Greens

Teaboy

I am thinking about home roasting, what are the benefits please and where does everyone source their greens from please?

Thank you

Cuprajake

Benefits slim to none 😂

Teaboy

Cuprajake have you tried any Jake, may be few benefits but why not lol and where’s the best source please?

HarveyMushman

Bought an Ikawa Home about five months ago and haven’t bought any roasted beans since (other than one for the packaging I liked!). Absolutely love it.

You’ll have to take my word on this but I can quite happily roast beans to a quality on par with plenty of commercial roasts I’ve had.

I will say that a big part of this is that the Ikawa is an absolute breeze to use and you can basically press one button and get great roasts if you want. Manual roasting with some of the other home roasters that require venting is probably a much less forgiving and therefore less enjoyable process for a beginner.

I roast 500g a week - 250g filter and 250g espresso. Takes under an hour and I just do it next to a window in the kitchen. Big plus of the Ikawa is that it cools the beans so you can bag them pretty much immediately. Despite the 100g capacity, you can preload 100g in the hopper so it’s just one button to start the next batch. For light roasts I get about 10% loss so 85-90g yield in a 100g charge.

Depending on your preference on beans you can ultimately save money although not for a while given the cost of the roaster. I was buying med-light roasts for £35-50 a kilo, and I can now roast similar for about £10-15 a kilo. I’ve actually recently roasted Ethiopian greens from the same farm as a commercial roaster I like and whilst it wasn’t quite as refined as the commercial roast, it was very good.

I’ve graduated to using non-Ikawa greens and building my own profiles through cupping and trial/error lately and I really enjoy the process as a hobby. I’ve learned a lot about the roast process too and how different temperatures and rates of rise affect output. The Ikawa app makes learning easier as you’ve got a visual reference graph.

Green sources can change depending on availability. Ikawa beans are great but very pricey compared to others. The bonus is for beginners you get the associated roast profiles to just load onto the machine.

Micro Green Coffee Collective are also great. Redber are good for more traditional beans.

Happy to answer any questions on the Ikawa if you have any.

Cuprajake

Haha

Yeah I had a sandwich box smart roaster, had greens from a few places I forget the name now,

Problem is good quality greens cost more in small quantities, then you have to roast a kilo of beans, that kilo yields less due to the moisture.

So I found for me, the cost of the roaster and then good greens plus messing up etc, ment that I could buy very good roasted beans for less

There’s a massive fun factor, and in itch I had to scratch.

HarveyMushman

Cuprajake Problem is good quality greens cost more in small quantities,

Yeah this is a consideration for sure. You’ll not get the best prices until you’re buying 5kg+ usually.

Teaboy

HarveyMushman where would you recommend for the best prices please? And would that just be one bean or could it be a multi buy total weight being 5kg say. I know you can keep greens for a fair time before roasting, is it best to freeze them or what please?

delta76

Teaboy depends on where you live. Assuming Uk, then hasbean, falcon micro, coffeelink. You can buy in batch (suggest to start with 5kg to see if you can go long term). Green beans are said to be best within 12 months of harvesting but 24m old beans are still very good if store properly (dry, cold, dark place). I buy 86+ beans for around 13-14EUR/kg and those go for 40 if not 50EUR where I live so with our consumption, quite a bit of saving. Still not even yet but I can try different beans which is a huge plus for me

HarveyMushman

Teaboy

https://micro.greencoffeecollective.com/products/tulipe-nanegal?_pos=9&_fid=ff20518fe&_ss=c

For example. They have a lot of greens available with low minimums. Best prices are just buying one bean.

