Brief instructions on using the I-Roast 2 coffee roaster

A couple of weeks ago, I started another newbie on the route to home roasting.

He roasted his first batch over the weekend and burnt the first batch to an expresso roast by accident.

So, to help anyone out there who is new to the I-Roast. Please do not assume that you can choose Pre-Set 1 or Pre-Set 2, hit the roast button and then walk away. The actual roast you get will vary from machine to machine, but it is likely to be a very dark roast.

Instead, press the pre-set 1, and set a timer for 5 and 1/2 minutes. When the timer goes off, run (don't walk) back to your roaster and sit with it until it reaches the roast that you want. Then manually hit the cool button.

I've set up various custom roasting programs, but the variance in roast is pretty significant and seems to vary based on the bean density, the bean size, the amount of beans in the hopper, the temperature and the humididty.

After you are experienced, you may want to try your hand at roasting programs, but as a newbie make sure you keep an eye on your roast.

Tags: coffee, home roasting

Coffee Roaster Comments Update

Most of a year ago, I posted on a friend's Blog about Home Coffee Roasters. At the time, My flat bed roaster was in the process of going belly up, and I was experimenting with a new iRoast 2 machine from HearthWare.

It's several months later, and I can now report the the IRoast is a much better machine than then previous Hearthware coffee roasters that I have owned. The electronics are much better and much better shieled, and as a result it is much more durable.

I've replaced a couple of plastic pieces (as a result of my dropping them) but the electronic base / heater is still going strong.

Due to the volume of coffee that I roast for the office, I've now purchased a second iRoast2.

My only complaint is that it is too sophisticated for the programming interface that it has. There are only a couple of buttons, and as a result custom programming is an error prone and tedious process.

That's a pain, but it is generally a one time pain, since you don't program it again once you have the roast profiles you want stored in the bases non-volatile memory. So, Again, I give this a big thumbs up. The original Hearthware roasters worked well for a brief period of time, but the electronics were not protected from the units own heat well enough and they tended to have very short lives. Hearthware seems to have fixed this problem with the IRoast 2 version.

Tags: coffee, home roasting

Home Coffee Roaster - durability

I've posted some of my experience with the durability of home Coffee roasters in a friends blog.

The posts are long, so take a look here.

Tags: coffee