There are many ways to roast coffee, from home appliances made specifically for this purpose, to simple pan roasting. You can re-use an electric hot air Popcorn Popper which produces an even fluid-bed roast. Some small appliances like the Freshroast Home Roaster and the Hearthware Home Roasters work on the same principle. Air roasting takes less than 10 minutes, roasts very evenly without scorching, and results in coffee of exceptional quality.
Other types of roasting include radiant drum roasting like the Behmor, the Gene Cafe Roaster, and the HotTop Drum Roaster. The advantage of drum roasting is a larger batch size and an even roast, but it requires a bit more attention during the roast process than an air roaster.
The Behmor Electric Drum Coffee Roaster
It is a home coffee roasting equipment that can truly do a full pound of coffee. That’s the most remarkable feature of the new Behmor home coffee roaster. It has pre-programmed roast times, heat curves, and an automatic cooling cycle. Best of all, it brings the drum-style coffee roaster down to a more affordable level at $299 it is nearly half the cost of all other drum coffee roasters on the market.
We have composed a thorough review of the machine, with data compiled from months of testing the pre-production model of the roaster. We encourage you to read our review, scan for relevant parts, or at the minimum read our summary comments.
With The Behmor you can roast 1/4, 1/2 or full 1 Lb. batches. For each batch size (1/4, 1/2 or 1 Lb.), you can quickly select a pre-programmed roast time (A, B, C, or D on the touch-control panel), and a roast heat curve program (designated P-1 through P-5). By combining these, you can produce a wide range of roast styles, from a light City roast, medium Full City roast, or Vienna roast. The machine has an automatic cool cycle of 8-12 minutes, depending on the batch size.
The Gene Cafe Drum Coffee Roaster
We call it the 2 Knob Gene Cafe. It is simple, and allows you, the operator, to dynamically (and infinitely) change the roast time or temperature during the roast process. The roast is easy to observe, and the controls make it easy to modify; change the roast time or roast temperature any time you like, and as much as you like. The roaster is extremely quiet compared to air machines, and even compared to other drum roasters. All 1/2 Lb roasters produce a quantity of smoke if you go into the darker roast stages; the Gene Cafe is no exception. I get improved body over air roasting, without diminished brightness. Well, I wish the cooling was more rapid, and it cooled to a lower temperature. Unlike the Hot Top, the Gene Cafe cools in the drum where the coffee is roasted. The Gene cools to 140 f. before the drum stops rotating, allowing you to remove the batch.
The drum rotates once and will land on the correct position to remove the drum. Always use the provided “drum stand” when the drum is out of the roaster. You can roast up to 300 grams – but not with dry processed coffees – see note below.
The drum and instruction booklet designate a different roast volume for “Brazil Coffee.” What they mean is that chaff-laden dry-process coffees will heat up the roast chamber more than less chaffy wet-processed coffees. In my tests, all dry-process coffees and wet-processed (and decafs, which have no chaff) roast fine at an 8 oz. batch (measure by weight, not volume for better accruacy). The maximum batch size for dry processed coffees is 240 grams. It is easy to cleaned: Empty the chaff collector after every roast. Remove visible chaff from the roast chamber every roast and dislodge any small beans that may have become stuck in the chamber. Roaster available in size 19 x 10 x 9 with chaff collector installed
The HotTop Electric Drum Coffee Roaster
The HotTop Roaster is for those who want larger batches than the air roasters, longer roasts, a commerical type roast-and-cool cycle, and a more robust machine. Roasting with the HotTop takes an extra effort: you need to understand the sights, sounds and smells of the coffee roasting process to get the best results. The roast profile reproduces the results of shop drum roaster more than the small home air roasters. HotTop USA has great support on the machine through Michael Chiang – he knows the machine backwards and forwards.
The readout will count down the time remaining in the roast cycle, which is nice. Readout of roast temperature can be in Celcius of Farenheit. (However a cool roaster set to “3″ will always result in the same degree of roasts, as will a warm roaster). Can you roast consecutive batches? Yes But you will have a slightly different roast profile from the first “cold roaster” batch to the next batch (about a 1 minute shift in roast curve), and I would advise stopping the roast manually to truly target the exact degree of roast that you desire.
Two New HotTop coffee roasting equipment available on two models : The KN-8828B Basic Model and The KN-8828B Programmable Model. Roasts results are very even in the HotTop. The batch capacity is 250 gram (9 oz) meaning you can get a full roasted 1/2 Lb. from each roast cycle. The cooling tray pulls air downward through the coffee and works well! (see my HotTop roast curve chart)