Identify yourself: "I roast, therefore, I am..."

[Mister Moo]

A thread to say who you are (if you dare) and that you roast coffee for fun or profit. It's a place to show a bit of your resume. As more folks join this community it's good they know who is using what type of gear, and why.

I am Dan - Mister M'oo

SC/CO - three years (four stars - the go-to guy for up to a pound)

Electric BBQ - three years (three stars - still on the active reserve list for larger batches of single origin beans)

Poppers - two years (four stars - king of the learning curve)

The roasters are rated on a five star max; the times I used the various roasters overlapped - I've been home roasting about six years.

The SC/CO is by far the best combination of capacity, control, cost. quiet and simplicity of operation and rep[air (should that day ever come).

The electric BBQ is great, but requires at least 15-minutes of warm up time and requires more attention to safety. If I had a gas BBQ, it would probably be my primary means of roasting.

I have used lots of poppers with great success. I'm a huge fan of poppers for someone wanting to have some fun or learn the game without investing an arm or a leg.

You?

[Jeff]

FreshRoast Plus 8 - This is the machine I learned to home roast on. Been using it for one year now and absolutely love it. It really shines when you factor in cost, performance, and quality.

I usually roast 2-3 times per week or just enough to keep a "degassed" reserve on hand to match consumption. If I had more mouths to feed (or keep caffeinated ), then I would move up to a larger capacity roaster, but for my wife and I, the FRP8 is perfect.

Where I am now with coffee roasting - Inches away from mastering Ethiopean Yirgacheffe.

Dream Machine - La Pavoni Lever Espresso Machine

[ghostrider]

Well thanks to that evil overlord, Mr Maduroo, I started out on one of his 'freebie' poppers. I was hooked after the second batch. (First batch almost went up in flames.) After a few months of roasting for 3-4 hours on the weekend to feed my habit, I stalked Ebay looking for the parts for the SCCO roaster. So far I've done 3 batches on that. A little bit of a learning curve as far as times/temps, but well worth it. What used to take 3 hours now takes about 45 minutes. Only downside is finding an excuse to spend 3 hours outside to smoke a couple cigars now...

Before being pushed down the slope by Dan: auto-drip coffeemaker.

Now: got rid of the drip machine, have a mokka pot, ibrik, pour over, french press, and an espresso machine. Oh, and don't forget the burr grinder.

Yirg...here I come!

[Bigwaved]

Name: Dave a.k.a. Bigwaved
Rank: Newbie, only roasting for few months
Roaster: iRoast-2
Dream Grinder: Macap 4
Dream Expresso Machine: No idea yet

[CigarGal]

To roast or not to roast...is there even any question?

iRoast 1-using the machine for a couple of weeks and just dipping into the vast world of green beans.

Roasting enough batches to keep us in coffee but I hope to find a good bean to send to all my family for xmas.

[par]

Shamelessly stealing format from bigwaved..

Name: Par
Rank: Intermediate, roasting for a year or so
Roaster: iRoast-1
Dream Grinder: Jura (got it)
Dream Expresso Machine: Jura S4 (got it)
Favourite coffee bean country: Guatemala
Favourite roast/coffee style: Full city + (well into second crack), a nice espresso with loads of crema

[hollywood]

[SIZE="4"]Me:[/SIZE]

Name: David "Hollywood"
Rank: Rookie - Dan got me started with a popper package
Favourite coffee bean country: Guatemala
Favourite roast/coffee style: city+ (second crack and then beyond)

[SIZE="4"]Current Line-up:[/SIZE]

Roaster: West Bend Poppery II (love this little thing!)
Coffee Maker: Phillips digital drip
Grinder: Cuisinart Burr

[SIZE="4"]Dream line-up:[/SIZE]

Dream Roaster: Diedrich Home Roaster
Dream coffee maker: Cuisinart Brew Central DCC 2200
Dream Grinder: Baratza Virtuoso Conical Burr
Dream Expresso Machine: Jura S4

Next I need to tackle espresso!? Never made it, but the time is coming!!

I'm James
I'm in MAD MOD MODE
Stir Crazy almost ready
15 lbs of beans from SM on the way
Sunpentown SO-2000 Super Turbo Oven ordered
Soon oh so soon.
hehehe
Till then this Mountain Sumatra from Larry's beans is damm good .

