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$495
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Performance score
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Comments
Visibility of beans while roasting
OK, beans are obstructed slightly inside the mesh type chamber.
Very good, large glass chamber all around.
Good, the beans are clearly visible through the front glass window.
Items supplied
Roaster, cleaning brush and literature.
Roaster, chamber stand, chaff collector, measuring cup, cleaning brush and literature.
Roaster, funnel, two heat guard grills, spare exhaust filter and literature.
Noise comments
Very quiet
Noisier than the other two models. The beginning of 2nd cracks can't be heard.
Quiet
Good points
- Very good roasting performance.
- Very quiet operation-can hear the beginning of 2nd cracks very easily.
- It has three weight settings, five temperature and four time profiles. The time and drum speed can also be increased or decreased manually.
- Five power settings can be selected during roasting - 100, 75, 50, 25 and 0%.
- Unattended safety - at 75% of time into the roasting cycle, the START button has to be pressed within 30 seconds otherwise it will automatically go into cooling. Screen blinks, but no beep.
- Good instructions, although there is no explanation of why or when to change the power settings or what temperature to aim for.
- Good roasting performance.
- The time and the temperature can be increased or decreased manually before or during roasting.
- Very good visibility of the beans through the glass roasting chamber.
- Chaff collection is good within the collector which can be removed and emptied easily.
- Very good instructions covering different roast levels, approximate times and temperatures.
- Excellent roasting performance.
- Quiet operation-can hear the beginning of 2nd cracks easily.
- It has one pre-programmed setting (AUTO), and three additional roasting profiles can be saved in the memory immediately after roasting.
- The time and temperature can be increased or decreased manually before or during roasting.
- It has ten power and four fan settings which can be adjusted during roasting.
- Unattended safety – if the temperature reaches 180 °C within the first 8:30 minutes of roasting or 202°C, press any switch other than EJECT within 20 seconds or the beans will be ejected.
- Good visibility of the beans through the glass front window.
- Chaff is contained in the chaff tray which is easy to remove and empty, however, there is some left in the roasting chamber which has to be blown out from the top.
- Excellent instructions including roasting profiles, however, the temperatures are shown in Fahrenheit not Celsius.
Bad points
- Visibility of the beans is not particularly good as they’re obstructed slightly inside the mesh type chamber.
- There is a fair bit of chaff in the chamber especially when the cooling is done with the door open.
- Noisy operation-can’t hear the very beginning of second bean cracks.
- Long cooling cycle. This can be sped up by removing the (very hot) chamber and pour the beans into a metal tray, for instance.
- The rear smoke reducing filter has to be replaced after every 30-45 roasting cycles.
Cooling cycle comments
OK, the cooling can be sped up by opening the door, otherwise the beans stay hot for too long.
Borderline, the beans stay hot for too long after the roasting cycle as they remain enclosed in the chamber.
Excellent, the beans are dumped into a metal tray, which has a rotating arm for stirring and a fan for cooling,
Coffee quality comments
• It can produce good quality coffee, but the user should still keep an eye on the roasting process and, if necessary, switch into cooling mode once 1st cracks have finished. Opening the door also speeds up the cooling cycle. When roasting 100 grams of beans, it can easily over roast it as the cycle is too short and the cracks happen too quickly.
• It can produce good quality coffee, but it needs more forward thinking as the length of the cooling down cycle is too long and the beans keep roasting longer than ideal. The cooling cycle needs to be started immediately after 1st cracks, otherwise the roast goes into 2nd cracks and stays there for too long producing dark beans.
• It can produce good quality coffee, but the user must keep an eye on the roasting process otherwise the roaster will eject the beans early - good safety feature to make sure the machine is not left unattended during roasting.
Origin
Not stated
Korea
Taiwan
Features
Roasting capacity (g)
400
250
250
Temperature control (°C)
Cannot be controlled; preset temperature profiles only
0-250
75-220
Roasting wait time (min:sec)
8:30-25:30
0-30:00
10:00-25:00
Pre-programmed settings
Yes, 5 heat profiles, 3 weight and 4 time profiles can be selected.
Yes, 1 factory-set program
Programmable settings
Yes, 3 programs can be saved in the memory.
Preheat cycle
No dedicated cycle, but the instructions recommend a maximum 1:45 minute preheat.
Unattended safety switch system
1
1
Time setting features
Preset times from 8:30 to 25:30 for each of the five profiles. Times can be increased in 15 sec and decreased in 10 sec increments.
Up to 30 minutes in 6 second intervals
10 to 25 minutes in 10 second intervals
Manual roasting stop
Press the COOL button. To speed up the cooling process, open the door otherwise it takes too long to bring the beans down to room temperature.
Press Start/Stop to finish the roasting cycle and to start cooling; finishes when the chamber temperature reaches 60 C.
Press Eject button or pull Emergency Eject mechanism to start the cooling cycle; finishes after 5 minutes of cooling. Dumps beans into the cooling tray which is the ideal method.
Emergency stop
Press the OFF button
Hold Start/Stop for 2 seconds during the roasting cycle and fan will operate until the chamber reaches a safe temperature
Press Eject button or pull Emergency Eject mechanism to start the cooling cycle; finishes after 5 minutes of cooling. Dumps beans into the cooling tray which is the ideal method.
Specifications
Weight (kg)
9
5.9
8.5
Dimensions (cm, HxWxD)
26 x 45 x 37
27 x 51 x 26
37 x 49 x 26