Greens are nowhere near as sensitive as roasted to storage. I don’t freeze them, just in a pegged up bag but then I haven’t kept any for more than a few months yet.

delta76

It is another hobby. Don’t expect to save money unless you drink a lot and/or drink really expensive coffee. A good roaster which is reliable enough to roast fancy bean is > 1000 EUR and you will need to spend significant amount of time learning to roast. A very good bean is around 15-20 EUR/kg, which is around 18-25 EUR roasted (15-20% weightloss). Those are usually sold for 35-50 EUR roasted, so do your math. Undeniable benefit of home roasting is you get fresh bean when you want how you want, but think about smoke and smell if you don’t have a ventilated/dedicated area for roasting.
It is fun but definitely not for everyone.

Teaboy

delta76 thank you, I am only looking to roast small amounts to begin with hopefully to get things right, I tried to order some roasted beans from hasbean the other day and the company is no more unfortunately.

DavecUK

Teaboy thank you, I am only looking to roast small amounts to begin with hopefully to get things right, I tried to order some roasted beans from hasbean the other day and the company is no more unfortunately.

Steve Leighton sold it to a larger company, and disappeared from the coffee scene entirely I believe. It’s been subsumed into Ozone coffee..

As for the subject of greens it’s a tricky one. Hasbean and other roasters were putting a similar mark up on green beans to roasted coffee….essentially you saved almost nothing, or nothing, on buying the green beans and roasting vs buying exactly the same coffee already roasted.

The huge problem is that roasters have a much larger markup on cheaper coffees than they do with expensive ones. It’s simply based on what the market will bear. This means if you buy cheaper beans that are the same as many online roasters sell and discount..home roasting seems massively cheaper. If you buy expensive greens, then the markup by the roasters is much less and thus the savings are less.

Once you deduct the markup on the smaller quantities of expensive green coffee + weight loss (16%), electricity, time , packaging involved, you are not saving as much as you think. Plus their larger roasters are usually going to to a much better job than the much smaller home roasters. Added to the fact that the more specialist online roasters take a great deal more care with the very expensive coffee. After all for even the large sacks 60Kg+ at wholesale market price, it can still work out at 12-14 per Kg with transportation.

P.S. The larger the batch size the better and more evenly the coffee roasts (after 5kg it doesn’t matter as much) and above 30kg it can actually go down due to a lack of ability to properly control the roast and other strategies used on very large 100+ kg roasters.

delta76

HarveyMushman wow that is really expensive. I have been buying from 88graines.com and am happy with them. Most of their beans are under 15 EUR and if you buy in bulk and watch out for coupon, you can have 86+ beans for as low as 11-12EUR. Their packaging is good, beans look good and taste good and most are 2023 harvest. The only downside is they are very central/south american focused so no african bean, but I’m good with that. Not sure about shipping, tax and custom to UK though.
I have been eyeing coffeelink with some really high score bean (89) for around 70£/5 kg before discount. Have no idea how is the bean quality but shipping + import tax is quite steep for me. If OT want to try then no reason not to. For 88+ bean if your roast is not the best you still have some pretty good coffee, for 80 or 82 bean, you have to get everything right, so you have quite narrow room for error. But as I said, I don’t know actually bean quality. The feedback from some groups regarding coffeelink are pretty positive, but not my first hand experience :)

Teaboy

delta76 thank you, I looked at 88 Grains and their shipping costs to UK are very high in comparison to any other area they ship to.

Dan

If your aim is to save a bunch of money, I don’t think it can be easily justified. There are savings from the greens, but the initial outlay on the roaster means it takes a while to cover that cost. It’s also tough to roast to the same quality as a professional, though you can roast to your own preferences, which is nice.