(i knew i shouldn't have read this forum)

[whodat1]

[SIZE="3"]I'm Jim - whodat1[/SIZE]

I got into drinking home roast in 1992 when I met a home roaster up in western Michigan who taught me all about good coffee. Due to extensive travel on my job, I put off roasting for myself for many years. I would buy my roast at small mom & pop type roaster shops and that worked for me for quite a while. A few years back my travel decreased and I decided to take coffee to the next level.

I've been home roasting for 3 years starting with an iRoast. After getting comfortable with roasting I quickly built a SCTO which I've had for about 2 years. So I really have not been roasting for myself that long. I graduated over the years to lighter roasts that offer some of the more subtle flavors found in the different beans. Sometimes I like to take a bean and roast it 3, 4 or 5 different levels to see what each roast has to offer in the way of different tastes. It's amazing how different a single crop of beans can be made to taste.

Much like we get together for a herf among the people here, I've gotten together with other roasters including some that sell commercially and exchanged techniques and notes. I know one gentleman who took the homemade coffee roaster to the extreme and built a $55,000 roaster (he said buying one would have cost him over twice as much) that does over 100 lb per batch. This guy roasts for commercial food companies and sticks their brand name on his coffee. It's real interesting to see what we do, done on such a massive scale.

The best advice I can give to newbie’s to roasting is to keep a log of every roast you do for a while. Log everything from ambient temperature to when the cracks occur to exactly what bean you are roasting. After a while you will probably stop keeping a log as you get to know your beans and roasters. I think I logged my first two hundred or so roasts and I found it invaluable to go back and look things up or see the long term effect of relative humidity on roast times.

[Swarth]

Hello, I am Ed an avid home roaster with close to 200 #'s of green in my stash. I prefer the hands on approach of the HG/SSB method, although if someone gave me an RK drum I certainly could put it to use.

Favorite roasts: depends on the coffee, but Full City + (just into 2nd crack) seems to work best for my best Central/SA's

Coffee: Columbian Don Telmo, Ethiopian Harrar, Sidamo, tough to pick just one or two!

Grinder: Nuova Simonelli MDX , boy does my wife hate this monster

Brew : Melita drip, French press, Aero press

[Jack1000]

Hi: Name's Jamie. This feels oddly like an AA meeting.

Roaster is SC/CO, but I started with poppers and a then a heat gun ---I like the stir crazy best.
Grinder: Rancillio Rockey
Espresso Machine: Isomac Millenium (fantastic deal on ebay)

I'm happy with this equipment and don't intend to upgrade soon.

I like harrar, sidamo and sweet marias blends, but I will try anything. I have about 40 pounds of mixed green coffees I the basement. I just roasted some yellow daterra bourbon 15 minutes ago. I will try it in the morning.

[Mister Moo]

Hi Jamie. I haven't had a decaf or coffee from a pod in... 55 years.

[Jack1000]

Originally Posted by Mister MaDuroo

Hi Jamie. I haven't had a decaf or coffee from a pod in... 55 years.

Amen. Still in my first year of walkin the good coffee line. Before that I hit bottom hard drinkin coffee from blue paper cups from 7 11's and wawa. I even had a carmel mochaccino from starbucks. Yeah I've been down a hard road, but now my higher power has shown me the true nature of coffee and I am grateful. One day at a time.

[willy7318]

Well I found i like great coffee so i tried roasting my own. Well it was great and i found some great combos i liked for espresso (i probably cant duplicate them) but the problem was trying to roast a weeks worth of coffee at a time took me 4 or 5 hours at a crack. (first crack second crack ooops i think im losing it ) I could not find an roaster or a method I figured was easy enough (without spending thousands of dollars) to roast a couple of lbs at a time. I finally packed up the roaster and found a great coffee company thats local to me so thats where i get my coffee now all ready roasted.

The unit i have is the Caffe Rosto. Once I figured out the right volumes of beans to load it with it was pretty easy to get a consistant roast. Ive tried all the cheap stuff for grinders and espresso makers. Now ive settled on the Cruisnart burr grinder and a Delonghi pump espresso maker. Probably not the best but works great for

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by willy7318

Well ... I finally packed up the roaster and found a great coffee company thats local to me so thats where i get my coffee now all ready roasted.

"I roasted, therefore I was?" If I had a good local roaster to rely on I'd probly do the same thing - sometimes. So, would you prefer we work on getting you back to roasting - or just try to corrupt you with cigars?

Or just be nice?