You should turn the Hottop around a bit to show the front glass with beans moving around. It's very easy to judge bean color. I have two Behmor roasters (first one bought in 2007) and a Hottop 2K+ (bought 2022) . The Hottop is a real pleasure to roast with compared to the Behmor, but both make great roasts. Kudos to Behmor for having an active afterburner smoke suppression system.
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, that's what I really like about the hottop, beans are perfectly visible, cracks are super easy to hear and you can smell the development of the beans well. So you get all sensory information you need to roast coffee really perfectly.
Hi Jacob. Unfortunately the Fresh Roasts aren't available in Europe so I haven't got them in my workshop. But from my experience with the smaller Fresh Roast model, I would say, they are pretty similar. In general, smoke in a air roaster is correlated to the batch size.
@@CoffeeRoasting Thanks, this is really helpful. I ordered a Kaffelogic Nano 7e from their Indiegogo, so it should be shipping to the US in October. Sounds like I'll still have to use it either outside or by a window with a fan. I wasn't sure if it was similar to the Ikawa, which seems to minimize smoke.
We have the Behmore. Our main issue is that it can be hard to see the coffee (the drum is very reflective) and it can be hard to hear first crack. Also, it’s safety feature is obnoxious. If you miss the time window to extend the roast, the machine cools and the batch is ruined. It’s a few years old now, and it might not get as hot as before. We want to upgrade to something that’s easier to monitor (1st crack), less babysitting, and more consistent. We roast 5lbs in a sequence, so efficient time is important. The small, sample roaster looks interesting. It would require many batches, but it seems to require almost no babysitting. Is 1st crack easy to detect? The Hottop looks good, and maybe the process is simpler than you show, if you use a profile. I like that it automatically dumps to cool. The bullet looks great, but is out of budget. So, the little sample roaster or Hottop? Which is best for our use case?
It looks like the Kaffelogic isn’t ideal for the US as it requires a 220V circuit. So the Hottop seems to be the best option. Is it easier to monitor for 1st crack than the Behmore? Are it’s alarms and safety features non-obtrusive or obnoxious? Can one set and forget, using profiles, or does it require babysitting? The filter thing is unfortunate. Anything else to consider?
Hi Jon. You are talking about 5lbs in a sequence, which is about 2.2kg. Consider, that this would be around 20 roasts in the Kaffelogic (although fully automatically with nothing to do). And around 7-8 roasts in the Hottop. If not connected to Artisan, there is a safety function with the Hottop as well, where you have to press a button in order to make sure you are with the roaster. When working with Artisan (which would be mandatory in your case, since you want to do automatic roasts), the safety function, beeps,... are off. Both machines are available for the US market as well (Kaffelogic is now launching and you can get a good price in the Indigogo campaign when ordering a US machine). Hope, this answers your questions.
This is VERY helpful. Clearly, we will want the more expensive Hottop version that supports Artisan, rather than the manual model. Is it easy to see the roast and hear first crack with the Hottop?
@@JonFairhurst Yes. There is no roaster where you can hear FC better than in the Hottop. And the colour is very easy to see in the large window. If you use the light from your smartphone or another daylight LED torch, you can judge the colour of the bean perfectly.
Perfect! We’ve always done manual roasting, starting with popcorn poppers, then small air roasters, then the Behmore. So having feedback has been an important part of the process. Even with Artisan profiles, I expect that we will want to be able to monitor the roast. The Caffelogic price is attractive, and the Boost upgrade could be nice, but it won’t ship until October, so the Hottop+ will be our choice. At 750W, the Hottop appears to be the most energy efficient, so this is an additional win. Thanks for your excellent videos and information!
Hard to say. If you want to roast commercially for customers, you need to learn about roasting. So it depends on where you are with your basic coffee knowledge and especially sensory skills. If you are very confident in sensory, then you will learn it super quickly. Otherwise, you will need to take some time. That isn't too much of an issue if you are a home roaster, but when roasting for customers, you need to delivery consistency and high quality. We send two online courses with each roaster, but you might need to do an offline workshop on coffee roasting as well.
