ahgee2 wrote:I feel I have to put in a good word in defence of the humble popper! I have been roasting with a popper for a few years now. With the right beans and the right profile, results are as good as most of what I have tasted from speciality roasters. When it goes wrong, it's not the fault of the popper, but more that I still have a lot to learn about selecting the right beans and profile.
Of course this is a modified popper - the standard modification of inserting a thermocouple, separating the fan and heater, powering the fan through a variable DC supply (to control air flow) and the heater through a PID. This really does give fantastic control over the roast, I can do arbitrary profiles, batch size is limited (175g) but fine for home use. It must have cost me around £50 to put together, but does require a little electronics/hobbyist experience. It is sad that, without this experience, home roasters are forced to shell out a lot more money for, in my opinion, vastly inferior roasters. Why does it have to be so complicated?
I do have a great admiration for people such as yourself who choose to rely on their creativity and skills to create an alternative to what is commercially available. They are part of a great British tradition and it's heartening to find it still alive and kicking.
I suppose that one reason for the majority of roasters choosing to buy a ready-made product would be the lack of spare time given the pressures of modern life. The low esteem in this country for those with practical skills I suspect would be another factor.
Personally, I'm always curious about how things work and how I can improve them. Nothing that I purchase remains in its original form.