Looks like fun. Two minute video. Edit: older video no longer available

I kind of liked it at first glance but it looks to be the guts of a Nostalgia going by the chamber. Nothing wrong with that of course, as the little popper that led me down the road to an ever depleting retirement account. This will be a much better learning tool for someone looking to try roasting without the manipulations required by the Nostalgia's off-on control. If it is a modified Nostalgia I'd easily recommend it over the little Nesco roaster from a couple years ago. At almost 10 years old my Nostalgia is still going strong though I repurposed it for only popcorn.

I just saw this as well. I haven't roasted in years, but I think I will try this out!

It's like the dream popper -- cheap, with variable heat, and a hi/lo on the fan, so the beans actually move at the start, and don't fly around at the end.

Caveat from someone who's actually used P1s for years -- you'll need another $50 to get to good roasts: a TC for the beans to profile the heat, and an external cooling/chaff removal rig.

I think this will sell well. I took my old popper and Behmor to a SF coffee convention to demo in the parking lot and everyone wanted to see me roast on the popper, which I had hooked to a Variac. Agree about the external bean cooler, though I guess this one is supposed to be able to blow cool air to cool the beans. I always used an external cooler and also used a shop vac pushed through a plastic lid to pull the heat out of the popper when done so the electronics didn't bake from residual heat, never had a popper failure.

I bought one to use for sample roasting.

Have been thinking about a popper style machine for a couple years as very small batches are a PITA on my Huky.

Sticking points have always been fan speed and temp variability as I wasn't stoked about my original popper roasts. I know folks hack them all the time but I didn't want another hacked up device in my home so hoping this plug and play unit will be adequate.

Let us know how it works for you.

Something I don't need but really want, just to try.

I'd be interested if someone compared this to the Fresh Roast SR540. Which is the roaster I periodically look at online, only to not buy it (yet).

pcofftenyo wrote:I bought one to use for sample roasting.

Have been thinking about a popper style machine for a couple years as very small batches are a PITA on my Huky.

Sticking points have always been fan speed and temp variability as I wasn't stoked about my original popper roasts. I know folks hack them all the time but I didn't want another hacked up device in my home so hoping this plug and play unit will be adequate.

Tried to build a professional sample roaster starting from a popper and abandoned.
The hardware isn't simply stable enough, for the precision required by a sampler job. I suspect speed variations of the fan.
Two successive roasts of same coffee, with same profiles, and thermal status of the machine, renders to different degrees of roast and flavors.
So no conclusion can be taken about the approach on the production machine.
The circular agitation, without any vertical movement in the dry phase, also don't help to get the uniformity I expect from a sampler.
Ikawa has different air slots design, producing a vortex with a string lift component.

"... strong lift..."