@@CoffeeRoasting I own the Kaleido M1 and it is a pretty nice machine. Good, solid quality. I am a bit tempted to get something with higher capacity next year maybe, that is how I ended up here....
yes, the Kaffelogics are great machine. There were some issues in the past with the heating elements, but they have adapted the heating elements and since then, they are working very reliable.
Excellent review and subbed! I want to get into home coffee roasting and looking at the Hottop since my local espresso guy has recommended that machine to me over the less expensive Behmor.
Thanks a lot for your kind feedback. I love the Hottop as well and using my standard profile, people that have never roasted coffee before are able to roast really nice coffee just in their first attempt (e.g. in the workshops we are doing). Kind regards Ingo
Great question, Jonny! First of all, I want to mention, that, when roasting the same coffee to the same colour without roasting defects, the taste is very similar and we are talking about nuances. Also, there are a lot of theories and ideas on what incluence the roasting system - in particular the mix of heat transfer (mainly convection vs. conduction) - has on the taste of the coffee. All researches and tests, I've seen so far, that approach this question scientifically, could not show and particular influence of the roasting system on the taste of the coffee. Of course, I tried the coffees after this video 🙂 and the Hottop roast tasted best in my opinion - but you have to be aware, that I did hardly anything on the profile in most roasts in the video and I have got the most experience with the Hottop, so it's quite easy for me to get some nice flavours out of that machine.
Coffee roasting produces smoke. It's relative to the amount of beans you roast as well as the roasting degree. Each manufacturer have solved it a bit differently so if you need help, you might ask for a specific machine (although I usually talk about it also in the detailed video of the machines.
I’m just interested in the best cup of coffee I can produce at home. Will any, or all of these roasters give me a better cup of coffee than I can achieve by just buying already roasted beans from my local commercial roaster? Very interesting and well done. Thanks!
That is a great question! The machines can (in particular the ones where you have full control like Hottop, Kaffelogic, Aillio Bullet). It's then a question on your skills. Usually my customers are reporting, that with the instructions given, already some of their first roasts are better than most coffees, they've had before. That is also mainly because of the freshnes of the roast, the possibility to chose the beans and roast degrees, you prefer and the high level of quality you usually get when buying greens for home roasters. But if you buy fresh coffee of good quality from an experienced local roaster you will usually get coffee of high quality. So beating that in your cup will either mean, you get more skilled than your local roaster or you create a roast (choice of bean, blend, roast degree), your local roaster doesn't offer.
I am a beginner. I was wondering where can I find Gene Cafe machine? I've already purchased a separate coffee bean cooler from the Amazon. Do you think, I should start with a drum roll gas burner or something like Gne Cafe?
Gene Café is a good start. We sell them within Europe. But if you go to the Gene Café website, you will find an overview on their resellers to find one in your region.
Would like to see something like the Fresh Roast SR800 in Europe, feels like we are either stuck with popcorn machines that are really quite terrible or we need to cash up pretty hard to even dip our toes in roasting, quite unfortunate. But I guess it’s in favor for the commercial roasters…
Thank you for your question. As we are based in Europe, we focus on machines that are available in Europe. Unfortunately, these two machines are not eligible for sale in Europe. Besides of that, on the drum roaster side, the Hottop (which is developed together with the Artisan team and is flawlessly integrated in Artisan) and the Aillio Bullet (which is state of the art in innovation, built quality, service and software) are the two drum roasters for small batches, that could convince me the most by far.
Thank you for asking. I'm not working with the Toper Cafemino regularly so that video should be made by somebody that uses that machine on a regular basis. Maybe the Toper team has some contacts.
The most important factor of the comparison is not mentioned!! What's the quality of taste! Forget about how the roasted beans looks like and tell us about the taste! I have behmor and it gives a wonderful and nice evenly roasted beans but the taste really very very bad! Either ashy or vegetable!! Then decided to move to Kaffelogic and it's completely different story! Very easy, back to back roasting, no miss with chaff, the most important thing is the taste and the control over everything!! You can track your logs, correct it and reuse it! Also one of the greatest advantages in Kaffelogic is the RTD ready to drink feature that allows you to roast and drink within the same day!
