From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

[hiker]

Need to make a start after a traffic accident last month and have decided to spend my (plentiful) time roasting coffee for my local drinkers and retailers. Have been roasting for several years using Csnobs as my supplier and my trusty Gene Cafe, and now need to expand.

Heres my thoughts ...... with limited $$ (accident pension), I can buy 2 or 3 more Gene Cafes, and so I need a bulk supply of green beans (pref Sth American or Australian) and appropriate packaging ( 250gsm, 500gsm, 1 kg) and probably a vacuum sealer.

Can somebody please point me in the right direction /s for the above items

many thanks to all my fellow snobs

[GregWormald]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

Im not sure the 3 Gene Cafés are the way to go for the money, but they are as far "up the chain" as I have looked. Im sure someone will be along with a more specific recommendation on roasters.

The ongoing supplies should be fairly straightforward. Id be starting in the Yellow Pages.

Sorry to hear about the accident.

Greg

[Luke_G]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

Yeah im not so sure about 3 x Genes.
A lot of work for the return and keeping them all 3 running for years worth of use doesnt look promising.

I would personally opt for a Behmor or even 2.

I seem to be doing a lot of roasting for friends and family now that i have the Hottop and its a lot of work on such a small roaster. Im thinking of either buying a Behmore or going full house and keeping a lookout for a 5kg commercial roaster.

All still a fun, hobby deal for me though

[bolb]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

If you need 3 Genes to keep up then i would be looking at the KK TO roaster, i just purchased one and am beta testing it. Two roasts down and 600gm of green each one and the results were great, all i need to do now is to add the temp probe and slightly mod for chaff removal.

I also roast for family and friends and do 4 - 5 roasts per week as a minimum so something that will do 600gm and up is what you need.

I will be testing larger batch sizes once i have the temperature probe in position.

[fatboy_1999]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

I think a single unit is your best bet.
If a second hand 2kg(bit small for the cost) or 5kg commercial roaster became available, I think it would be worth considering.

Otherwise, you could look into something like what I have. It is a stainless steel mesh drum that is purpose built for roasting on a hooded BBQ rotisserie. I can do 1kg green each run without any dramas.


*Note - this pic shows the drum loaded with around 750g green. Its from a long time ago when I was only roasting for myself ;-)

Brett.

[-Alchemist-]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

Hello Hiker - sorry to hear of your recent misfortunes.  I hope 2010 is a better year for you  [smiley=thumbsup.gif] [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

To get maximum bang-for-your-buck, you could also consider double Correttos?  I sold my complete roasting set up and and estimated it had a replacement cost of ~$700 - it was capable of comfortably roasting up to 1.4 Kgs (2 x 700 gram batches simultaneously).

See here for photo of set up:- http://coffeesnobs.com.au/YaBB.pl?num=1261058455

The way I see it, this option would enable you to roast around 4-5 times the quantity of the Gene Cafe, but for an approximately similar cost.  If $$$ are limited, you could use this as an interim generator of cash flow until you have enough saved for a 2-5 Kg second hand machine.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

-A-

[A_M]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

If you need 3 Genes to keep up then i would be looking at the KK TO roaster

Yep... Small and tidy enough and more than capable of doing 600g - 850g without too much fuss..

Two would see ya singing along... Dualing KKTOs ;D

The Behmor would be my preference over a Gene... But have not yet seen one in action... And the issue is still one of roast size...

Thus the KKTO as a system to provide your volume...

[Koffee_Kosmo]

Re: From home roaster to community roaster - help sought!

Yep... Small and tidy enough and more than capable of doing 600g - 850g without too much fuss..

I havent tested the new KKTO @ 850 grams yet    soon  

KK