The Ikawa Home Roaster arrived a day early! I'm happy to answer direct questions, but I'm really hoping that several of the other HB members who also pre-ordered will chime in and share their experiences and learnings!

Key takeaways:

Really impressed with the initial unboxing and first roast...

+ Very svelte to look at in-person, feels like a posh consumer appliance
+ Instructions are incredibly easy to follow
+ Roaster is pleasantly quiet
+ No major fit and finish issues (minor scuff that will probably clean off)
+ Profile system was a breeze to navigate - literally push the button and watch the machine do its thing
+ Coffee is very fragrant and flavorful (it's also 5 minutes rested, so I can imagine the beans will develop more over the next few days)
+ Lightweight and portable

Only downside thus far is the unexpected customs bill, but I'll chalk that up to my own learning curve.

Interesting side-note:

- Despite my Monolith Max being dialed into my Blue Bottle dripper for a 2:30 pourover, the coffee ultimately extracted in 2:00. Not sure if that's due to the freshness of the beans, or the beans simply having a different dial-in

Edit: There's a lot of high quality information in the original launch announcement thread ==> New Ikawa Home Roaster - 100g capacity

Packaging


Initial Unboxing


High Level Contents


Setup + Instructions (incredibly easy to follow)


Initially tried Ethiopia Dumerso



Poured beans into doser


Rotate doser which places beans into chamber


This roast took ~8 minutes. Chaff collection, then swap jars to collect roasted beans.

Nice initial review - look forward to hearing more. I am in Canada and would love one of these however the customs fees are not ideal at all.

Congrats on the roaster! I have a Max and I only use the blue bottle dripper for pour overs but I found out that MAX SLM doesn't play nice with this dripper.
I have some questions
1- I want to roast with a click of a button (I don't plan on learning how to roast) is there multiple profiles to choose from? - I'll order their green coffees just for this reason
2- Any dark roast profiles available? I enjoy dark roasts the most.
3- how's the body? (I would wait up to 10 days post roast to judge tho).

Thanks for doing this and will be waiting for more detailed reviews.

Congratulations on the early delivery! My fingers are crossed for delivery tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. I'll be roasting up some first thing!

Congrats, just waiting for mine. can I ask what country your are in and what the customs bill was. Worried it will be super high. What do you think of the App, do you feel you need the advance features that were removed?

greentobrown wrote:Congrats, just waiting for mine. can I ask what country your are in and what the customs bill was. Worried it will be super high.

My fees were $68.19, and I'm in the US. I also added a link to my post referencing the original launch thread. There's a lot of high quality information in that discussion.

greentobrown wrote:What do you think of the App, do you feel you need the advance features that were removed?

I'm a newbie to home roasting - looking forward to hearing from seasoned vets who purchased to weigh in. That said, I would not have purchased this roaster unless Ikawa grandfathered me into the Advanced Editor.

Auctor wrote:That said, I would not have purchased this roaster unless Ikawa grandfathered me into the Advanced Editor.

Grandfathered in? So you owned the 50g roaster prior to this purchase?

Ad-85 wrote: 1- I want to roast with a click of a button (I don't plan on learning how to roast) is there multiple profiles to choose from? - I'll order their green coffees just for this reason

Definitely. I got a little excited on my first roast so I didn't full explore this yet, but there are multiple profiles for a given bean, including different filter and espresso profiles, ranging from light to med/dark. Assuming you're using one of their beans and profiles, it's literally single-button operation.

RyanP wrote:Grandfathered in? So you owned the 50g roaster prior to this purchase?

No, but they originally said that anyone who created a profile prior to Nov 1 would get access to the Advanced Editor. They later changed their disclaimers to eliminate this language.

Auctor wrote: No, but they originally said that anyone who created a profile prior to Nov 1 would get access to the Advanced Editor. They later changed their disclaimers to eliminate this language.

Oh interesting, so you asked them and they said they'd allow you to keep access to the Adv Editor? I ordered early, as well, and noticed on the app that I have access to the editor, but figured it'd become restricted once I start using the roaster.

One thing I've noticed from the pictures is the Home roaster seemingly does not include the felt disc that is included with the Pro roaster. The disc is meant to go in the bottom of the roast chamber and prevent liquids from getting into the louvres should you use some sort of cleaning fluid. In practice, this was never an issue for me with the Pro but it was good for the peace of mind. I've sent an email to Ikawa to inquire about this and hopefully they'll make it available for purchase for those that want it.

Also, I plan to purchase my own Pelican case for storage and have custom foam made for the roaster. That said, the teardrop shape of the roaster presents a little bit of a challenge in terms of having the roaster body sit level in a case. Definitely not a requirement and more my obsession with small details but I'll be speaking with a custom case company in the next week or so. If anyone here has some experience with this sort of thing, that would be great too!