You're right. I love the RTD option as well. Would never have expected that it's working that well. Comparing taste of the roasters is difficult. In fact you are able to roast nice coffee with all machines. Just with the cheaper ones you have less possibilities to control and to measure. The more information and the more precision in control, the higher the chance to get a better cup of coffee. That is why you are better off with machines like the Kaffelogic, the Hottop or Bullet. But they are remarkably more expensive that Gene Café and Behmor. With the Behmor I mention at some places, that I recommend to roast 250g of green coffee. It can handle 450g but then roasts are too long in my opinion. That has lead to the taste you didn't like. On the other hand - that's a kind of taste still other people quite like. Many roasteries are using this approach of longer roasting times. At the end, taste is different therefore it's a hard factor to judge a machine on.
@Coffee Roasting with Roast Rebels actually I've never exceeded 200gm with Belmore! And I don't think that such issues with taste like the ashy and vegetables taste is a personal preference by any mean 😁. They are very will known roasting issues 😄
It can and many people are using it for years. But it's just harder to precisely control it and roast consistently than other roasters like the drum roasters of the Nano.
The ROEST is mentioned in the video. It is also one of the best machines on the market. I didn't include it in the video because, price-wise, it is quite sophisticated for a home user. However, I know many home roasters who work with the ROEST. The Ikawa is certainly not a bad machine and it has brought a lot of dynamism to the small roaster market. But if you put all emotions aside and rationally check what information you want to get out of a sample roaster, I think the ROEST and the Kaffelogic Nano are now the better choice.
Wow. I've never heard of something like that. The Chaff Collector cannot burn, that were chaffs. You need to empty your chaff collector regularly. All of those machines need some level of care and maintenance that is usually well described in the manuals of the machines. Happy to hear, that otherwise you love the machine. I think as well, it's a great machine.
I found my behmor on the used marketplace for $180 and it's been fantastic for my personal stash and when I gift beans to friends + family. It can do up to 450g per session but it can be a lot harder to control so flaws will be more present. I'd recommend maxing green weight at 340g. For the value it's still a very good machine and will give you control of how fresh you want to use your beans at home and experiment with blending.
@@kuksgarage2715 Definitely not large enough to use for commercial turnover. It's really good as a personal roaster but if you want to produce bags, it's about 4 6oz bags per hour or two 12oz bags.
If you look for cheaper options, pop corn machines are very popular and work really well. Or hot air fryer. There are a lot of infos / tutorials about it online.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. In particular the Kaffelogic Nano is incredibly popular with home roasters. But also there you can repeat roasts fully automated which means you can roast 500g or more in an hour without any effort.
I assume, that's supposed to be a joke. Otherwise - more info please! (you might know that home roasters are a bit nerdy and there isn't hardly any thing that hasn't been tried yet).
Really great dive into these roasters. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Roger 🙏
Excellent
Great presentation!
Thanks for the great video & great info!
Thanks for your kind feedback ☺️
You should turn the Hottop around a bit to show the front glass with beans moving around. It's very easy to judge bean color. I have two Behmor roasters (first one bought in 2007) and a Hottop 2K+ (bought 2022) . The Hottop is a real pleasure to roast with compared to the Behmor, but both make great roasts. Kudos to Behmor for having an active afterburner smoke suppression system.
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, that's what I really like about the hottop, beans are perfectly visible, cracks are super easy to hear and you can smell the development of the beans well. So you get all sensory information you need to roast coffee really perfectly.
@@CoffeeRoastingQq😊
Thanks for the great video! What are the smoke/odor levels like for the Kaffelogic, as compared to something like a Fresh Roast SR800? Thanks!
Hi Jacob. Unfortunately the Fresh Roasts aren't available in Europe so I haven't got them in my workshop. But from my experience with the smaller Fresh Roast model, I would say, they are pretty similar. In general, smoke in a air roaster is correlated to the batch size.
@@CoffeeRoasting Thanks, this is really helpful. I ordered a Kaffelogic Nano 7e from their Indiegogo, so it should be shipping to the US in October. Sounds like I'll still have to use it either outside or by a window with a fan. I wasn't sure if it was similar to the Ikawa, which seems to minimize smoke.
