Choosing a home roaster

Let’s be clear, this is not an extensive guide and draws on the knowledge and opinions I have built up researching the subject, prior to purchasing my first roaster and being involved in some commercial roasting activities. I am sure it won’t cover all the home roasters on the market, but will I hope cover those few machines I have some information/knowledge about and are worthy of consideration. I wanted to pull this guide together (rightly or wrongly) because I did not feel there was enough information in one place for the enthusiast considering home roasting (or indeed coffee roasting). I also don’t want to overcomplicate the issue.

A roaster is a simple device, it heats up coffee until it goes brown and then progressively darker until eventually it can catch fire. The trick to get a good result, is in how the roaster does this, but essentially you need to apply the right amount of heat energy evenly.

First categorise the roasting you will be doing, in this article I only cover the first area, Home Use.

·        Home use only and in small volumes

o       Typically roasting 250g once or twice per week

·        Home use, but with a view to commercial use (1kg roaster such as Toper Cafemino)

o       As above, but also for family and friends

o       Starting to sell small quantities

o       Very Interested in roasting

·        Light commercial use (1kg roaster such as Toper Cafemino or larger roaster)

o       Restaurant (possibly combined with coffee sales)

o       Small coffee shop (greens and roasted)

o       Mail Order (speciality coffee)

o       Beverage establishment

·        Heavy commercial use (Large commercial roaster, gas powered, with minimum 5kg batch capacity)

o       High volumes and 200+ Kilograms per week

Home use only and in small volumes

Here you have a number of choices around £250-£400. There are cheaper roasters but these tend to roast very small amounts 70-80g and a little noisy. I suppose the cheaper ones are a way of testing the water before spending significantly more money, but because it’s harder to get a good result they may put you off.

At the moment (in my opinion) you are really limited to the Gene Cafe and the Hottop. Both of these seem to form the only realistic options for a home roaster. The Hottop is the more expensive of the two, but neither is designed for commercial use or “back to back” roasting (roasting one batch straight after another. Due to the build up of heat in the roaster structure, they need to cool down completely before another roast is attempted (I also think they recommend not using them more than a few times in one day). Unfortunately for both these roasters there seems to be only 1 UK importer, so there is no real competition in the marker. With any product this usually means you pay a price premium.

The Gene Café awaiting further information based on personal testing rather than reading accepted "knowledge" on the internet.

The Hottop awaiting further information based on personal testing rather than reading accepted "knowledge" on the internet.

I think these roasters have to strike a balance in their power output with design considerations, if the heating elements were more powerful I think the structure of the roaster would be affected. If they had to build a structure able to take more heat energy…presumably it would cost more and be much heavier, it would certainly limit the use of high temperature plastics in the roaster structure (increasing size, weight and cost).

Both these roasters have not been around very long, perhaps a few years or more and it I difficult to know how long they will last. Looking at the construction, one could hazard a guess that they will have a reasonably good life for the price (possibly around 5 years or more, depending on usage). Certainly I have recently read and heard of a few heating elements failing on the Genecafe (but I understand they are easy to replace). Which is the best roaster, is a more difficult question, both have merits, and one costs less than the other. The best criteria may perhaps be the taste of the roast and perhaps that should be your guide, rather than price. That said the Hottop is very quiet and seems to be a favourite of many people.

Please remember that roasting produces smoke, this smoke is not always pleasant and in fact it usually isn’t pleasant towards the end of the roast, especially as it becomes more intense and oily or tarry. If you’re going to roast in the Kitchen, you need good extraction, possibly it’s better to roast outside or in the Garage if you can.

Some cautionary notes as well for the home (any) roaster:

1.      Put the roaster on an RCD

2.      If the roaster is gas, definitely flue it properly and I would even go so far as to suggest you get a carbon monoxide detector (cost around £15) and place it in a suitable location in the room you roasting in

3.      Make sure you have a suitable fire extinguisher

4.      Have a heatproof pair of gloves to hand (and I mean heat proof!). You might need to handle a very hot object and move it or do something to it in a hurry.

5.      If you roast (on any type of roaster) at night or in the dark, it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to do it next to a rechargeable light source that will come on automatically should the power fail. This leaves you both hands free to make the roaster safe. Some beans/roasters roasters very near to the end of the roast could catch fire if the power fails, because the airflow stops, but the element is still hot. If I am wrong about this it’s cost you a few pounds, if I am right, it could save your life. Personally I use a rechargeable emergency light (dual 18W fluorescent tubes)  wall mounted (it's also removable), right next to the business end of my roaster. If the power fails on this will switch on automatically and give 36W of light for an hour or more. Being fluorescent the light is equivalent to that given by a 100 watt light bulb. Mine was purchased from Halfords for a very reasonable £15

6.      Try and ensure someone knows where you are and what you’re doing!

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