IRoast2 40011 5-2/7-Ounce Coffee-Bean Roaster, Black
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of IRoast2 40011 5-2/7-Ounce Coffee-Bean Roaster, Black
Customer Review: Better than Turning a Crank for 10 minutes
Summary: 5 Stars
Update - 06/08
Well, it's 2-1/2 years since replacing the I-Roast with version 2, and I've now put about 150 lbs of coffee through it. I've watched its behavior over many seasons. Recently, I thought the unit was dying... the motor seemed to be balking, so I went to the sweetmarias website to look at the array of coffee roasters that might replace the unit. I found a note in their comparison chart about I-Roast 2 being sensitive to ambient temperature and variations in line voltage. The motor was balking in the middle of a heat wave, and I knew from the line voltage measure on our PC's APC that all the air-conditioning was bringing the voltage down to 109. The unit was not dying. This week, with the heat-wave over, and line voltage back up to 120, it was back to its normal jet engine sound.
So, I reiterate that you cannot just find a profile setting that works once, and then just walk away. The following items change the roasting profile without warning:
1) Coffee variety. Large dense beans take longer than small or less dense beans
2) Ambient temperature. If it's late autumn, and you haven't turned your heat on yet, the roast will take longer.
3) Line voltage. If your voltage drops (even from 120 to 118) it will lengthen the roast time.
4) Cleaning. You must keep the screen and trap at the top of the unit clean. (I use a brass brush) If the screen gets dirty, the airflow slows through the machine and it gets hotter than expected, shortening roasting time, and causing "tipping" or uneven roasting.
One final item. The handle on the top chamber is meant only to bear the weight of the top chamber. Do not use this to carry the whole machine. That bit of abuse may be responsible for some of the breakage reported in this series of reviews.
Update- 04/06
Replaced the original with the I-Roast 2. Fantastic improvement. Will store several different user defined profiles. Roasting chamber has been re-engineered and is solid.
As other users have pointed out, it does sound like a jet engine, and it is smokey.... but then smoke is just part of roasting coffee. For those who imagine the smell of roasting coffee wafting through their homes, you need to know that while roasted coffee smells good, roasting coffee is pretty nasty, and you need to vent the smoke.
Update- 10/05
Some of the metal parts on the roasting chamber were under-engineered, and the chamber started leaking air and coming apart. Temperature sensors seem to have gone, and with them, any notion of a roasting profile.
Original (Original I-Roast as well)-----
I used to use a stove-top corn-popper for roasting, which was pretty dull and burned my fingers. The iRoast is pretty good compared to that. The roast is very even, cleaning is easy, and you can watch the roast.
The down-side is that you need to watch the roast towards the end. You cannot program the machine, walk away, and expect it to finish the job all by itself. Slight variation in ambient temperature, (summer/winter, oven on recently, morning/afternoon) can result in notable changes in roast time. You must always program it for longer than the roast should take, and watch the last few minutes to stop the roast at the right time.
It would be nice if the machine remembered the program from one roast to the next.
Customer Review: Better than turning a crank for 10 minutes
Summary: 4 Stars
Update - 06/08
Well, it's 2-1/2 years since replacing the I-Roast with version 2, and I've now put about 150 lbs of coffee through it. I've watched its behavior over many seasons. Recently, I thought the unit was dying... the motor seemed to be balking, so I went to the sweetmarias website to look at the array of coffee roasters that might replace the unit. I found a note in their comparison chart about I-Roast 2 being sensitive to ambient temperature and variations in line voltage. The motor was balking in the middle of a heat wave, and I knew from the line voltage measure on our PC's APC that all the air-conditioning was bringing the voltage down to 109. The unit was not dying. This week, with the heat-wave over, and line voltage back up to 120, it was back to its normal jet engine sound.
So, I reiterate that you cannot just find a profile setting that works once, and then just walk away. The following items change the roasting profile without warning:
1) Coffee variety. Large dense beans take longer than small or less dense beans
2) Ambient temperature. If it's late autumn, and you haven't turned your heat on yet, the roast will take longer.
3) Line voltage. If your voltage drops (even from 120 to 118) it will lengthen the roast time.
4) Cleaning. You must keep the screen and trap at the top of the unit clean. (I use a brass brush) If the screen gets dirty, the airflow slows through the machine and it gets hotter than expected, shortening roasting time, and causing "tipping" or uneven roasting.
