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Coffee Mall - Freshroast Plus 8 Home Coffee Roaster with 1 Lb. Peru Penachi Organic Green Coffee
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List Price: N/A
Our Price: $89.90
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Freshbeans, Inc.
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Kitchen
Feature: The perfect home roasting machine for households with 1 or 2 coffee drinkers.
Label: Freshbeans, Inc.
Manufacturer: Freshbeans, Inc.
Publisher: Freshbeans, Inc.
Studio: Freshbeans, Inc.
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Features
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The perfect home roasting machine for households with 1 or 2 coffee drinkers.
Roasts 3.5 oz. Green coffee in about 7 minutes
A good machine for beginners at an affordable price.
Includes a pound of Fair Trade certified organic Peru Penachi green coffee beans.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Freshroast Plus 8 features a glass chamber for a 3.5 oz. roast batch and a fast roast cycle. Ideal for a household of 1 to 2 coffee drinkers, it takes just 5-7 minutes to roast the green coffee beans with a 2 minute cool-down cycle. The Freshroast Plus has a mechanical timer and the chaff collector is simple yet effective. Because the roast chamber is smaller and the roast cycle is shorter than other home coffee roasting machines, it uses less energy to roast a batch of beans. Because of its basic design, this is the roaster that will outlast all the fancy, computer chip controlled machines out there. If you are a serious home coffee roaster, it is worth having one of these just in case your other roaster fails. Because of the mechanical timer and the fast roast time, this unit requires a little more attention to achieve your favorite roast. This is a simple matter of monitoring the bean color and aroma, then manually turning the machine to cool when the beans are perfect. Typically, in a Freshroast the beans roast a little darker on the outside and the coffees bright notes and aroma are accentuated, while deeper tones can sometimes be muted because of the fast roast time. The roast time will vary between coffee types, but results can be duplicated by recording the roast time for each type of coffee you roast. Includes a pound of our Fair Trade certified organic Peru Penachi green coffee.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good Product
Comment: This is a very good roaster, it can be used to roast up to espresso, or even a lovely Italian. Just a few things to be aware of. My coffee shop roasts its own beans in small batches. After 7 days they give the product that doesn't sell to the firefighters down the block. If you are lucky enough to have such a supplier, don't expect a big difference between coffee you roasted yourself 24 hours ago, and coffee beans that might be 5 days old. Also, roasting yourself is not a set and forget process. There are too many factors that effect how your beans will roast, like external temperature, or how fast the chaff collects on the top basket (I assume this has some role in trapping some of the heat). You really do have to watch the beans throughout the roasting process. Also, you might need to set the timer back a few minutes back if you are trying to get an Italian roast on your patio outside on a cool day, or you can double roast. It seems to me that home roasting is sort of for people who like to tinker around a bit. The good news is that once you control the roasting process, you can roast your beans just a bit lighter, if you want more of the "full cup" or just a bit darker, if you can't tolerate the acid. I am somewhat worried about product life after reading other reviews about these products. But there is no guarantee that those $400 or $500 roasters will last for 6 or 7 years, so if it lasts for 12 or 18 months I will have gotten my money's worth.
Customer Rating:
Summary: good low cost intro to coffee roasting
Comment: My passion for an ever better cup of coffee inspired me to purchase this machine. Warning: once you master the basics, and it's not difficult, all other coffee will pale by comparison. This is primarily because coffee loses much of it's flavor three days after roasting. You will be able to purchase green coffee suited to your tastes, and roast according to your consumption. Now for the nitty gritty:
Pros:
Inexpensive. In this price range, you have your choice between this machine or a modified corn popper, or a few hundred dollars for a slightly better arrangement featuring an agitating auger and catalytic converter to handle the smoke, or several hundred+ for a drum unit. For less than 100 bucks you can produce coffee every bit as good, with a few caveats.
Easy to use. Load the hopper, put the lid on, crank the knob, and in about 7 minutes you have roasted coffee.
Cons:
Build quality is poor. My unit is about 10 months old. It looks like it's been in use for over 10 years. I roast enough beans for two pots of coffee every other day. The heat from the element has cracked the base and warped the lid. The fan wheezes. The glass carafe, which sits precariously over the heating element, is cracked from an unfortunate topple-over. The chaff collecting lid also suffered the loss of a hefty chunk of its rim from this incident. My point is that the whole concoction is so unstable that it is not a question of IF you will one day unwittingly knock it over but WHEN. In spite of the injuries, mine still works enough for me to coax my daily grind out of it.
Small batch limitation = lots of free time spent roasting coffee. You will be so thrilled at the quality and taste of your first roasted beans. Then you will realize that to support even modest coffee consumption it will seem like you are roasting coffee constantly. Worse yet, you will read in the manual that the machine must "completely cool" between roasts. It is not meant for "batch roasting" you see. You can push it, and roast again after say, ten minutes - ok maybe 5 minutes - because you just want to go back inside and watch Project Runway or something, but that will likely accelerate the cracked base effect noted above. So let's break down the time required for tomorrow morning's coffee nirvana, which will require 4 ½ cups of water, 10 rounded tablespoons of ground coffee:
1. Choose beans to roast from green coffee library (Guatemala Acatenango Buena Vista Gesha) - 2 minutes
2. Measure two scoops into the roasting chamber - 30 sec
3. Turn knob and roast - 6 minutes on average
4. Dump beans and cool down - 1 minute
5. Wait for machine to cool 20 minutes
6. Repeat steps 2 through 4 - 7.5 minutes
7. Total time invested = 35 minutes. Add another batch and you've killed an hour for just over a day's worth of coffee.
Machine runs too fast and too hot. There is no way to control the fan speed or temperature of the roasting chamber. What this means to you is that the timer on the knob is effectively useless. Air roasters roast very quickly (a good thing because, you will be roasting every free minute of the freaking day) Not to worry, you will get the hang of it and I list instructions for great results.