However, it’s fun! I’ve found I’ve learned more about coffee and there’s seemingly a lot more variety in the beans that can be bought.

delta76

Teaboy up to 20kg is 20 EUR, so once you decide roasting is the right hobby, you can decide if you want to/should buy 10kg or 20kg. they give discount for bulk order. for example if you buy this coffee https://88graines.com/product/catuai-natural/, 10kg + shipping + coupon ends up around 12 EUR/kg - not sure about tax and custom but I think green coffee is 0% tax in UK ? Of course if you only buy a few kg it is not so attractive
I have no affiliation with them, just a happy customer. They are registered in France but ship out from Poland - I guess for tax reasons as VAT in France is lower (20% vs 23%)
My suggestion to a new home roaster is to buy some good, cheap beans, like Brazilian (I have seen many 84-85 beans for less than 10 EUR/kg) to practice roasting. Then you can experiment as you want without wasting a lot of money (unless you do something really wrong then you would still get drinkable coffee most of the time)

HarveyMushman

delta76 My suggestion to a new home roaster is to buy some good, cheap beans, like Brazilian

Yeah I would second this. There’re pretty forgiving as well as relatively low cost.

I forgot to add, I had an email or something from Ikawa or I saw it on their website that they do a subsidised roaster where you pay a lower upfront price for the roaster and then £30 a month subscription which translates to credit to spend on their store.

Their cost table is slightly swayed by the fact you probably wouldn’t only buy beans from them if you bought the roaster outright but as above, their greens are very good.

Edit: here it is -

https://ikawahome.com/products/subscription-by-ikawa-roaster-subscription?variant=40887745347759&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20285486576&utm_content=&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADEx6yrPp4N9eOP7exzdxXGFJqhcp&gclid=CjwKCAjw_LOwBhBFEiwAmSEQASvhaZDQJWBB_TlSOPflO807D9r_h9LqjXIU7_2MgN3ysuZp0xrr_BoCs8EQAvD_BwE

JonWoo187

For yrs I bought commercial artisan roasted coffee from some quality setups here in the U.S. I did grow tired of the increasing price as well as the trend moving towards lighter roasted garbage. Decided to build my own setup, buy quality green and just figure it out. I didn’t waste time reading into what others do or pay attention to the commonly mentioned lame guidelines for ‘proper’ roasting, just built my setup to do exactly as I expected it, churned through various green knowing what I want for espresso and it just took off. I can roast when I want, to the exact flavor/texture profile I want and save 40-50% in the process. Will honestly say that I do not miss any commercial roasted coffee I used to buy as what I consistently churn out is easily on par with any of the better stuff I had over the yrs bought roasted. To those that think home roasting can’t match commercial or it won’t save money just can’t figure things out for themselves. My setup has long paid for itself and now just the cost of bulk green/shipping, etc. Typical 19.7 gram extraction averages around .40 (USD) based on my current choice in green. I often have as much as 90 lbs of green onhand as I average roasting at least 10 lbs monthly, so nothing sits that long. I know for fact through lots of experimentation that green stored in a decent environment will last quite awhile with no real degradation and I’m not the least bit concerned using green that is 1-2 yrs since harvest. As long as I wake up with a pulse and hands I’ll NEVER buy roasted coffee again….

HarveyMushman

I do think people overestimate the quality of commercial roasts if they’ve not tried roasting themselves. Sure there are many great commercial roasters but a lot are also mediocre at best.

Another thing to consider is it’s a whole lot easier to get consistent, quality roasts when you’re roasting 100-1000g at a time compared to 25kg.

My biggest challenge with home roasting is convincing myself I don’t need a Diedrich IR-1 or Probatino.

Teaboy

HarveyMushman I’m not thinking of Ikawa as cost vs benefit analysis is leaning me towards something similar say kaffelogic.

HarveyMushman

Teaboy

Fair enough. There is quite a price difference. I think you can also get graphing software for the Kaffeelogic. I’d say that’s the most crucial thing for a beginner as it’s good to have a visual representation of how the temperature is behaving along a timeline.

delta76

Teaboy I went with an used KL + new chaff collector + boost kit, and am very happy with it. Could not justify the cost of Ikawa (+ VAT, easily double what I paid for with less capacity)
I’d suggest to try buying used though. Make sure you can make it work for you - as I said it’s a hobby, a fairly niche even, so you can resell without losing too much value. And then you also need to think about capacity. I have been thinking about Bullet for a while as roasting in bigger batches is … more appealing to me.