One final item. The handle on the top chamber is meant only to bear the weight of the top chamber. Do not use this to carry the whole machine. That bit of abuse may be responsible for some of the breakage reported in this series of reviews.
Update- 04/06
Replaced the original with the I-Roast 2. Fantastic improvement. Will store several different user defined profiles. Roasting chamber has been re-engineered and is solid.
As other users have pointed out, it does sound like a jet engine, and it is smokey.... but then smoke is just part of roasting coffee. For those who imagine the smell of roasting coffee wafting through their homes, you need to know that while roasted coffee smells good, roasting coffee is pretty nasty, and you need to vent the smoke.
Update- 10/05
Some of the metal parts on the roasting chamber were under-engineered, and the chamber started leaking air and coming apart. Temperature sensors seem to have gone, and with them, any notion of a roasting profile.
Original-----
I used to use a stove-top corn-popper for roasting, which was pretty dull and burned my fingers. The iRoast is pretty good compared to that. The roast is very even, cleaning is easy, and you can watch the roast.
The down-side is that you need to watch the roast towards the end. You cannot program the machine, walk away, and expect it to finish the job all by itself. Slight variation in ambient temperature, (summer/winter, oven on recently, morning/afternoon) can result in notable changes in roast time. You must always program it for longer than the roast should take, and watch the last few minutes to stop the roast at the right time.
It would be nice if the machine remembered the program from one roast to the next.
Customer Review: A few things learned one month in...and 18 months later, too
Summary: 5 Stars
I really like this little machine, and have been working with it for about a month now. I've learned a few things along the way, and my roasts are improving as a result. So here are a few "after a month" tips.
1. Keep good notes. Get yourself a little notebook that you keep near the machine and record the kind and amount of beans, the temps and times of each stage in your programs, your initial reaction to the roast (straight out of the machine, before you make coffee). Then record your reactions to the coffee the next day when you start brewing.
2. Vent this puppy. I have a downdraft vent fan in my stovetop, so I spent $8 at the hardware store and bought a length of flexible dryer tubing. I get no smoke whatsoever this way. Maybe because my vent fan pulls the air from the roaster, my temps run almost exactly as programmed. AND, to connect the tubing to the metal ring that fits the top, you get to use duct tape for its intended purpose (!!!) - who'd a' thunk it?
3. Don't overload it. The instructions suggest you can load a full cup of beans. With my beans, 150g is almost exactly 3/4 c of beans. Overloading the machine will result in more char because the beans won't circulate properly. And, after all, the flavor of burnt is just that - burnt.
4. Ramp the roast up. I'm currently using 2 min ea at 330, 360, 390, 405, and setting the fifth stage at 390 for the remaining 7 min. Then I shut the roast down with the COOL button when the roast looks "right".
5. Don't overheat it. When I started, I was using very high temps (440-450), and I've backed way down. In my current profile, which produces a nice full city (dark brown, no oil), the temp reading on the LCD readout never gets above 408, and I get there after about 10 mins.
6. There are some very informational sites on the web on the topic of roasting. Kenneth Davids is a great source, as is Tom Owen at Sweet Maria's. Find 'em, read 'em, but remember, you're going to learn more about roasting from what you do than you will from the web.
Great little machine and you control it. Don't push the "On" button and walk away. Use the machine's "weakness" (small capacity) as a strength - more roasts, more practice, fresher beans.
******
It's now July, 2009, and my little iRoast2 is still going strong. I dropped the chaff cover and a wedge chipped out - I just glued it back in. No problem. Four roasts a week, and still one of the great joys is learning "the" roast for a new, unsampled variety of beans. Two more tips:
7. "Profile" the roast. Ramp it up just like I said in #4 above, peak it at your high temp (mine is 405 for one minute) and then ramp it back down. I set stage five to run 3.5 mins at 375, and this caramelizes the roast you've put into the beans at the high temp. I've found that if you want a darker flavor, you're better off extending the length of the final, cooler stage than extending the length of the high-temp stage. Naturally, YMMV.
8. Wipe the roast canister out with a paper towel after every roast, and wash it with dishwashing detergent and a sponge about every fifth roast.
When this little guy gives up his ghost, he'll be replaced by another iRoast2, 'cuz I couldn't be happier than with what I get from it.
Customer Review: Too noisy and unforgiving coffee roaster
Summary: 3 Stars
The good:
- Excellent uniform roasting for small batches, for instance half a cup.