We have the Behmore. Our main issue is that it can be hard to see the coffee (the drum is very reflective) and it can be hard to hear first crack. Also, it’s safety feature is obnoxious. If you miss the time window to extend the roast, the machine cools and the batch is ruined. It’s a few years old now, and it might not get as hot as before. We want to upgrade to something that’s easier to monitor (1st crack), less babysitting, and more consistent. We roast 5lbs in a sequence, so efficient time is important.
The small, sample roaster looks interesting. It would require many batches, but it seems to require almost no babysitting. Is 1st crack easy to detect?
The Hottop looks good, and maybe the process is simpler than you show, if you use a profile. I like that it automatically dumps to cool.
The bullet looks great, but is out of budget.
So, the little sample roaster or Hottop? Which is best for our use case?
It looks like the Kaffelogic isn’t ideal for the US as it requires a 220V circuit.
So the Hottop seems to be the best option. Is it easier to monitor for 1st crack than the Behmore? Are it’s alarms and safety features non-obtrusive or obnoxious? Can one set and forget, using profiles, or does it require babysitting? The filter thing is unfortunate. Anything else to consider?
Hi Jon. You are talking about 5lbs in a sequence, which is about 2.2kg. Consider, that this would be around 20 roasts in the Kaffelogic (although fully automatically with nothing to do). And around 7-8 roasts in the Hottop. If not connected to Artisan, there is a safety function with the Hottop as well, where you have to press a button in order to make sure you are with the roaster. When working with Artisan (which would be mandatory in your case, since you want to do automatic roasts), the safety function, beeps,... are off.
Both machines are available for the US market as well (Kaffelogic is now launching and you can get a good price in the Indigogo campaign when ordering a US machine).
Hope, this answers your questions.
This is VERY helpful. Clearly, we will want the more expensive Hottop version that supports Artisan, rather than the manual model. Is it easy to see the roast and hear first crack with the Hottop?
@@JonFairhurst Yes. There is no roaster where you can hear FC better than in the Hottop. And the colour is very easy to see in the large window. If you use the light from your smartphone or another daylight LED torch, you can judge the colour of the bean perfectly.
Perfect! We’ve always done manual roasting, starting with popcorn poppers, then small air roasters, then the Behmore. So having feedback has been an important part of the process. Even with Artisan profiles, I expect that we will want to be able to monitor the roast.
The Caffelogic price is attractive, and the Boost upgrade could be nice, but it won’t ship until October, so the Hottop+ will be our choice.
At 750W, the Hottop appears to be the most energy efficient, so this is an additional win.
Thanks for your excellent videos and information!
Is it Aillio great for small coffee shop and little knowledge about roasting ?
Hard to say. If you want to roast commercially for customers, you need to learn about roasting. So it depends on where you are with your basic coffee knowledge and especially sensory skills. If you are very confident in sensory, then you will learn it super quickly. Otherwise, you will need to take some time.
That isn't too much of an issue if you are a home roaster, but when roasting for customers, you need to delivery consistency and high quality. We send two online courses with each roaster, but you might need to do an offline workshop on coffee roasting as well.
What about the kaleido sniper m2/6/10?
Will you be reviewing them in the near future?
I hope so. Have you been working on that machine?
@@CoffeeRoasting I own the Kaleido M1 and it is a pretty nice machine. Good, solid quality. I am a bit tempted to get something with higher capacity next year maybe, that is how I ended up here....
Great round up, I’ve been using a heat gun with an old bread maker for the past 10 years and thinking of the kaffelogic, are they a reliable machine?
yes, the Kaffelogics are great machine. There were some issues in the past with the heating elements, but they have adapted the heating elements and since then, they are working very reliable.
Which one can easily make a light roast without difficulty? Full city its not to my liking. Thank you very informative.
I would probably go for a Kaffelogic Nano 7 or Aillio Bullet if you want to do light roasts with a very precise profile. Depending on capacity.
Excellent review and subbed! I want to get into home coffee roasting and looking at the Hottop since my local espresso guy has recommended that machine to me over the less expensive Behmor.
Thanks a lot for your kind feedback. I love the Hottop as well and using my standard profile, people that have never roasted coffee before are able to roast really nice coffee just in their first attempt (e.g. in the workshops we are doing).