Recommended supplemental equipment:
Home Coffee Roasting, Revised, Updated Edition: Romance and Revival by Kenneth Davids
A great intro and overview of turning beans from green to brown
A high temperature, long reach thermometer: I dare say this is a must have. Once you can see the temp in there things get a LOT easier
Screen colander. To dump the hot roasted beans in.
Flash light. Optional. A pen light will let you see the smoke and get a better visual sense on the beans in the chamber
Simple spray mister: to quench the beans when you dump them out. Cuts the smoke and the faster you cool them the better for the flavor of the bean
Shop vac. Not essential, but the best darn way to cool beans fast.
An Aeropress to make the best coffee possible with the beans you've lovingly roasted. Do yourself a favor and buy one of these, you will not regret it.
Instructions:
Optional but highly recommended: drill a hole dead center in the lid and pop in your thermometer. Use the clip to set the tip about 2" from the bottom of the chamber.
1. Get some high quality beans. Try on-line resources like Sweet Maria's You really should roast outside unless it is below 60. If inside, below a running range hood will work. The "open window" routine other's suggest only blows the smoke IN, unless you open a door or another window to create a cross draft..
2. Measure in two scant cups of beans with the included measuring cup. Though you will want to, do not push it and overload with rounded cups. I know, it's meager.
3. Look at your beans. Are they large, honkin Nicaraguan Limoncillo beans, or tiny peaberries from Costa Rica? The large ones will take nearly the full clock, while the tiny peaberries will be done crazy fast, so be ready
4. Put the lid on, preferably with the thermometer
5. Crank the timer all the way up to the end. Do not bother trying to time it. All beans are different. Even the same beans will roast longer/shorter depending on the ambient air temp.
6. The beans should begin agitating. If they don't, I carefully lift the machine and give it a few shakes until the beans start to lose moisture and move on their own
7. Wait for "first crack". You won't miss this, it's fairly loud. If you have a thermo installed, it will be about 380-415 depending on the bean and environmental variables and amount of chaff produced.
8. After first crack comes second crack. You want to stop just before that, or maybe a few snaps into second crack at most. If you have no thermo, you'll have to listen for it. It sounds like crinkling paper. If you are watching with your pen light (not visible otherwise), you will see a lot of smoke starting to develop. This is a good clue to stop. Going too deep into second crack burns the oils and hence the flavor of the bean. Stop anytime past first and before second crack and you will be just fine.
A note on the thermo: don't expect to get cracks and degrees of roast as per the tables in the books. It's all relative. On my machine I get a perfect Full City roast by killing it at 450, which is a little high by the book. Try a little higher/lower till you get results you like and stick with that. Just be aware that a tiny peaberry type bean can be done from start to finish in 4 minutes, proceeding directly from first to second crack, giving you very little time to react. With a small bean, or beans that produce a lot of chaff, the thermometer is indispensible to prevent over roasting.
9. Turn the knob to off, carefully remove the blistering hot lid and dump the beans into your colander.
10. Give them a shake and spray them with your mister a few times. Shake and spray again. Don't go crazy with the spraying. It should all vaporize and not stay wet. If you have the shop vac handy, a quick pass of the hose under the colander will cool them lickety split. Otherwise, set them aside until they are room temp.
11. Look at them. They should be nice and brown, almost dry looking. A few spots of oil dewing through here and there means you nailed a perfect "Full City" roast.
12. Put them in an airtight jar. You can roast them right away, which will not disappoint, but they will be the best with a 12-24 hour rest. Some beans, like Yemen, are best after a 72hr rest.
13. Brew and enjoy. Try the Aeropress to elevate your experience yet higher!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great roaster, but don't rely on timer
Comment: I've had this roaster for two years now and love roasting my espresso beans in it. After using it the first 6 times, the timer quit working, but the dial still works fine, and the cooling phase also works. I don't rely on the timer anyway, since you need to keep an eye on the beans to make sure they roast the way you want them to. I roast my coffee outdoors all year long and under extreme temperatures, so that affects the amount of time required for roasting.
Since the timer died, I don't use the cooling phase for very long. Instead, I pour the beans into a glass (pyrex) cup measurer and stick it in the freezer for 15 minutes to cool the beans off quickly. The beans then go into my grinder's "holding tank". I wait at least 12 to 24 hours before grinding and using the beans to achieve optimum flavor.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wow, I never knew coffee could taste so good!
Comment: This is my first coffee roaster and the difference between fresh roasted coffee and the stuff I can buy in the store is amazing. It's like the difference between generic brandy and a good cognac. Oh my.
My excitement is partly because I stumbled into a blend of beans that I totally love. The small small quantity of beans you can roast with the Freshroast may be a problem for people who want to supply a large household but it is an advantage for me where I like to sample lots of different beans and blends of beans. With green coffee I'm happy to buy half a dozen varieties and not worry about them going stale.
Actually fresh roasted is not an exact description. You need to wait a day or two after roasting the let the beans off-gas the carbon dioxide that builds up during roasting. Otherwise the coffee can get very foamy and make a mess.
The Freshroast is easy to use but requires a bit of experimentation. Each variety of beans needs a different roast time and small differences in roast darkness can affect the taste greatly. But that's also part of the fun. I'm hooked. Unfortunately, that means that I'll be upgrading my grinder and coffee maker. This could get expensive. On the other hand, green coffee is about half the price of roasted so things might even out in the long run.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good coffee - cheap construction
Comment: The product makes great coffee, and is easy to use.
I found, however, that the parts break or fall apart quickly, especially if you're using this every other day like I have been. It just doesn't last.
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