. But I appreciate you sharing, I think buyers deserve to have as much information as possible.

Another very fascinating entry to home roasting in larger scale, with a gas powered, drum roaster is an all USA built and sourced 1 pound sample roaster from Roaster Dynamics out of Florida. It's called the Tech-tisian RD-1. Watlow controller, dual pressure gauges, automatic ignition, lot's of features running on a standard household 110V for the drum motor, available in either propane or natural gas. It has a few versions, a basic unit, one capable of data logging, and one capable of profiling. It looks very similar to the USRC Sample Roaster. I don't know about pricing, but I have a call into the manufacturer. When I get some more info on it, I'll update the index.

TomC wrote:Another very fascinating entry to home roasting in larger scale, with a gas powered, drum roaster is an all USA built and sourced 1 pound sample roaster from Roaster Dynamics out of Florida... It looks very similar to the USRC Sample Roaster...

It does look similar in a lot of ways. But their website shows some important differences.

It appears that RD does the TCs and telemetry in general more elegantly than USRC. The USRC Sample Roaster is essentially a full manual; TCs although installed neatly, are obviously a design afterthought.

USRC's standard hardware datalogger option and datalogging software USRC are not realtime. I ordered two additional TCs, an external Omega datalogger and went to the great expense of downloading Artisan.

On the other hand, the RD comes standard with realtime BT and ET logging hard and software.

USRC has a PLC option, I have no idea what it looks like or how it works. In conrast it appears the RD was designed from scratch with their Profiling Lite computer (burner) control in mind.

The USRC Sample Roaster requires considerably less bench space than the RD, but needs access to the front and both sides. It appears the RD can be operated entirely from the front.

The ability to sample small charges in order make decisions about buying, best finish, and how to handle the various stages of profiling is a big (perhaps the biggest and best) reason to buy a sample roaster (note name). The USRC can roast a sampling charge as low as 100g, but requires close to 200g for sufficient bean mass to report BT temps accurately (actually damn good; my HT wasn't any better). Don't know what the RD can do, but would like to.

My guess is that the RD Logging version is priced a couple of thousand more than the USRC, and the Profiing version a couple of grand more than that. Wanna bet?

BDL

boar_d_laze wrote: My guess is that the RD Logging version is priced a couple of thousand more than the USRC, and the Profiing version a couple of grand more than that. Wanna bet?

BDL

Yep, I'm pretty certain they are going to be pricey. I wouldn't bet against that.

boar_d_laze wrote:My guess is that the RD Logging version is priced a couple of thousand more than the USRC, and the Profiing version a couple of grand more than that. Wanna bet?

This is true. From a few price enquiries, most manufacturers add a thousand or two for data logging, which many of us here do for around $200 (digital thermometer with USB plus thermocouples) , and a few test drill holes.

The gas PID profiling option of a thousand or two is less inflated than data logging, as the hardware alone is about $500 (PID + modulating valve plus electronic driver) Could reach twice that much for top brands. Add similar amount for fail-safe ignition circuit and alarms. That leaves another $1000 for in-house built software to display all sorts of data.

But they are mostly catering to buyers of their 15+ kg roasters, where an extra $2-$4k is not double the price of the 1kg roaster, as is the case for home roasters.

For those who prefer DIY, it's better to get a full manual roaster, and add the profiling yourself for a fraction of the price.

A bit of reminiscing. I'm seeing some significant price increases across several known brands of roasters on the market. It's almost sad to look back at links that are only 2 years old, to find that the prices are now almost $3000 higher