Best way to home roast without spending 150 pounds?

[Chrisweaver]

Hey guys, just wanted some advice on home roasting, spending no more than 150 pounds, ill try anything, and im handy regarding modifying anything?

Cheers

[lukas]

There really are several nice possibilities for that!
You could try oven roasting, Zix has a very good howto on that (it's linked in some older thread here). You need a good oven for that, I didn't have real succes with it, though.
You could getting a yourself a whirley pop or some old cast iron roaster, I have one from around 1920 and am now getting consistently quite good results with it - I paid around 15euros for it (see here for images)
You could also try just taking a wooden spoon and a pan or wok and roasting in there - it works, although you won't be getting the most even results.
And then there is the heatgun method - just take a heatgun and e.g. a dog bowl, or something else which seems to work and try on.
The possibilities of homeroasting really are quite endless, just limited by creativity
Have fun!

[Chrisweaver]

cheers lukas

I shall indeed try the oven and the wok methods you reccomended when I get back from Israel, I'm suddenly up for trying it because I got the rare treat of a tour round Portofino Espresso Club, here in Israel, who roast their own beans both for distribution and for their onsite cafe, and the smell was heavenly!

I'll have to get Steve to send me some green beans

[toast21]

hey lukas, yeah i've heard some people have had good success with the oven while others just no luck at all. Chris, I've got a WP as well and I think its a great way to get into roasting. If you do decide to do a WP, see if you can get yourself one of those heavy bottomed ones instead of the aluminium ones - I've got the aluminium one and it seemed to keep reshaping everytime i used it.

I've since gone on to buy a Gene Cafe (its a little over the budget) but the lessons you learn from the wok roasting will serve you well if you upgrade

[Chrisweaver]

once again, thanks a lot! I look forward to trying it at home! I'm at the minute trying to find replacement un-pressurised baskets for my krups xp2000 ARGH

[Gouezeri]

There is of course the I-R which retails for a bit less than that, and is pretty reliable, if not necessarily easy to control.

[Chrisweaver]

yeh I read the review of the i-roast, is it worth going for the I-roast 2? tbh I don't know a lot about roasters etc. so just trying to read up about the curves etc. spent the morning trying to get a good espresso out of a delonghi to show a friend of my parents how to do it... its crap

[Gouezeri]

Which review is that?

[Chrisweaver]

I forget the site, it was probably one of the reviews on Hasbean, just to clarify I wasnt saying the review was crap. Merely that the delonghi machine i was using this morning was crap!!

[Gouezeri]

Ah, ok, just there aren't that many reviews on the I-R, oh and I didn't think you were saying the I-R is crap. If you accept its price point, size and limitations of hot air roasting, then it is actually very capable. Most people move on from it either to get a bigger batch size and/or to switch to a radiant method of roasting. the I-2 is better the question is whether it is worth it for the difference in price.

[Chrisweaver]

Batch size i don't think would be the real limitation for me, whilst I do like drinkin coffee, I also like it reasonably fresh, so i wouldn't want to roast a huge batch! I just want to try my hand at all aspects of coffee, so that when it comes to chosing a career, I can make an informed decision!

My main priorities would be buying a grinder at the minute, preferably a mazzer, though I might be able to pick up one of my ones at work cheap, as we MIGHT be getting a mahlkonig!! Also I want to try and experiment with my krups xp2000 including a new steam assembly, and a new basket, and maybe a naked pf!!

[fred25]

Having tried the pan/stir method as well as the oven and the popcorn maker ones, I'd tend to lean towards the fact that the heatgun's the best method (that maybe simply because that's the only one I haven't tried! )

A popcorn maker is pretty cheap to get but you can only roast 80g at a time without mods, and need further modding (there's a help page for that somewhere on the site) if you want to be able not to charcoal your beans in 6 mins flat without switching the aparatus on and off every 6 seconds... It's a good intro to home roasting, and produces pretty even results (unlike the oven or pan methods), but is quite frustating if you tend towards impatience (80g is definitely not a lot, especially if you want to optimise your coffee by letting it degas for a night or two)

Supposing you've got outdoor access (or don't mind having muck flying everywhere in your house), the heatgun method is cheap, requires no complicated modding, should give decently even roasts (according to the pictures posted on the site) and enables you to be flexible in terms of batch size, roast time, etc.

Once you're fed up of burning you fingers while freezing you a**e in the winter outside, you can always move to some more sedate forms of home roasting!

[toast21]

fred, the WP method's fairly inexpensive and can give acceptable results if you keep stirring frequently - which of course is REALLY tiring

I personally say, start cheap, see how it goes and save up for a decent machine

[espressomattic]

I started with a WHirley Pop and after a couple of roasts the results were really good. I moved up to a Gene and Gadders now has the Whirley and is getting equally good results. It is my opinion that I got better roasts with the WP than the Gene. I found you can get very good and accurate profiles and you have total control over the heat. Light Roast to Dark Roast...no problems. Yes it gets a bit smiokey, but with a good ventilation system and extractor you are sweet as. Even Steve at HB was surprised at my results which is very high praise indeed.

If it wasn't for silly Halogen hobs I would get another one and get back to it.

So where in Israel? I was there for 6 months in '96 - '97. Stayed at Kibbutz Bar'Am in Ha Galil and then down in Tiberius doing a spot of archaeology...oh they were the days and also the first place I had espresso was on the Kibbutz. Also going around the Shouq in Jerusalem and Acre having turkish coffee with cardemon...oh man I am yearning to go back....

[fred25]

fred, the WP method's fairly inexpensive and can give acceptable results if you keep stirring frequently

Yep, you're right - I completely forgot about it!

I'd actually be interested to know if someone has tried both WP and heatgun, and what their thoughts are on the comparison between these two methods?