Choosing home coffee roaster for The QARR Shop

Though the home coffee roasting market is very small, there are still a handful of such roasters available in the market, mainly in
the United States, Europe and Australia.  2 types of roasters are available: drum and fluid bed.  Drum roaster works by rotating the
raw coffee beans in a cylinder with heat transfer via convection or infrared radiation.  Fluid bed roaster uses hot air to roast the
coffee beans in the air, usually within a glass chamber where the entire roasting process can be monitored easily.  In general,
drum roaster will roast a batch of beans slower than the fluid bed roaster, giving a fuller taste with more body than the same batch
roasted in the fluid bed.  On the other hand, the fluid bed roaster, given its much faster roast, tends to capture more of the delicate
subtleties (eg. fruitiness) of the bean characteristics. Hottop, Gene Cafe roaster and Swissmar Bravi are currently the only 3 drum
coffee roasters available in the market.  Similarly, there are 3 fluid bed roasters: Hearthware i-Roast 2, Freshroast Plus and IMEX
Caffe Rosto.  Zach & Dani's Gourmet coffee roaster is a rather innovative roaster that uses a "screw-driver"-like agitator in the
glass chamber.  It's effective smoke eliminator, quiet operation and consistent roast make it a very desirable roaster.  
Unfortunately, it suffers from a longer than normal roast time and delay between the 1st and 2nd crack that muted some of the
characteristics of the beans, hence affecting the roast quality.  Note that, however, not all these roasters are produced for the Asian
market, partly because of the power voltage still limited to 110V used in the US, and also the currently non-existent market here.

For one who is interested to get into home coffee roasting, we believe that you're looking for quality coffee.  Buying a home coffee
roaster off the shelf and roasting a few batches of coffee beans may not produce the coffee that you're looking for, unless you're
willing to invest in trials and errors that can cost you dearly.  Instead of offering a wide choice of roasters (like those mentioned
above), we have decided to find only one best possible and affordable roaster, and create a community of home roasters where
roasting experience can be shared.  This is crucial because different roasters will produce different results for the same beans
under the same conditions.  For more information, please refer to QARR Coffee Roasting Club (QCRC).

Below is a list of factors that helps determine the roaster of our choice.

Criteria of a good home coffee roaster from a non-technical perspective –
  • Simple to operate, yet controllable for advance user
  • Ability to produce consistent roast
  • Ease in cleaning and maintenance
  • Affordable
  • Minimum or no smoke
  • Neighborhood-friendly (Noise level).  

Criteria of a good home coffee roaster from a technical point of view –
  • Accurate reading of bean temperature
  • Controllable roasting
  • Instant or Fast cooling
  • Smoke elimination/reduction
  • Ability to profile the roast

The noise level and smoke reduction capability are 2 important criteria especially relevant to the dense population in Singapore
where majority of the population stays in the apartments.

With both quantitative and qualitative criteria, the above roasters pit against each other, and a score from 1 (Least favorable) to 5
(Most favorable) is given, based on our research and in-house evaluations.  The scores are then summed up to the final grading.   
As objective as can be, there is no clear winner in the end, though the Gene Cafe roaster scores the highest.  But we are
affirmative that the home drum roaster makes a better choice than the fluid bed because 1) it is much quieter during operation, 2)
it is more controllable and consistent in the roast, and 3) it produces a fuller and more balance taste profile than the fluid bed.  
Next, among the drum roasters, the Hottop and Gene Cafe roasters comes close and have their fair share of
pros and cons.  In terms of the physical design and look, the Hottop resembles a miniature commercial drum roaster with an
industrial look, whereas the Gene Cafe, with its off-axis vortex twisting roasting technique and glass chamber, looks
contemporary.  With much comparisons and trials, we have decided to place our bet on the Gene Cafe roaster.
Pros of Hottop
  • Faster cooling with external cooling tray
  • Consistent roast
  • Larger roast capacity
 Pros of Gene Cafe
  • Fully controllable roasting based on temperature and
    time
  • Consistent roast
  • Visible roasting
  • Cheaper than Hottop
Cons of Hottop
  • Roast styles are pre-programmed with limited control
  • Most expensive home coffee roaster
 Cons of Gene Cafe
  • Slower cooling
  • Difficult to hear the 1st and 2nd cracks during roasting
   
Hottop
Gene Cafe
Bravi
Zach & Dani's
i-Roast 2
FreshRoast
Caffe Rosto
   
Comparison between Home Coffee Roasters
  Ease of
Use
 Consistent
Roast
 Maint./
Cleaning
 Control
 Roast
Profile
 Cooling
 Roast
Visibility
 Smoke
 Noise
 Price
(USD)
 Capacity
 Total Score
Drum type
Hottop
5
5
5
3
3
5
3
3
4
1
(585)
5
(9oz/270g)
42
Gene Cafe
4
5
5
5
4
3
5
3
4
2
(495)
4
(8oz/240g)
44
Bravi
5
4
4
2
2
3
1
3
4
3
(279)
4
(225g)
35
Zach &
Dani's
5
5
5
2
2
3
5
5
4
4
(149)
2
(4oz/120g)
42
Fluid bed type
i-Roast2
3
3
5
4
5
3
4
2
1
4
(169)
3
(5oz/150g)
37
Freshroast
5
3
5
2
1
3
4
2
3
5
(73)
1
(64g)
34
Caffe
Rosto
5
3
3
2
1
3
2
2
2
4
(143)
2
(136g)
29
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