I’ve been thinking about getting into home roasting, anyone got any tips of first roasters and places to check out for green beans? I was thinking a SR800 with extension tube from sweet Maria’s and the green coffee there as well but love to hear other thoughts!
I have the SR-500 with the extension tube, and I wouldn't even consider a Fresh Roast roaster without it. I got my extension tube 2 years after I bought it, and the uniformity of roasts has improved dramatically.
As for beans, I've used Coffee Bean Corral, Blue Mackaw Coffee Roasters (they sell on eBay), Home Roast Coffee, Sweet Maria's and Amazon.
Without the extension tube, I could roast 4 oz at a time. With the extension tube, I can do up to 8 oz at a time. However, I've found 7 oz or less leads to a more uniform roast.
It might help you in deciding which green coffee you want and how to experiment with it. I hope it gives you ideas like it does for me, I'm currently experimenting with pan roasting. If you want to invest anyway, I'm not recommending you do many pan roasts but you might wanna try at least one, especially since it's super cheap to accomplish.
Great article! Will definitely be checking that out. I’ve heard a lot of people turned off of home roasting by trying pan roasting the first time so I thought I’d jump in fully and save some money with green coffee.
They have some great local roasters around me but I feel like all they do is medium-dark roasts that are way past Full City most of the time and I wanted a cheaper and more fun way to have coffee the way I like it
I have an SR540 and the controls are getting flaky. Same as the SR800 you make all of the adjustments by pressing and turning a single knob, but now it adjusts up when you turn it down, or it adjusts several steps when you turn it one click... It's done this before and it got better, but it's a strange control mechanism. I've had it for less than a couple of years.
You might consider easing in and getting a popcorn popper instead. That's how I started. There are no controls or measurements, so you just roast by ear and stop relative to first or last crack.