I’ve been roasting with a Behmor 1600 for about 20 years. Got 15 years out of first one with minor parts replacement. Purchased lightly used one couple years ago but it needs a new board. Since I’ve got more money than common sense, thinking it might be a good time to upgrade. Considering a used Aillio R1 V2 or a new Kaleido M6.

I don’t do a lot of tweaking my roasts, I understand there will be a learning curve but I don’t want to spend an inordinate amount of time to roast a week’s worth of coffee.

Thoughts?

Hey guys,

I’m looking to start a mobile coffee van but want to venture into the roasting side of things too. I recently bought a Behmor 1600 plus on marketplace for really cheap, but I’m seeing a lot of people talking about the SR800. I would ideally want to roast enough to support my coffee cart, but also enough to sell on the side for a revenue stream.

I’m doing a cold brew concentrate that takes 1lb of ground coffee per batch, so something that’s doing 1lb at a time would be ideal but not a necessity.

I’m also not trying to spend $2000 on a roaster at the moment.

With all that in mind, what would you recommend? Also, I’m in Colorado if any of you have a roaster you’re looking to sell and nearby!

Found a well priced Artisan 3E for sale, about $1,000, has a bunch of extras with it. Honestly seems like a good deal. I've been roasting on a Skywalker V1 with Artisan, and just started dabbling in Background Automation and PID Automation on it. I'm interested in starting a small scale roasting business (sell under cottage food laws until/if it gets big enough). I understand repeatability is important, but I'm not finding any way that the Artisan 3E can be controlled by Artisan software. (ironic). It does look possible to connect to Artisan for logging purposes, but I don't think I'd have heat or air info for manual background use.

Is this just a bad way to start out, and should I just keep looking for something that can be fully connected to Artisan software?

Not only do I want automation for consistency and quality sake, but also to keep variable expenses (my direct labor) down.

Been thinking about this after drinking a few different dark roasts lately.

Looking at coffees from places like Starbucks, Peet’s, Black Rifle Coffee, and Warpath Coffee, there can be a pretty noticeable difference in the cup even when you're dealing with fairly developed roasts.

It got me thinking about how much of that difference actually starts with the green coffee versus what happens during the roast.

If the green beans are only average, how far can a good roast profile take them? Things like heat application, airflow and development time can obviously change the cup, but can good roasting really overcome limitations in the green?

I've always figured better green gives you a higher ceiling, but I'm not sure how much roast skill can push an average bean toward that ceiling.

For those who roast regularly, where do you think the bigger difference comes from: the green coffee or the roast profile?

I'm in Monterrey, Mexico. I've been roasting on a Fresh Roast SR800 for a while, nothing commercial yet. I'm about to buy a 3 to 6 kg commercial roaster and I want to decide what I'm actually building before I spend the money.

Three options I keep circling:

1. Small B2C roastery. Bags, farmers markets, online, maybe a café later. Highest margin per kg, slowest to volume, and I'd be competing on brand in a market where specialty is still small.
2. B2B wholesale to cafés and offices. Lower margin, but recurring and predictable. The catch is that wholesale here seems to be won on price and service response, not on cup quality, and I don't want to end up in a commodity race.
3. Espresso machine leasing with coffee supply attached. Superautomatics in offices and hotels, machine placed under contract, coffee sold monthly. Capital heavy up front, but it locks in the volume. A friend runs about 13 restaurant accounts on this model and it seems to work.

I can only do one properly to start. Time is my real constraint, not capital.

What I'd like honest input on:

• If you've done wholesale, how long did it take to get to a volume that justified the roaster?
• For anyone doing machine placement plus coffee: how much of your P&L ends up eaten by service calls and machines that walk?
• Is B2C in a mid-size Latin American city realistic without a café attached, or is retail basically a marketing expense until you open a space?
• Anything you wish someone had told you before buying the roaster.

I have recently got a fresh roast sr700. I tried the openroast which worked fine but i could not save the profiles. On windows 11 it kept crashing.

Is there an alternative to open roast for the sr700

Thanks

I’m considering a Kaleido M6 roaster. Do people have experience using the Kaleido roasters with artisan versus the Kaleido software? Thoughts on whether it’s worth the extra $200 to get the Kaleido software version? Thank you.

My coffee before (above) and after (below) removing the husks. The beans look a little dry and shrivelled, should this be the case? What’s the likely problem?

I've tried some AI instructions to make this happen and they ain't workin, but it seems like a no brainer feature. Is this possible??

Hey guys - I bought a Yoshan roaster in March & it doesn't show on Alibaba as shipped from the supplier but they insist that it has been shipped? They say it has been shipped, but keeps getting delayed according to Yoshan, but I'm starting to worry because the delays have negatively affected my business.

Has anyone had this issue before? Would love your help tks <3

Hello all,

Hope all is well. I'm scratching my head with this issue I recently installed a yoshan 2kg roaster, got everything up, turn on the gas and it climbs heat so fast and so high I can't control it. Even at 1 kpa it's reaching high 500's and doesn't stabilize I'm using propane gas. Could my thermometers be messed up ? Any advice is great thank you.

Hello. My Freshroast SR500 started shutting down in the middle of my roast cycles. I saw that the manufacturer isn't repairing them anymore. Is there anyone out there (preferably in the Pacific NW) that could take a look at it to see if it can be fixed or if I need to trash it? If I do need to trash it, I've got the extension tube for it that someone might be interested in. Thx!

I have been roasting for years using a spinny popper. After wearing out several Whirley Pops, I got the Sweet Marias stainless roaster. It died yesterday after a few years of use and I don’t think I can fix it.

Obviously I can purchase another one. But I have always wanted a “real” roaster but I don’t want some expensive, el cheapo beginner thing.

I roast a couple pounds at a time every few weeks so I’m not exactly a heavy user. I definitely do not nerd out on the minutiae of roasting. Probably because the spinny thing doesn’t really allow for appreciable tweaking. I roast in the garage using a propane stove

It is hit or miss if I can pull off a light roast and it’s is super easy for a roast to get away from me and go dark AF. For the most part, all my roasts turn out well enough for me and others seem to enjoy it. Sometimes, a roast finishes and I ask myself WTF happened.

I can financially afford an Allio Bullet but IDK if it is just far more machine that I need. Any recommendations from the experts on a direction for me?

Been taking a break from roasting to work on my gardening game. First cherries developing nicely.

Here are some picks from a coffee farm tour I went on in Kigali, Rwanda. Totally a lifetime experience for me! I was even able to contact a local seller and buy 4 kgs of some top-quality beans!! We were not able to roast the beans we harvested, but we did process them for drying out. We were given beans that had already been dried to roast. Went from harvesting the coffee to brewing directly from the farm. Again, an experience of a lifetime!!

I just started roasting coffee, been selling it at farmers markets. I’ve had some people ask if I could grind the beans for them, I currently only sell them whole. I saw there is an attachment for a kitchen aid mixer. I was wondering if anyone has used one and what your thoughts on it is.

I've been bothering Jason and Bryce over there for a couple months now as I impatiently waited for it to be ready. Until now there have been literally no choices for prosumer fluid bed roasters that will do between 500g-2 pound batches, they're either all tiny 150-250g sample roasters or big commercial units sized for someone selling coffee for a living. Hopefully it arrives soon!! Came in at just under 4 grand with the Hermetheus CoPilot automation and the exhaust blower motor, so a few hundred less than an Aillio Bullet R2 with about the same capacity, but in a fluid bed not a drum roaster.