Fresh Roast 500

[Rughi]

Well, I burned up enough popcorn poppers and got the new Fresh Roast 500. Sweet Maria's said I was the first to pick one up; they're only a few blocks from my new office, so it wasn't hard to pop over as soon as they were in.

I had been looking at a Behmor, but I was concerned (perhaps unwarrantedly) that it isn't meant for dark roasting shied me from it. The Gene Cafe was interesting, but much more pricey. The iRoast seems to have a checkered past and is out of stock until late winter. I was about to start hot rodding, but have little spare time to fool around and was tired of buying pre-roasted.

One note of caution:It is Tippy!I intend to leave the carafe and smoke cap off except while actually running the machine. Tom of Sweet Maria knocked his over and broke a carafe before even finishing his first youtube video. I knocked mine over within a minute of unpacking, but luckily it didn't break.

The body of the machine is a heavy plastic and except for the tippiness it gives an initial sense of chunky quality. The aspects of it that sold me were that it was similar to the fun I've been having with poppers and it simply has 3 manual controls: heat, fan speed and time and none of the automated profiles that many machines have. At least as I learn about roasting, I want to have it respond (good or bad) directly to my inputs.

Check it out at Sweet Maria's:
http://sweetmarias.com/prod.newfreshroast2.php
http://sweetmarias.com/freshroast_detail.php#sr300

Sweet Maria is also putting videos up on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sweetmarias
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWoPcYeNrY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qQHPOg-KtQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_XUS3OYrY​

Roger

 

[bones59]

At first I was thinking "what a dirty table cloth", then I realized it was a nice slab of tree. Any way, have you roasted any beans in it yet? If you don't mind me asking, how much for the whole set up? Also, how much can you roast at a time? Good luck with it, it looks like a nice machine.

 

[Jim]

Very nice score, enjoy it ..... and- awesome table!

 

[joyfulwoogie]

I think this could be one of the best entry level roaster. I like the control this one gives. It's like IRoast 2 but slightly more control due to the fan control.

I am really interested to see how this one roasts.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Rughi]

I've used the Fresh Roast 500 for a few days now and I can say that I unreservedly like it.

The 500 has a fan speed rheostat, a 9.9 minute timer and 4 heat settings (low, medium, high and cool-down). Here is the method I've found works for me:

Concept - The Roast is a "Liquid" mass of Beans Circulating

• Hot air blows upward from the bottom
• Beans at the bottom heat up and rise towards the top
• Beans on the top are cooler and fall along the cool outside edge of the chamber
• A smooth flow forms that pushes beans to circulate past the heat more or less evenly; as the beans cascade downwards along the perimeter it looks like bees crawling downwards in a hive.

• Less Fan = More Heat remains in chamber
• Too little fan, beans don't circulate and roast unevenly
• Too much fan, beans jump crazily and circulate unevenly

Warm Up (2 Minutes on Low)
When beans are first put in, they are heavy and difficult for the fan to move, so I do a two minute warm up to allow the beans to shed a bit of moisture. It's always shortly before 2 minutes that I get a smooth circulation going.

Roast (High heat, usually 5-7 Minutes)
After Warm Up, I set the heat to high and start adjusting the fan downwards to maintain a smooth, regular circulation. I don't like the circulation to lose its rhythm. The progression works out something like this:
1-2 minutes at 75% fan
1-2 minutes at 60% fan
1-2 minutes at 40% fan

Dump Beans
I turn the machine off and dump the beans into a pair of large colanders as soon as I get the good crack (in the Irish sense of the word ). Next, I turn the machine back on without the lid and hit the cool button to cool down the motor (it runs maybe 3 minutes). Lastly, I toss the beans between the two colanders until they are cool enough to handle and then jar them.

Keep It Simple - or - Get Obsessive (your choice)
I find I get 2 or 3 beans (so far never as much as 6) that dramatically over-roast with my method; if the batch is City+, there will be a couple of Vienna beans. These are beans that get caught against the screen at the bottom at the beginning of the roast and need the momentum of other beans circulating to move them along. Sweet Maria's (where I bought my machine) has devoted most of their tutorials to ways to free up these beans. I find these fixes to be largely unnecessary with the 500 model.

All that said, I would recommend the 500 series, but would not recommend the more basic 300 series. "The flaw" could indeed ruin the batch if one had no control over heat nor fan speed.

To paraphrase Charlie Papazian:
"Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Home Roast"

Roger

 

[Ironman06]

Thanks for a really well detailed review. Very appreciated. Your tempting me to try home roasting myself, although I think I'll try a popper first... if I could find one that is.

 

[Rughi]

Thanks Ironman,
I'd definitely recommend seeing if you enjoy doing it by getting the popcorn popper. The type I used was the $10 model from Walgreen's. That plus 3 pounds of Sweet Maria's is cheaper than 3 pounds of Starbuck or Peets.

I did a write up on how I used the popper here . I'm not sure this site shows how to tell which type of popper works well, but the basic feature is to get the type with a solid bottom to the roasting chamber and what look like hotrod hood louvers on the inside wall of the chamber, not the type with a screen bottom.

I stepped up to the Fresh Roast because I really liked the type of roasting I did with the popper, except for the problems created by it not being purpose-built for roasting. The 3 things I wanted in addition were: some roast control (the fan and heat controls satisfy this), a timer (I kept burning up the poppers if I wandered off, which you're not supposed to do), and construciton that didn't get a bit melty with darker roasts.

Roger