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: Coffee geeks - you need this, but it's not perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
After years of fancy equipment and special mail-order beans, I never expected a serious jump in the quality of my coffee drinking, but I-Roast provides it. Invite your geeky friends over; you will impress them immensely. Just make sure you roast the beans and clear the smoke out of the kitchen before the tasting party arrives.
Anyone coffee geek, or someone needing a gift for a coffee geek, could hardly make a better investment in the quality of their future coffee-drinking than the Hearthware I-Roast 2, a home coffee roaster. It's about the size and shape of a blender and roasts about a cup of beans at a time. Rookies can roast simply by pushing a button for one of two pre-set roasts (a moderate cinnamon-colored roast and a much darker one). In 10-12 minutes or so, you will have the world's freshest coffee. Although sophisticated roasters would look down their noses at the pushbutton experience, if you have not had genuinely fresh-roasted beans before, you will be cosmically impressed.
As you continue to use the machine, you will work up a wishlist of features you wish were just a little different. For example, different beans will naturally give different results - I roasted a Costa Rican bean on the dark pre-set resulting in a dark, oily, Starbucks-y roast (some like that, some dont); but an Ethiopian bean on the same roast setting gave a lighter result.
You can easily address this issue by programming up 10 roasts manually, but it will be tricky to learn this....a traditional way to time a roast is to listen for "first crack" - you can actually hear the beans start to crack, kinda like microwave popcorn. But the machine is VERY noisy, so it's hard to heard this happen. You'll just have to get used to staring at the beans and making the judgment visually.
Other issues: 1) You will also stink up the kitchen with smoke - you will DEFINITELY set off a smoke alarm even if you set it under a range hood. It doesn't smell as nice as you might think. 2) The capacity will be fine for people that make a pot or two of brewed coffee a day, but heavy-duty espresso buffs or households with many coffee addicts may find it difficult to keep up with demand, particularly since you're not supposed to use it more than once in a two-hour period. 3) Finally, I can't speak yet as to the durability of the machine.
With these caveats, the best coffee-related gift we've ever given or received around my house (and that's saying a lot!).
Customer Review: Great roaster---it has flaws, but it is still more than worth it
Summary: 5 Stars
If you read this, you probably already know that roasting your own coffee is likely the single largest improvement you can make to the quality of the coffee you drink at home, so I won't belabor that point.
I owned one for about two years before it broke (like another reviewer here), and I am going to get another one. So I obviously like it a lot. Nonetheless, I'll start with the downsides of this roaster:
1. It is noisy.
2. It requires attention to cleaning to function properly.
3. It produces quite a bit of smoke (but then again, it's coffee roasting we talk about).
4. It has a limited half-life (as mentioned, about two years of pretty heavy, almost daily, use in my case).
5. It's for small batch sizes (this might actually be a good thing in terms of coffee freshness, if you don't mind roasting a little more frequently).
6. It's user interface could be improved: more buttons, better display.
Now the upsides:
1. It's fast. Takes about 13-15 min to roast a batch.
2. Easy and fast to use, once you have figured out the buttons (not rocket science).
3. It's programmable---you can punch in your own roasting "curves" (step functions, really), tuned to particular beans or roasts. You can get as nerdy as you like about this, and people have...
From this it would seem that there are a lot more problems than good things to report about this roaster, but the bottom line is that this little device transforms coffee roasting into an activity that you can do on the side almost like boiling an egg, or you can invest a lot of time and attention in, sticking thermo sensors into the roast chamber and plotting temperature profiles.
The one thing to pay attention to is the flow of air through the chamber. Air is used to transport heat to the beans, and also to move them around. This makes the roaster mechanically simple (and hence cheap), but it also means that it needs to be kept clean enough to avoid any obstruction to the air flow. I let cleaning slide for some time, which resulted in the exhaust getting clogged, and the roaster overheating. In that case it does switch itself off, but I doubt it's a healthy thing for the machine, and I would not be surprised if those events hastened its demise.
It's relatively inexpensive, and it will provide you with many batches of deliciously fresh coffee. If you think about home roasting coffee, I recommend getting one of these.
Customer Review: Excellent equipment for coffee fans
Summary: 5 Stars
A few months ago, I reviewed the FreshRoast coffee roaster, which costs under a hundred bucks and includes a few pounds of green coffee beans. That was a great purchase, when I got it, especially for someone who wasn't sure if this was a personal fad. (You know: the things you think are WayCool, but somehow don't continue using after three or four months.) As it happens, we literally wore out the FreshRoast -- after several years of dedicated use -- and decided to replace it with an I-Roast.
