home coffee roasting for addicts

Do it! It's the only way to go. I make the best coffee I've ever had.

I get to have different coffee all the time. Not just by changing up the roast, but by using different beans. The bean is to coffee what the grape is to wine and "Arabica" is the coffee equivalent of "box of cheap Chardonnay".

I have a FreshRoast SR300 but I wouldn't recommend it, it doesn't do a good enough job of agitating the beans early in the roasting process. The roast can come out slightly uneven without intervention. Kind of a PITA. If I were buying one today, I'd go with the SR500. I'm told it does a much better job in this area and also allows for greater control over the roast.  I roast in the house, but I do so the under range hood with the fan on.

I've heard good things about the iRoast when they're working. The problem is that they have a tendency to die after a year or so.

The Nesco Home Roaster is getting good reviews, particularly for it's low smoke.

As long as they're kept dry, green coffee beans don't go bad. They can be kept indefinitely.

Not sure about the roasting for coffee beans and what is best (though I have roasted Cocoa beans/Cacao but that is a completely different process I believe).

As for cups my wife bought me a 16 oz Contigo cup and it works great keeping my coffee hot every day. She got them at Costco in a two pack but I assume they are available elsewhere. When fishing I just bring a large, 48oz thermos (not thermos brand though) with me and it keeps it hot most of the day.

I'm picking out a thermos for you, not an ordinary,,,,,,,,,,,, I though we covered this a few weeks ago

It is a a PITA if you use a roaster that only allows a small amount at a time.  The big problem is that once you taste homeroast, nothing else will do.

I have been roasting for 7 years and have finally settled on an old bread machine I got at the the local goodwill store for $25 and a heat gun.  I can do a pound in about 18min without breaking a sweat and it was cheap.

It takes some modification but nothing to difficult.

-Steve

Great spent my afternoon looking up ways to roast my own coffee.

I can see something in the future for me.. Just what I need another project. But I have to agree I am sick of drinking crappy coffee. Not a huge SB fan and I live in Canada where everyone drinks Timmies and I can't and I mean I CAN'T stand that.

I started using the original Freshroast (think air-popper) and had reasonable success.  With this machine I had to roast almost every day due to the small batches being limited to ~2 ounces.  It was noisy and smoky but gave me better beans than the store.

About six months ago I bought the Behmore 1600.  It is capable of roasting up to a pound of beans but I keep it at 1/2 pound.  This roaster works great and hits the sweet spot for price / performance.    You can spend 3X on a fancy machine and not taste the difference.  The only downside that I found is with the bigger capacity, I am now going through beans faster (and drinking more coffee).  I use this roaster indoors and the smoke suppression system works wonderfully.

There's many sources for the Behmore and green beans. I've had good success with Sweet Maria's and stayed with them for years.  I'd whole heartedly recommend the Behmore although the Freshroast will be sufficient to get the beans roasted.