I started roasting coffee five years ago when I received an Amazon gift voucher for my birthday and pondered what to spend it on. As one of the alleged "man who has everything" demographic, I allowed my browsing to wander into the weeds and the thought popped into my head, "how hard can it be to make coffee?".
Well that was the start of the journey down the rabbit hole.
My Amazon purchase was a coffee centric hot air popcorn style roaster, the FreshRoast. The capacity was tiny at about three scoops of beans but it covered the fun basics of watching green beans turn yellow then darken and smell and see the process. All done by eye, ear and nose, no computers.
Once I'd achieved something drinkable, there were a series of upgrades, some involving more bean capacity, some more sophisticated monitoring and controls.
Five years on, I work with a machine, the Aillio Bullet R1, which I would never have dreamed of. Temperature sensing by infra red and heating the drum and beans by induction.
The equipment may have changed but the ears, eyes and nose are still important and the joy of taking a new batch of beans from green to roast to cup never seems to get old.
Thank you for the opportunity to share the results with you, any and all feedback is gratefully received.
Stuart