I'm glad we did. The I-Roast has better heat control, so the beans come out evenly roasted. (You might not think that matters, all that much, but experience has taught me it does!) It has two settings that you can program for your preferred roasting and cooling times, which is a boon if you're trying to roast coffee while getting the rest of the meal put together. (Not that I ever walked away for "just a minute" and ended up with a darker roast than I intended. But ::cough:: it might happen to SOMEone.) Plus, you can roast a much larger batch of beans at one time; in practical terms, it means we roast once every 3-4 days instead of every other day. That's an appreciated convenience, too.
In other words: the I-Roast has better quality, better control, and better taste results.
It *does* smoke up the kitchen a little more than did the FreshRoast; that's not a problem for us but it might be an irritation for you (especially if you don't have good air circulation in the kitchen). We have friends who do their roasting on the back patio.
If you already know you're serious about this roasting business, the I-Roast would be a great choice. If you can afford the extra cost, I assure you that the quality justifies it.
If, on the other hand, this feels like a REALLY expensive toy that you aren't sure you'll keep using, then I'd suggest you get the FreshRoast instead. Financially, that's a better deal -- at least in the short run. If you find that you want more than the FreshRoast can deliver, I assure you that you won't have ANY problem finding a friend to take the FreshRoast off your hands. (Having a coffee roaster in your house gets guaranteed "Oh wow!" responses from dinner guests.)
Customer Review: Good Roaster to Learn On
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first roaster I acquired. I have loved it, providing acceptable roasts from the very first. Only "failed" roasts were those I intentionally pushed well into "second crack" just to sample the result.
Easy to use, safe, and, in my experience, dependable. No service issues after 2 years of use - 2, 3, 4 times per week.
For the beginner, as I was, the machine provides multiple feedback sources: temperature, (and temperature change as that's a key to detecting beginning and end of first crack), visual (change in color, size, texture), and aroma (critical). Sound (first, second crack) can also be heard although it is a noisy machine. Through attending to all these stimuli, excellent roasts can be achieved.
No problems with chaff escaping from the machine. It is aromatic, a smell I like, but the aroma is sufficiently pungent that I use the machine in my garage just to keep my wife happy. Came with a contraption to allow exhaust to an outside vent but I have had no need to try that.
Batch sizes are small and several hours cooling should be allowed between batches. Still, two roasts each weekend sets me up for the week: more when I am entertaining or creating "housewarming gifts" when socializing.
I eventually moved on to a drum roaster but am VERY glad I started with and learned from the I Roast 2. (Drum roaster supports larger quantities but does not as effectively provide those visual, temperature, aroma clues.)
And, whatever you choose, be forewarned: use of fresh roasted beans will ruin you for the store-bought coffee beans as well as the brewed stuff the chain coffee shops put out.
P.S.: Have noted several reviewers disappointed by failure of their units. Instructions make clear that unit must be rested two hours between roasts and failure to do so voids warranty. As quantities must be kept small, there are strong temptations to not let the unit cool sufficiently before charging up again. I would guess that succumbing to such temptations would result in early failure. Anyway, mine is going strong after 2 years and I have not tempted fate by operating while still hot.
Customer Review: Perfect for a couple of coffee lovers
Summary: 5 Stars
Home roasting is one of the most rewarding activities I've gotten into, and the i-Roast is one of the funnest "toys" I've bought in a long time, though this sophisticated appliance is in no way a toy; I call it that because it's so much fun to use.The i-Roast roasts about 5 - 6 oz. of green coffee beans at a time. This is a perfect amount for a couple of coffee drinkers who, like me, want to brew their coffee (we make espresso) using fresh roasted beans (within the last 12 - 36 hours) and ground just prior to brewing.
The i-Roast lets you adjust the roasting cycle (11 - 15 min.) to get exactly the roast you like though you would probably be perfectly happy with the medium-dark roast already programmed into it. Honestly, you wouldn't have to mess with the roasting cycle at all, unless you start to feel more curious, adventurous, or are finicky about the subtle taste differences obtained.
Minor negative feature: typically, fluid (air-driven) coffee roasters are inevitably louder while in operation than are the drum-type roasters. Even so, the i-Roast is far less noisy than our blender, which would drive me nuts if I had to run it for 15 minutes. Maybe it's just so much fun to smell that unspeakably attractive aroma (roasting coffee) and to study the beans as they slowly change from yellow-green to dark brown that I haven't paid much attention to the sound of the motor.
A little LED window displays some useful information while the i-Roast is underway (e.g. it tells you what stage of the roasting cycle it's in), but I've found that it's a little hard to read the LED without bending down close by. It would've been nicer if they'd made that a backlit display, but they didn't and it's truly a minor thing.
Roasting coffee beans inevitably generates some smoke, so at some point in your roasting cycle all your household smoke alarms will go off if you try to do this indoors. Handily, the i-Roast comes with a nifty little gizmo that lets you attach one of those aluminum dryer vents to its exhaust (in the lid). This makes it easy to direct the smoke to an open window or to your range exhaust vent.