I have been roasting with a Gene Café for a long time. I think I have the original model. It has been a dependable machine. Easy to roast 8 oz batches consistently. I rarely go past full city so not sure about dark roasts.
We’ve been using the Hot Top Roaster for at least 10 years. It’s a bit more expensive (I believe about $1200 now), but it is easy to work on, and they sell all of the parts. Our heating element failed about a year ago, and a non-electrical guy like me was able to tear down the machine, replace it, replace the control pad for an updated version, and completely clean out the machine in a day or 2. Hot Top has instructions and videos on most everything on their website. If you have any trouble, there are experts that you can talk to that will help you through it.
We buy our green coffee from Sweet Maria’s, and roast 3 or 4 batches every couple of weeks. Pretty easy to dial in your desired roast level…you can go as light, or dark as you want. It will take a few batches to start to dial it in, but if you catalog your roasts, you will be able to figure it out. Even if you don’t catalog, you can eyeball it through the glass panel on the front of the roaster. You will need to either roast outside, or have good ventilation to suck the smoke out and roast on your cooktop.
Not that there is anything wrong with the Hot Top, but I have always wanted the Dietrich home model, but have never had the $6 grand laying around to order it 
.
give Aillio a look. $2500 plus $215 to ship to US. I am pondering.
Wow…thanks for the heads up, I had not heard of this one. It looks like a sleek, modern Hot Top with a much larger capacity. You can roast a bit over 2 lbs at a time? The Hot Top is about 11-12 ounces max per roast. I have no reason to replace the Hot Top right now, but if I did I would definitely consider this.
Thanks all. Dan, I wanted to start relatively inexpensive so I went Behmor. If I ever want to step up in the future it looks like I will have plenty to consider.
I received the Behmor yesterday. I did a test roast on a 1/4 lb batch as suggested. It looks very uneven. Obviously there will be some learning curve and I will need to experiment once I have some more time, starting this weekend.
Totally agree, nice to see more people roasting! . We did the same, we went through a few other roasters for a few years, and they worked out fine as well.
There is little to zero chance of getting any adverse effects from home roasting. The exposure levels and exposure time are barely there in commercial roasters, and that level is crazy as it is. The exposure was something like 8 hours a day for 40 years to have an adverse effect. You have a better chance of dying from a car accident.
anecdotal, but I roasted often in our laundry room w window open but smelled considerable roasting gases, and had chronic cough that resolved when I moved to outdoor roasting. Sure, a pack of cigarettes daily is bad, but who is to say that one cigarette a day isn’t also bad. Why not minimize voluntary exposure–who knows what study will be out next year showing problems from less chronic exposure?
I’ve only done one roast. Did it on a little table in the doorway of my walkout basement, basically a landing at the bottom of about four stairs. Even so there was significant scent, so I will move it entirely outside next time. Alternatively I may run a fan to blow the scent out. I will certainly hear about if from my wife otherwise.
another advantage of outside roasting is quicker cooling by opening the door at the end, avoidance of “coasting” where the roast goes a bit beyond your intent.
Again that is sensational journalism. If you find the actual study, the cdc set their exposure level for “risk” for 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, for forty years. In addition the real ppm came from commercial grinding of the beans vs the roasting.
There is a reason no governmental agency has not acted on this “threat”.
Roasting has been coming along well. I have been happy to find that I can coax a range of nuanced fruit scents from the African greens I’ve been buying, and happy with the others I’ve tried as well. Fried one batch, undercooked another by trying to get cute with the “+” function, but mostly good results.
Also, I recall engaging in a discussion here a while back about resting coffee after roasting. I was surprised to find that some like to brew immediately after roast. I can now re-confirm that I prefer to brew a few days out after they’ve had time to lose some gas and some of the roasted flavors. The Ethiopian natural process coffee I roasted on the 3rd was still going strong today, and was much better than at two days out. It was the last of the batch too, so I’m sticking with timing for a three day rest and happy with what I’m finding.
with my Guats, I am finding them best about a week after roasting–glad you are doing so well with the process.
Thanks Alan, and thanks again for the tips. It is going well. The batch of Honduran beans I roasted on Sunday I think are just past where I like them, but it is hard to tell if they will still improve a bit. There is a dried quality that I don’t love, even if not overtly burnt. The Ethiopian from a week ago that I just finished killed though.
keep notes on weight, settings, and time so you can reproduce the great ones!
So I had an odd situation last weekend in which I think I managed to “rescue” a roast, something previously thought not to be possible. I guess I missed the warning button so the machine went into cool-down mode. I took the beans out , they were just short of first crack I think, and opened the machine to cool. By the time I got it to fire up again the beans were still warm so I put them back in, assuming that they wouldn’t roast properly and that I’d end up throwing them out, but wanted to see. Anyway, maybe 12 minutes or so later they finished and they seem great. It was really odd as I’d always been led to believe this was not a thing that could be done. Anyone else ever try this? Of course the takeaway in the future is that I need to pay more attention and not let the machine prematurely cool in the future.
Never had a batch stop before first crack. I have had roaster issues that resulted in significantly longer times between first and second crack and the body is noticeably impacted.
I rested the coffee from Sunday until today so today was my first cup with it, but it seemed completely fine, good even. It ended up a bit darker than I’d have taken it, but still very good. I was shocked. I would have bet anything I had to through it out.
did it once, results not good. Now if I miss a timer and it goes Err7 and I lose the roast, I throw it away and kick myself.