Kind regards
Ingo
Great overview! I wonder if you preferred the taste of the roasted bean from one roaster over the others?
Great question, Jonny!
First of all, I want to mention, that, when roasting the same coffee to the same colour without roasting defects, the taste is very similar and we are talking about nuances.
Also, there are a lot of theories and ideas on what incluence the roasting system - in particular the mix of heat transfer (mainly convection vs. conduction) - has on the taste of the coffee. All researches and tests, I've seen so far, that approach this question scientifically, could not show and particular influence of the roasting system on the taste of the coffee.
Of course, I tried the coffees after this video 🙂 and the Hottop roast tasted best in my opinion - but you have to be aware, that I did hardly anything on the profile in most roasts in the video and I have got the most experience with the Hottop, so it's quite easy for me to get some nice flavours out of that machine.
What about the smoke the roasting produces. Is there an exhaust outlet
Coffee roasting produces smoke. It's relative to the amount of beans you roast as well as the roasting degree. Each manufacturer have solved it a bit differently so if you need help, you might ask for a specific machine (although I usually talk about it also in the detailed video of the machines.
I’m just interested in the best cup of coffee I can produce at home. Will any, or all of these roasters give me a better cup of coffee than I can achieve by just buying already roasted beans from my local commercial roaster?
Very interesting and well done. Thanks!
That is a great question! The machines can (in particular the ones where you have full control like Hottop, Kaffelogic, Aillio Bullet). It's then a question on your skills. Usually my customers are reporting, that with the instructions given, already some of their first roasts are better than most coffees, they've had before. That is also mainly because of the freshnes of the roast, the possibility to chose the beans and roast degrees, you prefer and the high level of quality you usually get when buying greens for home roasters. But if you buy fresh coffee of good quality from an experienced local roaster you will usually get coffee of high quality. So beating that in your cup will either mean, you get more skilled than your local roaster or you create a roast (choice of bean, blend, roast degree), your local roaster doesn't offer.
I am a beginner. I was wondering where can I find Gene Cafe machine? I've already purchased a separate coffee bean cooler from the Amazon. Do you think, I should start with a drum roll gas burner or something like Gne Cafe?
Gene Café is a good start. We sell them within Europe. But if you go to the Gene Café website, you will find an overview on their resellers to find one in your region.
Would like to see something like the Fresh Roast SR800 in Europe, feels like we are either stuck with popcorn machines that are really quite terrible or we need to cash up pretty hard to even dip our toes in roasting, quite unfortunate. But I guess it’s in favor for the commercial roasters…
Unfortunately there isn't any machine like the Fresh Roast available for the European Market.
@@CoffeeRoasting bummer it's amazing for light and medium roast. I have a SR 800 with temp probe and expanded tube and love it.
What about Quest m3s or m6 ? ;)
Thank you for your question. As we are based in Europe, we focus on machines that are available in Europe. Unfortunately, these two machines are not eligible for sale in Europe.
Besides of that, on the drum roaster side, the Hottop (which is developed together with the Artisan team and is flawlessly integrated in Artisan) and the Aillio Bullet (which is state of the art in innovation, built quality, service and software) are the two drum roasters for small batches, that could convince me the most by far.
Excellent video do you have one for the Toper Cafemino 1 kg gas (Turkish made)
Thank you for asking. I'm not working with the Toper Cafemino regularly so that video should be made by somebody that uses that machine on a regular basis. Maybe the Toper team has some contacts.
super danke!
Danke für Deine Rückmeldung. P.S. hast Du gesehen, dass wir auch einen Deutschen RUclips Kanal haben? LG Ingo
@@CoffeeRoasting no Sehr Kuul!
is it normal for the bullet to smoke so much so early?
Yes, that's mainly steam in the first part of the roast.
Great video, thanks!
Thanks for your kind feedback, Simon 🙏
where in hel can i get one in canada
which machine are you talking about? I can check with the manufacturer. You should be able to get all of them in Canada as well.
