Coffee Roasting at Home

It is only since the early-mid 1900’s that buying roasted coffee became more common than buying green coffee and roasting it yourself. The development large scale roasting plants and instant coffee began to reduce the popularity of roasting at home. Today roasting at home is uncommon and generally limited to serious enthusiasts who want to learn about roasting coffee.

 

Why Roast at Home

To learn  

Roasting coffee at home provides a unique opportunity to delve into the intricacies of the roasting process. By experimenting with different beans and heat applications, you can gain a deeper understanding of how roasting influences the flavours and aromas of coffee. This in turn allows you to develop your palate and appreciate the nuances of the craft.

Roast on demand

One of the greatest advantages of home roasting is the ability to roast coffee on demand. Instead of relying on pre-roasted beans that may have been sitting on the shelf for weeks or months, you can roast small batches of coffee whenever you desire. This ensures that you always have fresh coffee available, allowing you to enjoy the optimal flavours and aromas that diminish over time.

Save on the price of coffee

Roasting your own coffee can lead to savings in the long run. Quality green coffee beans can be bought in the UK in 5kg lots, for prices varying starting from £8/kg. This is at least a 50% saving on the same quality of bean purchased from a speciality roaster in London.

 

Home Coffee Roasters

The basic coffee roaster

Nuvo Eco Ceramic Handy Coffee Bean Roaster

The Nuvo Roaster is as simple as they come – a ceramic dish that you heat the green coffee beans in over a flame. Its shape give the roaster an advantage over simpy using a frying pan. Its (almost) enclosed shape creates a heated environment around the beans, although the majority of the roasting is still occurring due to conduction of the hot ceramic surface in contact with the beans. The shape also ensures the beans are retained as the roaster is agitated over the flame. The hole in the handle allows for easy removal of the beans after roasting.

The agitation required is the difficult part of roasting with the Nuvo or similar roasters. Although the capacity is listed as 30-60grams, we found that with a dose of 50 grams the time to first crack was too long (over 15 minutes). Reducing the dose to 25 grams we still found the roast time on the long side (12 minutes to first crack, 15-minute roast time). To agitate the roaster for 15 minutes over the flame to ensure even roasting is somewhat challenging and inconvenient, and a lot of effort for 1 cup of coffee.

The more advanced coffee roaster

Ikawa Home and Ikawa Pro

IKAWA are a home and sample roaster manufacturer based in London. They market two variants of their electric coffee roaster – the Home version and the more advance PRO version. Both roasters are digital – the roaster is controlled by an app on a phone or tablet. The home roaster gives the ability to control inlet air temperature and fan speed. The PRO roaster has more advanced features including exhaust air temperature and moisture monitoring. Both roasters are available in 50g and 100g capacities (producing approximately 43g and 87g of roasted coffee per roast respectively). These are ‘hot air’ roasters that heat the coffee primarily by convection.

While certainly not cheap (as of July 2024 the IKAWA Home sells for approximately £1270), the IKAWA has become popular for providing a clean and easy to use home roaster that looks good sitting on a kitchen counter. The ability to repeat roasts consistently, and make precise modifications make it a great learning tool as well. The roaster produces some odour but can comfortably be used inside, ideally by an open window or kitchen rangehood.

The Ikawa Pro is the choice of many specialty coffee businesses for sample roasting - roasting small batches of coffee for purchasing and quality control cuppings.

A small production roaster

Aillio Bullet

The Aillio Bullet is recognised by many as the best coffee roaster in its capacity class (1kg) and is used by both home enthusiasts and micro businesses alike. It is an electric roaster that uses induction to heat the roasting drum. Heat transfer to the coffee ifs through a combination of conduction and convection. The roaster is capable of operating with batch sizes of 150g-1000g. 

 

One challenge of using the Aillio Bullet is venting - the roaster produces significant amounts of smoke and needs a venting setup in order to avoid creating excessive smoke build-up (and setting off fire alarms!). It is possible for this to simply be a flue to an open window although we have found that larger volumes require an active fan to effectively remove the exhaust smoke.

A Taste Comparison

We tasted a washed Colombian coffee from Huila roasted on three coffee roasters – a Loring Kestrel 35kg production roaster, the IKAWA home and the Nuvo Eco Ceramic roaster. An attempt was made to roast all coffees to the same colour. Using the production roast as a baseline we made the following basic tasting observations.

Loring

Acidity – Medium

Body – Med/full

Flavour – Stone Fruit, Choc

Ikawa

Acidity – Med

Body – Med

Flavour – Stone Fruit, Choc, grassy hints

Nuvo

Acidity – Med

Body – Med/full

Flavour – stone fruit, cocoa, touch bitter

The exercise was surprising for a few reasons. Firstly the differential in quality of the cups was lesser than expected. Neither of the home roasts exhibited any significant negative characteristics, although both had minor tasting notes that hinted at the type of roaster used. Despite being roasted to approximately the same colour, the coffee roasted on the Nuvo tasted darker with stronger bitterness – likely due to the longer roast time and reliance on heating by conduction that can lead to scorching of the coffee bean.

The coffee from the IKAWA had less body and also a grassy note in the flavour. This is something we have found consistently with the IKAWA roasts when tasted in direct comparison to a production roast.

Summary

Home coffee roasting offers a valuable opportunity to learn about the intricacies of the roasting process while providing cost savings and the convenience of roasting on demand. While basic roasters like the Nuvo can be a good starting point for beginners, more advanced electric roasters like the IKAWA offer precise control and consistency. If you are considering turning your home roasting hobby into a micro business then the Aillio Bullet is a good investment. Exploring different roasting methods and equipment at home can lead to a deeper appreciation of the art and science of coffee roasting and how roasting can impact the flavours and nuances of a coffee.

Would you rather we do the roasting for you? Have a look at all of our coffees here, freshly roasted to order.