The super TL;DR version:

dsc106 wrote: The thing is, I *don't* want to roast.

Then don't.

The TL;DR version:

dsc106 wrote: The thing is, I *don't* want to roast. In fact, I want to *not* roast. But I'll tell you what I do want, I do want to pay 40% of the price for coffee that is as good or better than the best, with almost zero effort. I want to put green beans into a smart digital machine and hit the "make it awesome" button.

You won't save money and/or it won't be that low of effort. You're asking the impossible. In fact, you're asking for the impossible to a degree that it's laughable.

I enjoy roasting and I saved money when i used my behmor. The behmor was a compromise in many ways and I'm much happier with my current roaster, but it will take hundreds of pounds of coffee (probably a decade for me) to have a chance of breaking even. In fact, if money saving is my goal, I should sell my roaster right now. Even if my roaster was free, I still spend more time picking out green coffees and learning from my past roasts than I would if i was buying roasted beans.

TallDan wrote:The super TL;DR version:
You're asking the impossible. In fact, you're asking for the impossible to a degree that it's laughable.

Yeah, that was the joke You better have laughed!

Peppersass wrote:I very seriously doubt that coffee roasting will ever be automated to the degree you suggest, even with AI far more advanced than we have now (and by then AIs will have replaced the human race anyway, and they won't be drinking coffee.)

Jesting/exaggerated/comedic posts aside, the degree I would hope for would be something where I could take my existing knowledge of coffee (a fair bit) and transplant that to roasting via about 10 hours of intense reading/learning, and be up to good results, and then with a year of roasting, be up to excellent results. But, it sounds like - at least in it's current state, perhaps forever state - roasting is a deep craft to pursue passionately with a lifetime of learning and finesse that will likely never require anything less than hundreds of hours to learn and practice.

Peppersass wrote:The Ikawa 100g Home attempts to automate the process, but it falls short of what you suggest. They supply you with greens and a profile that supposedly produces a great roast. But what's the difference between that and simply buying roasted coffee? In both cases, you're relying on what the vendor thinks is a great roast.

I love buying roasted coffee, and love relying on the vendor to provide what they think is a good roast - because then I can try coffees, and choose the vendor I agree with. If there multiple profiles to do the same with via home roasting, the point is there wouldn't be a difference - except $$ savings. Understanding basic mechanics so I could tweak and tinker (ie extend roast time, decrease roast time; increase heat, decrease heat; modify timing and curves and understand what the result in) would be a benefit to dialing things in.

Peppersass wrote:it's unlikely that home roasting will ever save you much money, if any.

TallDan wrote:if money saving is my goal, I should sell my roaster right now. Even if my roaster was free, I still spend more time picking out green coffees and learning from my past roasts than I would if i was buying roasted beans.

This is the real issue me... I would be viewing roasting as something to endure learning in order to save money, not as a joyous hobby to tinker with. So if in the end it would cost the same, for me, it defies the purpose.

I don't mind some up front time cost in learning, but the ongoing upkeep of "becoming a micro roaster" - fun for some, not what I'd want.

What I am hearing is, roasting your own coffee at home is not like learning to bake your own bread (relatively simple with a lot of cost savings). It is not like using a PID smoker to learn to smoke. It is more like becoming a cattle rancher and butcher in order to get your meat at wholesale.

dsc106 wrote:I can't imagine we're potentially more than a few years away from something like this.

I suggest not, otherwise there would be only one model automobile at the dealerships, and only one brand of toothpaste on the store shelves.

I've been quite pleased with the new Ikawa Home roaster, but for a different set of reasons than Ikawa's marcom, and other owners for that matter.

GDM528 wrote: I've been quite pleased with the new Ikawa Home roaster, but for a different set of reasons than Ikawa's marcom, and other owners for that matter.

If the performance is up to snuff, that looks pretty darn close to what I'm actually, tongue-OUT-of-cheek, suggesting/after.

It does seem like there's some very interesting movement in this market (and potentially promising developments in the coming years)

Watch the bellwether shop roaster model. If that works for good local production roast, dialed in by profile from afar, then home profile pasting may be realistic.

I love home roasting but I have a fairly broad like range for roasted coffee. If I lived near milstead &co on Seattle there would be no point to roasting my own. I could just go shopping once a month and stock up with fair confidence.

I have to wonder if home roasters that can't roast coffee they like often find their favorite pro roaster inconsistent. To learn that I may have to subscribe to GH or TW.

You are looking for a Stronghold roaster, but it's 20k + I believe. It has almost all the described features except for the cost saving.

My experience roasting has been about the same as Luca's upon till the Quest 3MS level.

I can get nice defect free roasts, but if I compare to Tim Wendelboe which I still buy it's pretty obvious there is a difference in quality to me.

It really depends on your reference for the micro roaster though. There's a lot of micro roasters I consider pretty bad and I can get better and more consistent results than some of them.

The really top micro roasters are hard to top/match though.

Yeah, for right now I really enjoy just grabbing coffees locally. I've started looking into this as more of a "seeing around the corner" interest. If quality micro roasters start charging $25 for a 250g bag - or more... $100/kg is going to be a bit much for coffee. Whereas, if I can spend $1000 up front + a few days of intense reading & learning to get very similar results in the cup @ $25/kg green beans... well, that's a big win.

Peaking about at the Ikawa and ROEST, these are both fairly new and promising. It does seem like a less over-the-top version of what I'm talking about may not be that terribly far fetched in the near future. If I loosened up expectations a bit to say, a $1500 machine and 40 hours of learning in 2025 - perhaps more attainable than not.

Dokkie wrote:You are looking for a Stronghold roaster, but it's 20k + I believe. It has almost all the described features except for the cost saving.

I'd love to see the smart digital tech downsized from 850g batches and high end industrial build to a more home friendly unit- seems like this is already (slowly) happening.

Dokkie wrote:My experience roasting has been about the same as Luca's upon till the Quest 3MS level.

Seems like a good way to circumvent a lot of the PIA work over years of trial & error would be to jump to a better, more advanced digital roaster - maybe one that doesn't quite exist just yet.

Dokkie wrote:The really top micro roasters are hard to top/match though.

Yeah, I suspect (jokes aside on being BEST IN THE WORLD) that closing the gap to the top few percent of roasters will always be an impossible feat. But I also suspect as coffee shortages grow and demand continues to trend up, purchasing those kinds of roasts will be *expensive* and diminishing returns. Surveying the longer term landscape, it may be prudent to wait a few years as the digital home smart roaster matures and offerings mature, maybe dip toes by reading a few roasting books (i.e. Scott Raos), and then settling into a "90/10" rule - getting home roasts to a "very good" level, and avoid the impending pricing spikes.

dsc106 wrote:And to be able to do it pretty hands off?

Unlikely!!!!!

You won't know until you try some from a Roest or Ikawa Pro and see for yourself? This isn't like me knowing my two hooligan cats will jump on the counter when their food comes out. You have to experience the results (coffee not cats) yourself. No amount of speculation in this thread will answer your question Ben so I suggest you hunt someone down in Portland that might be able to share with you.

Even then I am speculating you will still feel its a lot of work so please investigate the process if you taste samples. You will still have to buy beans, and store them. All cooking machines need maintenance and cleaning. Sounds like you might feel your time is better spent elsewhere.

Please come back and let us know what you think if you do try them.