Best First home roaster

[douglycett]

So I am thinking about going into the roasting business in the future but I have no experience roasting. I want to get a home roaster that will allow me to learn but also gives me room to grow into experience. Essentially I dont want something that is going to do all the work for me and allows me to get creative in the roasting process.

 

[BuzzRoaster]

The BBQ drum roaster is a great all around roaster. It's great for beginners because it's real hard to screw up.

Once you become familiar with the basics, it offers the option to experiment with times and temps. Being a fully manual roaster you can control most of the variables pretty easily.

The BBQ roaster also has the advantage over other roasters in that it has a huge capacity. I use 2 10lb drums to do all of my roasting for my business.

 

[Diamond]

We have been home roasting for some time and we started with a Whirley Pop corn popper on the stove top. It was a great way to learn how the different roast reacted and could do numerous small batches to see what worked best. I still get it out to test small amounts of new beans. We then bought a Behmore 1600 so we could be a little more hands free while roasting. It has several profiles and can roast up to a pound at a time. I have no experience with roasting a full pound at a time and I have read that it may not be the best at roasting a full pound. There does not seem to be any roasters you can grow into. It is either small home roasters or large/expensive shop roasters. The BBQ roaster could be an option and you would have an infinite number of profiles.

 

[CoffeeLovers]

As a beginner, it is good that we have some advance information about roaster. First, you have to identify the area you are going to roast. If you like dark roaster, a lot of smoke is produced. However, electrical home roasters have some filter to catch the chaff that causes smoke. Planning to roast a lot, it is good if you have access outdoors. The problem is if you are living in an extreme hot or cold area. Next, be ready also for the noise of the roaster. If you don’t want noise, better look for a roaster that can somewhat minimize noise while roasting. However, if you can bear noise then no problem.

Home coffee roaster has life expectancy. Don’t believe on advertisement that roaster will stay longer. If it is stated that there is two years warranty, then be ready to replace the roaster after two years. Better choose cheap roaster to have great savings in replacing it for a new one.

 

[BuzzRoaster]

Warranty is a good point. The whole reason I got into the drum business was back 10 years ago my ex used to work for WLL. They sold a number of different electric home roasters and they were constantly breaking and getting returned. For $125 I sold a roaster with a 2lb capacity and it comes with a lifetime warranty. The drums I made 10 years ago are still in use today.

 

[poison]

My rk drum has done over 20k lbs over 8 years. I am on my second shop vac, used for cooling, and the japanese electric motor that turned the rotissery spit finally died last year. Fortunately I had expected that far earlier on, and had had a backup laying around from the beginning.

 

[BuzzRoaster]

I actually own an RK drum, and it is built like a tank. I bought it years ago when Ron was still with us. If I remember correctly his drums have a lifetime warranty also. They will outlast just about any roaster on the market. I still have my original drum, it even outlasted my gas grill.

 

[Redswing]

gotta suggest looking at the hottop, i feel like it's pretty close to the experience you'll have with a gas fired drum roaster down the road.

 

[poison]

Or a Quest M3.

 

[CoffeeJunky]

There few of them out there but it really depends on the how much you want to spend buying the roaster. It can be anywhere from 100 dollars to 1000 dollars for home roasters.