Fresh Roast SR700 Home Coffee Roaster

Although there are better roasters out there if you want to spend the extra bucks and roast more at once, this is the perfect size for me. I like the programmability of it. There are open source programs you can get for free that control the roast by temperature. This allows you to research and experiment to get the best roast for your coffee to suit your personal taste. I am retired and this makes for a satisfying hobby to learn how to roast. There is a facebook page mainly for roasters that use this machine and you can pick up recipes and tips to help you produce a better cup of coffee quicker than experimenting all on your own. If you plan on going commercial with your roasting you may want to start with a bigger and more expensive machine. But, if you just want to have the best tasting coffee for your personal use, this is probably the best for the price. I started out using a popcorn popper but after a month I progressed to the SR700 and am glad I did. The chaff catcher works pretty good but you need to be careful when handling it. If you drop it, it breaks or chips pretty easy and spills the chaff all over. I use it under the stove vent and it works good for me. Some take it outside or in the garage cause they don't like the roast smell in the house.

Easy to use stand-alone or with a computer. Wish it had a larger capacity. Have to roast about 90g per batch or 3oz or 5 batches for a pound. It heats and cooks beans quickly and is easy to clean. Use under a range hood to exhaust smoke or use outside on a nice day.After trying several times to use other people's "profiles" or "recipes" to roast beans, I decided to use the machine stand-alone (like the SR500 works) and focus on sight, sound and smell to learn more about roasting. This is pretty helpful. The software that comes with the machine is PC only. There is another program (Google it) called OpenRoast that will let you use a Mac to control/operate the roaster. There is a Facebook group for the FreshRoast roaster, users of OpenRoast and another for Home Coffee Roasters. They are all a wealth of knowledge and help!

Computer controlled super duper coffee roasting toy. Brings a "fire and forget" CNC element to your beanmaking. Not as fancy (or as pricey!) as a drum roaster; does the job well. Definitely hook up with the community and use some variant of openroast though. The included software isn't bad for making sure your USB setup works, but ABSOLUTELY use some variant of openroast or something slightly more precise in terms of your software used with it. Additionally, remote USB over whatever other medium works well. (Mine is wireless ethernet to USB so I can place it in a seperate well ventilated room so I don't have to hear the fan all the time).

This is a good roaster for anyone with a techie bent to learn about how to control home roasting. The beans are very visible when roasting and allow the user to experience both the appearance and smell of beans at the various roast stages. The ability to run/control from a PC screen with time clearly visible helps teach basic roast timing, including the rapid bean development that happens in later roast stages (and the ease with which one can go from a dark roast to beans on fire if you're careless).On manual mode, it works pretty much like other Fresh Roast models so unless you want to develop stored recipes for your computer, there is no significant reason to purchase this over the SR500, for example. EVEN WITH A STORED RECIPE IN THE SR700, NO ROASTER SHOULD BE RUN UNATTENDED DUE TO FIRE RISKS.The biggest drawback to this as a teaching tool is that its fan noise makes it harder to hear first and second crack sounds critical to judging roast levels.The biggest drawback to this as a routine roaster is its small capacity (about 4 oz). The Behmor 1600 with its 1 lb capacity is the most practical home roaster for those who don't want to roast every 3 or 4 days but it also has limitations. Regrettably, there is no reasonably priced home roaster that allows instrumented, computer controlled roast profiles as is done by professional roasters on larger equipment. The closest are professional sample roasters that cost a few thousand dollars though some capable techies build their own.Current home roasters, used well by owners who have climbed the learning curve, can produce excellent results that allow owners to have the freshest possible coffee and to experiment with various beans and roast profiles. Home roasting, like home brewing, is a way to have what you want when you want it and requires similar effort (though a lot less cleaning). This model is one good way to start, but not the only one.

It is apparent that one should know. What one is to do with coffee roasting before buying a programmable roaster. My previous unit operated with one speed/one temp with variable time. Darker, longer time. The Freshroast SR varies time, temp and agitation , in a number of different combinations. There are no recommendations from the manufacturer for programs to run on the roaster, but one is referred to a blog where information of a general nature is available. I have been pleased with the so far less than optimal results - it's not the machine's fault that I don't really know what I'm doing.

I have used this for a few weeks now and it is exactly what I was expecting. For someone who is new to roasting coffee, this worked out perfect once I looked online and follow some direction. I give it 4 stars due to the fact that despite it being a quality product thus far, there is minimal support, videos, roasting profile suggestions, etc. Once more people who are new to roasting like I am catch on, the potential will definately make this a 5 star product in my opinion for any newbie.