Loading…
24
TIL a $12 thrift store popcorn popper makes better home roast than the $180 drum I sent back
I got into home coffee roasting about 8 months ago and like a dummy I dropped $180 on a small drum roaster online before I even knew if I liked doing it. Used it maybe 10 times in my garage here in Tucson and the roasts kept coming out uneven, scorched on one side, grassy on the other, and cleaning the thing was a whole afternoon job. My wife got annoyed at the mess and one Saturday I dug an old air popcorn popper out of a thrift bin for $12 just to mess around. Turns out the hot air swirls the beans way more evenly and I can hear first crack clear as day, which I never could over the drum's noise. I do small 80 gram batches now, stand outside on the patio, and honestly the cups taste cleaner and brighter than anything that fancy machine gave me. The drum is boxed up waiting for a return label and the $12 popper lives on my counter. Has anyone else gone backwards on gear and ended up happier, or am I just bad at using a drum roaster?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
bell.emma1d ago
Got lucky with the popper, those things run hot and fast and a lot of them die in a month. Give it time before you declare victory. The drum probably just needed more heat and smaller batches, not that it's useless.
2