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The manufacturer is not responsive for repairs. The product is easy to use, but the top of the base cracks and the base unit is unreliable. I have owned this product for about 8 months. It has only worked for about 2 of those months.
Plug it in. It's virtually silent, emanates a nice rich smell and it's smoke-free--if you put the chaff collectors & the roast chamber into the dishwasher after each roasting project.
Pour dem roasted coffee beans into the grinder cup of your automatic grind and brew coffee maker--pour in twelve cups of filtered water--set the timer--and it's incredibly fresh coffee in the morning. The green beans slowly turn kaki, then light brown and finally (after the second crack) a dark shiny brown.
This small fluid-bed appliance is one efficient; easy to use coffee bean roaster. A stream of hot air does the rest.
Too simple. You pour your Tolima Colombian green beans into the 43cc scoop twice, spilling them into the small roasting chamber.
Turn the timer knob to seven minutes and that's it.
Thats not to say that you can just turn the dial and get the same roast each time. Unfortunately, just days after the 1 year warranty expired, the fan on the roaster started making strange noises and a couple roasts later a small flame shot through the center of the roaster.
I have since bought an I-Roast as a replacement. Only being able to get a year's worth of roasting and risking a major fire in the process more than outweigh the initial savings.
I purchased this roaster, the FreshRoast Plus, a little over a year ago. Still, with some experience and good timing the variables were easy to adjust for.
It roasts more at one shot but is much louder and smokier. In that year I used it roughly every two days and after a bit of a rough start had no problem getting just the roast I wanted.
Slightly different amounts of beans or different types could require 2 to 3 minutes less to roast often because the first crack was so exothermic that it caused a very rapid second crack.
of coffee, not 48-60. I love coffee and view my obsession as a hobby. The FreshRoast plus 8 was a cost-effective way to proceed with my hobby.After an experience in Peru roasting my own beans over a fire (poor results) I knew that good results would require a coffee roaster.
Even roasting under the kitchen exhaust fan failed to "clear the air" with my non-coffee drinking wife. On the bright side, clean up is easy, the cats enjoy watching the beans "bounce" while roasting and the smell is intoxicating for a coffee lover. It is really hard to "mess up." Observations: Coffee will need to be roasted outside. Excellent results.
The FreshRoast plus 8 is as close to being ready to use "out of the box" as possible. I ground this into espresso. Roasting ones own beans is almost an essential activity for one to be consider a coffee snob (or hobbyist). This may be a reflection of taste on my part.Adding a minute produced a darker roast with a slightly oily bean.
I was please with my first pot, although the first go-round only netted 32 oz. I have friends who have tried using an air popper and the oven to roast green beans, with results mimicking my "open fire" experience. Using the supplied Sumatra beans, a six minute roast produced A) More smell than smoke B) a good "French press" roast.
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