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- #41
9-10 minutes to 1c is pretty late on an air popper. I shoot for that with bigger batches on my bullet, but I get great results with 453g roasts with a 9 minute total roast time (~212C final temp, 1c ~6:30). Lighter roasts go even quicker.
The comment about needing to stir the beans is moot when the whole point of the air popper is that the airflow circulates the beans. That's how I decided my batch size on them: if the airflow wasn't spinning the beans in the chamber, I'd remove beans until it started to.
In my opinion, the best thing about an actual roaster is the larger batch size. There are some roasts I will never forget, but hopefully one day reproduce, that I did with an air popper. An Ethiopia Yirgacheffe with a straight up blueberry pancake taste that would be insulted if I called it "notes." Deep chocolate Guatemala Huehuetanango that made me wonder if I'd swapped my cup out for an unsweetened mocha.
I definitely get more repeatable roasts on my current setup. It's way less of a chore to roast for other people now. It's really cool to be able to tweak different parameters. I'm very happy with my roaster...
But the steps between air popper and $3k roaster had me looking back constantly. Air poppers make fantastic coffee!
My roaster progression, for context:
Many different air poppers
iRoast 2
Gene Cafe CBR-101
Aillio Bullet R1 v2
Edit: I forgot to mention that I love your cooling setup. It took me years to try using a fan, because flipping my beans around in a mesh strainer was "good enough."
My wonderful girlfriend tried using an old fan underneath the same strainer, and it cut cooling time in half for 1/4lb batches.
To my point, the air popper is making some really nice coffee. I’m finding I like a medium to darker roast. The light roast is a tad to acidic for me. A bit to fruity for my likes.
Have to figure where the point of diminishing returns are.