The most important factor of the comparison is not mentioned!! What's the quality of taste! Forget about how the roasted beans looks like and tell us about the taste! I have behmor and it gives a wonderful and nice evenly roasted beans but the taste really very very bad! Either ashy or vegetable!! Then decided to move to Kaffelogic and it's completely different story! Very easy, back to back roasting, no miss with chaff, the most important thing is the taste and the control over everything!! You can track your logs, correct it and reuse it!
Also one of the greatest advantages in Kaffelogic is the RTD ready to drink feature that allows you to roast and drink within the same day!
You're right. I love the RTD option as well. Would never have expected that it's working that well.
Comparing taste of the roasters is difficult. In fact you are able to roast nice coffee with all machines. Just with the cheaper ones you have less possibilities to control and to measure. The more information and the more precision in control, the higher the chance to get a better cup of coffee. That is why you are better off with machines like the Kaffelogic, the Hottop or Bullet. But they are remarkably more expensive that Gene Café and Behmor. With the Behmor I mention at some places, that I recommend to roast 250g of green coffee. It can handle 450g but then roasts are too long in my opinion. That has lead to the taste you didn't like.
On the other hand - that's a kind of taste still other people quite like. Many roasteries are using this approach of longer roasting times. At the end, taste is different therefore it's a hard factor to judge a machine on.
@Coffee Roasting with Roast Rebels actually I've never exceeded 200gm with Belmore!
And I don't think that such issues with taste like the ashy and vegetables taste is a personal preference by any mean 😁. They are very will known roasting issues 😄
so gene cafe can produce quality roasting or not?
It can and many people are using it for years. But it's just harder to precisely control it and roast consistently than other roasters like the drum roasters of the Nano.
@@CoffeeRoasting i purchase a new M10 bisystem roaster, wish you could share more of its usage and adjustment
What about Roest or Ikawa?
The ROEST is mentioned in the video. It is also one of the best machines on the market. I didn't include it in the video because, price-wise, it is quite sophisticated for a home user. However, I know many home roasters who work with the ROEST. The Ikawa is certainly not a bad machine and it has brought a lot of dynamism to the small roaster market. But if you put all emotions aside and rationally check what information you want to get out of a sample roaster, I think the ROEST and the Kaffelogic Nano are now the better choice.
Ikawa not on your list of best roasters?
No. In that category of roasters, clearly ROEST and Kaffelogic
❤ ей патенце ще те изям да знаеш
my gene cafe burst into flames during the cooling phase. a flammable chaff basket is unacceptable . Otherwise I loved this machine for over a year.
Wow. I've never heard of something like that. The Chaff Collector cannot burn, that were chaffs. You need to empty your chaff collector regularly. All of those machines need some level of care and maintenance that is usually well described in the manuals of the machines. Happy to hear, that otherwise you love the machine. I think as well, it's a great machine.
I found my behmor on the used marketplace for $180 and it's been fantastic for my personal stash and when I gift beans to friends + family. It can do up to 450g per session but it can be a lot harder to control so flaws will be more present. I'd recommend maxing green weight at 340g. For the value it's still a very good machine and will give you control of how fresh you want to use your beans at home and experiment with blending.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I personally favour faster roasts therefore I also never go up to 450g.
would it be a good idea to purchase for a coffee shop? For beginning?
@@kuksgarage2715 Definitely not large enough to use for commercial turnover. It's really good as a personal roaster but if you want to produce bags, it's about 4 6oz bags per hour or two 12oz bags.
Terjemahkan dong ke bahasa indonesia
Very expensive for home roasters.
If you look for cheaper options, pop corn machines are very popular and work really well. Or hot air fryer. There are a lot of infos / tutorials about it online.
@@CoffeeRoasting I have a FreshRoast SR800 with extension tube and screen. All I need.
If any home roaster can't roast at least 226 grams, not worth having.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. In particular the Kaffelogic Nano is incredibly popular with home roasters. But also there you can repeat roasts fully automated which means you can roast 500g or more in an hour without any effort.
i roast my coffee using my Lamborghini exhaust pipe.
I assume, that's supposed to be a joke. Otherwise - more info please!
(you might know that home roasters are a bit nerdy and there isn't hardly any thing that hasn't been tried yet).
Great video, thank you!