Hate to play 20 (or more) questions but....

[stevebythebay]

Coming at this from decades of experience: from pan to popcorn popper (with many odd stops in between) and finally Hottop. So...

I guess this comes down to asking why do you want to take on this challenge? Then you've got to start considering just where you're going to put the little beast (how much smoke can you, and possibly your neighbours, and smoke detector live with?). How much money and time are you willing to devote? Assuming you're still game then it's onto how large or really how small a batch size do you want? Are you picky about roasting technology (drum versus fluid bed)? Are your target roasts for a basic brew or are you after espresso? Yadda, etc., whatever....

So what I'm "asking" the prospective purchaser is something more akin to a session with Freud (OK, so I'm joking, but just a little).

One should not take on this adventure lightly. And though we're not looking into climbing Everest or going to the moon it's still not the process of investigating the purchase of a toaster!

I suppose it would be nice to build a little program that leads to the right answer, but this is a road with many paths and much learning. Mistakes made lead to learning, and that's why I personally chose the path to coffee nirvana via home roasting (pardon the zenshit).

[Sweet Maria's]

I like your thoughts on this, but could also go the opposite way with it. In other words, why not take Home Coffee Roasting VERY lightly, since you can actually do it with minimal investment ( a little time, mainly). Specifically, I refer to a thrift store popcorn popper for under $5 (or ask a few friends/relatives and probably someone has one) and 2-3 Lbs of green coffee. That's like $25 or less total, an hour digging up a popper/roaster and let's say an hour max to set up your roaster on a porch or deck or kitchen with a fan. ... and there's a pretty good chance you will, at a minimum, experience fresher coffee than ever before, even if you don't nail the roast on the head. The main points to follow are:

1 Best to select the "right" type of air popcorn popper (http://www.sweetmarias.com/airpop/airpopdesign.php) although the other types work, but tend to roast too fast or unevenly. The "holy grail" is the original Poppery from West Bend. Check out what the sell for on eBay - like $40-$60! Still readily available at thrift stores for $2-$5 if you look.

2. Don't overload the popper with coffee. Load it up until it bogs down a little initially, but the coffee still spins in the heat chamber. If the coffee is not moving well, it will scorch. Tilt the popper side to side a bit to agitate the coffee until it loses some of its water weight and spins well. Here's our full air popper tip sheet: http://www.sweetmarias.com/airpop/airpopmethod.php

3. Try to cool the coffee to room temperature quickly, in a colander ideally, or tossing it between 2 colanders, even better. Let the coffee rest overnight after roasting. It improves a bit, but of course, it's fine if you can't wait...

[Coffehound]

I agree with Tom's post. His description is almost exactly how I started. $10 on a popper from Walgreens, $15 in greens and a bit of time. Figured I'd wasted $30 on stranger and more obviously worthless things over the years. That was years and thousands of dollars ago. I've moved through the roasters since then as money and experience allowed. Batch size and lack of control drove me from a popper to an I-roast. Batch size again pushed me into the Stir-Crazy/Turbo Oven group. I worked with that for almost 4 years. In the meantime the other equipment upgraded...tossed out the electric brewer and switched to FP, bought my first burr grinder, an Andreja Premium, and then shortly after a Rocky. Just last week I bought a Hottop (the used one from SMs sale page). So that's the fourth roaster and only the second that's actually designed to roast coffee. This time the driving reasons were control over the roast and the better mixing of the drum. Two roasts in and I already like it. Just this morning I woke up wondering what the next upgrade would be...ginder?

Demian

[riocruz]

Well...I started roasting my own about...ummm...geez...a long, long time ago! If memory serves, it was when Sweet Maria's was still in the Bay Area before moving to Ohio...and back again! Anyway, I started with an iRoast and used it for several years but it was so noisy I couldn't hear 2nd crack. So I downgraded to a used Fresh Roast I got from SM's sale page and have been happily using it ever since. Works swell. I keep thinking I really ought to invest in one of the super duper dandy drum roasters but then I ask, "Why?" I don't have a good answer for that so I will keep on with my litttle glorified popper. I also grind my beans by hand with an old Pe De wall mount mill (I swear the coffee tastes better that way!!!) and brew with the Aeropress. I only drink one or two cups a day, but it is some seriously good coffee!!!! I can no longer stand to drink the stuff dispensed at Peet's, Starbucks or any of the other coffee houses.

Oh...I should say, too, that I also like espresso from time to time and use the La Pavone Europiccola manual machine. I guess I'm just a hands on kind of guy. I grind the beans on a manual Zassenhause mill I got at Peet's many years ago. I grind to Turkish fine. It makes for a hard pull, but the shot comes out thick and creamy and oh so delicious...

[DaveS]

I certainly agree that a hot air popcorn popper is the way to start.
For very little money you get the experience of home roasting, and trying new coffees.

But chances are, you won't be staying with a $5 budget. You've already proved that you are adventurous by going this far. There's almost always a next step.

For me, almost immediately I wasn't satisfied just to roast the coffee. I wanted to roast following the temperature profile that those who'd gone ahead of me were advocating. That meant another $150 spent on a Variac, so I could control my popper. Plus $25 for a digital thermometer, so I knew where I was at.