- 10 programs make it easy to roast small and large beans separately, or different varieties, for different roast levels.
- I never experienced the smoking issue frequently reported, possibly because I use small batches, lower temperatures and stop before the beans get overburnt (and overly carcinogen.)
- The smell is divine from start (herbal notes) to end (delicious roast as expected.)
The bad:
- The programing system is not intuitive, you need the manual. You need more than the manual, because you'll have no clue how many minutes at how much temp, followed by how long and hot again, and again. They should preset the 10 programs instead of letting the beginner roaster mess about, this is extremely frustrating!
- Anything over half a cup will make it difficult to get evenly roasted beans and seems to overload/overheat/kill the roaster and make smoke. The layer of beans becomes too heavy for the air flow to shuffle them around effectively.
- The locking system for the pot and its top is the worst cumbersome unpractical device ever!
- Roasting requires constant monitoring towards the end, I frequently need to stop it before it reaches the end of its program because the beans already reached the desired roast.
- The parts needs thorough cleaning after every roast, as coffee oils tend to stick and burn at next roasting.
- You need a dedicated setup: A little higher on the counter so you can actually read the screen, good lighting, never move the roaster from its location even for cleaning. I can't use the exhaust attachment but do it if you can, and you need a vacuum sealing machine or vacuum containers to store the roasted beans after they vented out and cooled down. Green beans should also be kept in a vacuum to keep fresh, according to sweetmarias tests.
- I would have loved to smell that delicious roasting smell in the morning for breakfast, but roasted coffee need to rest at least 9 hours, so you always need to prepare a batch or two at least the day before.
The ugly:
- The roaster is NOISY as hell: You CANNOT use it in an apartment. Even in a house, it is horrible to stand by it while you monitor manually the last stages of the roast. iRoast should sound-proof the fan engine (so we can actually hear the second crack.)
- Like in about 8 customer reviews, my glass pot also developed a crack that soon spread out. It was located near the handle, so I suspect the awkward locking system.
In summary:
Still a great roaster if your usage is small batches 3-4 times a week, but you need to keep extremely good care of your roaster, and be aware that programming does not mean fully automatic roasting, the last minutes of roasting are critical to monitor manually. But the noise alone removes 2 stars from this review, it's that bad.
Customer Review: Wonderful gadget for the coffee buff
Summary: 4 Stars
Warning! Roasting coffee produces smoke! Definitely read up on the process thoroughly before buying. The first batch I made with this machine I over roasted due to my ignorance. It was darker than a French roast and had little body or flavor and smoked the house up. After reading some more I adjusted the program and kept a closer eye on it and roasted an amazing Sumatran coffee with FAR less smoke. I am drinking a cup of said batch right now and it is wonderfully clean and delightful. One newbie to newbie note; coffee roasting is not a "set it and forget it" kind of process. This is more or less like cooking. It requires your attention or every smoke alarm in the house will be going off; no, seriously! It does have a safety feature so that it will not run longer than 15 min and will shut off if it overheats, so fire risk is minuscule even for the most scatter brained of us. Check out this website for details on the roasting process to get a feel if it is right for you. [...] Sweet Maria's also has an amazing assortment of green beans of very high quality from what I can tell. The machine does come with a vent pipe adapter if any smoke in the house bothers you. If you have a hood that vents to the outside then smoke is a non issue. A full city roast produces about the same amount of smoke as a cigarette, obliviously without the nasty cig smell. It's kind of funny because the green beans don't smell particularly good nor does the roasting process. Not bad but not good. Yet the finished product is so, so good! Now that you know it produces smoke ... this machine works great and produces a very even roast. It has a commercial grade motor which is about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, certainly not enough to wake the neighbors. The programming functionality is great and I look forward to tweaking it for that perfect roast. The user interface could definitely be improved and is a bit cumbersome, but I did not find it to be very difficult to program at all. Also the LCD screen is kind of cheap and angled poorly so you basically got to flip it on its side under good light to program it. However this is one of only a few programmable machines on the market, the only one for this price. It roasts around 6oz which is quite a bit unless you drink two pots a day. ... pauses to take a sip of smashingly good coffee ... If you are a coffee buff who leans toward the creative side you will probably like this machine. I give it 4 stars because wholesale electronic parts are cheap and they could have put better LCD screen on it and angled it so you can read it standing up. Other than that this thing rocks!