I was happy with that for about 2 years. But my popper would only handle quarter pound batches, which meant a lot of time spent roasting, and never enough fresh roast to share with friends. So when I came across a used HotTop at $250 below new price, I jumped in with both feet. And another 2 years passed, and another $250 went for a digital control upgrade for my Hottop.

So that's where I am now. Do I regret any of the steps I took?
Not a bit. I love the coffee I get to drink every day, and I really enjoy the coffee hobby.

Am I satisfied?
Well, if a fluid bed roaster that does half pound batches became available at some reasonable price, and it was practical to use indoors in the winter time, I'd sure investigate that.
I don't think I've reached the end of the adventure yet.

Dave S.

[RobbW]

I've been roasting for about four years now. I'm the only coffee drinker in my family. So I don't have a need to roast ginormous batches at a time. I share my home-roasted coffee with my coworkers, but I only make one pot of home-roast coffee per day. If they want/need more coffee than that, then they have to dig out the single-pot bags of pre-ground junk provided by our coffee service.

So far, my preferred method of home roasting is good ol' fashioned pan roasting. I roast up one pound of greens per week, which is good enough for one pot per day during the work week with a little left over for the weekend. It takes me a grand total of about 25-30 minutes of processing from turning on the gas stove to pouring the cooled, roasted beans into a storage container, with about 20 minutes of actual roasting. I figure 20 minutes of wrist-numbing bean stirring per week is worth it for truly fantastic coffee!

I feel kind of bad though. I've actually caused a couple coworkers to fall off the caffeine-free wagon and return to sipping the brown gold. They were doing so well at swearing off caffeine for the longest time, too!

[Dannodemanno]

To the original post: Geeze, keep the fun in this! Just roll up your sleeves and have some fun with roasting coffee.

I started a la air popper 6-7 years ago, burned up some cheaper poppers, went to I Roast 1 and finally now to Behmor. I've shared the awesome taste of these super fresh beans with friends and I think I can count about 10+ other folks who now roast from just catching this fun hobby from loving good coffee and the pleasure of the "hands-on" of roasting. Heck, they've even gotten other converts to turn from buying roasted beans. Delicious and more fun than anyone should be allowed to have!

I often hear people get excited about the start up with the low cost and easy design Tom mentioned above and they later think buying a nice roaster is just too spendy. I think it's important to keep in view that the main reason we roast is the fabulous taste of such fresh coffee. It is cheaper, but if you factor in buying a roaster (which buying one seems inevitable once you're properly hooked by this roasting thing), it does meaning allocating some $$. If you're on the fence about buying a roaster, just keep using that air popper and stash $10-20 each month and within a year or two, you'll at least be able to afford an I Roast or Behmor and you'll be very happy with the results (and how easy the roaster makes getting the coffee done).

Let's keep enjoying the fun!

[brokenarrowjbe]

Howdy, Been roasting 3 or 4 years. Did not even drink coffee at the time. Was ordering over the internet for my wife and got a 5 or 10 pound order completely over roasted. Bad juju, lot of money for me. Did some research, started in the kitchen in a convection oven, went to popcorn air roaster, SC/turbo oven, now using second generation correto compliments of coffee snob pointers. Love the control, the batch size. Still drink just one or two cups a day, wife drinks two to three pots a day. Use french press or the fancy techniverm drip coffee brewer. Prefer monsooned malabar, wife loves central american, CR or Nicaraguan. Occasional kenyan. Will try tanzanian if I don't miss the window again. Coffee roasting is now my get away from the world and be alone time. Best hobby I ever fell into. John

[mrhoads]

I guess I am in the minority. I have been roasting for several years. I started with the Gene roaster and continue to use it today. I also drink about ~20 cups a day. I love trying different coffee's. I love roasting and have done it at least every 4 days since I started.

[MikeE]

I've been anal about coffee since my early 20's but never even knew you could roast your own until I was internet searching for places to buy roasted coffee. After bombing out with much of the supermarket stale, overpriced junk, I stumbled upon coffeegeek.com and it opened my eyes to the potentials of roasting. Only took me 10yrs to figure this out

I wasn't sure it was for me as I didn't think I was going to have the drive to roast all the time (busy with a money pit house and a little one), but I knew it was the only way I was going to get coffee that met my standards and didn't cost $15+ a lb.

I jumped into roasting a little over a year ago when, while researching roasters, I spotted a brand new "used" Behmor on eBay for $200. I knew that was too good to pass up so I bought it and have been using it since. I can't even begin to boast enough about how much better coffee is now. I know I'm not the greatest roaster but even the bad roasts are 100x better than what I was drinking. There are flavors in coffee most people don't even know exist.

I started with a SM sampler to get a feel for what origins I prefer (seems to be central/south American) and I'm learning new stuff everytime I roast. I just upgraded to a Baratza Maestro from my Mr. Coffee whirly blade and I'm using an Aeropress with both paper and swiss gold type filers.

So life is good in the coffee world and I tell anyone who is considering roasting to go for it. Only problem is when you get hooked you want to by more equipment.