Home Coffee Bean Roaster Tool - CAFEMASY Portable Stainless Steel Handy Coffee Roaster Mesh Pan Tool with Thermometer for Home & Outdoor Coffee Beans Baking

This is a simple contraption, well designed for what it is. Corrugated bottom helps with moving beans around. Handle does not get hot (of interest, the metal at the end, which rests against hand flesh). Not heavy so no muscle fatigue from shaking it for up to 15 minutes.I've used this several times on my gas stove. Haven't screwed up yet! Some notes:- If you use about a single layer plus a little extra, I think it provides the optimal amount for even cooking, which requires constant agitation and enough space for the beans to move around. This produces 3-4 cups of coffee or a small pot. ish. Adding more beans makes it more difficult to roast evenly.- Keeping the basket close to flame speeds up "first crack". Unless you're on crack & have crazy shaking energy, it probably won't be a uniform cracking process like you would get with a hot-air roaster. For me, the crack started anywhere from 6-10 minutes into roasting & lasted anywhere from 1-4 minutes.Then you can back off the flame a bit as you aim for the darkness you desire, where the smoke begins to pick up. (I like light to full city roasts (or a mix as you can see in the photo), so haven't had much smoking as of yet.)- The chaff largely burns off in the flame. When it's small enough to get through the mesh, it does so, creating a modest amount of clean-up around the burner.- When you're finished, the mesh cools off rapidly. The rings take longer (although the retaining clip doesn't seem to conduct heat (just like the handle). The beans are still "cooking" & it's pretty easy to blow on them right in the basket to help them cool down, instead of dumping them in a bowl or tray.- Let the beans rest for at least a day (some say longer) to settle and de-gas. This improves the flavor (i.e. eliminates some negative flavors).ADDENDUM:I have now made about 20 roasts. A couple of further points:- I tried using the large (3.5") burner on my stove, and the beans cracked way too fast (<3 mins!). Tasted okay, but the pros say the beans aren't going through their chemical changes properly. So I recommend a 2.5" burner, the standard "small" size.- I'm using up raw beans that have been in dark storage for 10+ years. And they make a pot of coffee that tastes better than freshly purchased whole bean roasts. Looking forward to purchasing new raw beans!- I increased the amount of beans I roast to about 2 layers plus. No problem spacewise or getting a fairly even roast.

It takes some practice and a few batches of ruined beans with this method in order to attain the roast you want. Prepare to bake and burn some beans first. Remove the candy thermometer; it's useless because the prong is too short to adequately monitor the temperature, and it blocks your view of the beans. I recommend roasting two-ounce batches at a time consistently over a direct flame (like with this fancy butane Bunsen burner) and while continuously shaking the beans. Listen for the 1st and 2nd cracks, observe the crackling and the smoke, prevent your beans from catching fire by immersing the tool too long within the flame, inspect the beans within the tool to see if they're dark enough to your preference. And do this entire process outside--but not on your propane BBQ grill or your hot plate or whatever (and not in the house). The beans need a direct flame to release their magic, but you don't need their smoke in your lungs, so sidestep it wherever possible and enjoy this simple roasting method outside!

After searching & reading reviews of several entry level roasting products I chose this one because it looked like the easiest to use on an open flame and still be able to see the coffee beans through the color changes. I'm a total novice at roasting and this is allowing me to "get my feet wet" for a small monetary investment. It works great and I'm able to get the lighter roasts that I like instead of the darker roasts that are way more common in commercially roasted coffee beans. I'm able to watch the color changes pretty well, but it's still necessary to open it up near the end to get a good check on the color because the wire mesh shines in the sunlight (I roast outside on a gas burner for pots that's on the side of my barbecue) and then, after a few roasts, the mesh darkens from the heat. There are so many variables - but height above the flame at different stages of roast and volume of beans in the roaster seems to be the biggest factors to me at the stage I'm at... I've roasted about 9-10 batches as of this writing. Different beans also make some difference, but I'm roasting around 1/2cup - 2/3cup of green beans and haven't decided which is better. I turn the basket upside-down and back again throughout the roast because I can't tell if the beans actually mix well, especially with a larger quantity in the basket, and I'm cautious of scorching them. I end the roast just after "first crack" which yields a less biting coffee taste. I roasted a batch for my son well into "second crack", which is more to his taste, and he liked it a lot. After I experiment a lot more, I might consider looking into other home roasters for a bigger batch, but for now, this is just great for my once daily morning latte'. Enjoy...

Oh my God, where do some you people come from? This handy little roaster is about as good as it gets and is self explanatory. The only thing you need to add is common sense which you will never receive from a manual. Simply use a flame mechanism and use your judgement on how far to keep it from it. Higher flame, farther way..lower flame, closer. I’ve used many roasting methods and would argue this is not a starter to roasting, it is roasting at its finest. Paying upwards of $300 for something automatic to achieve the same result makes no sense (at least to me). I highly recommend you try this and consider not being taken in by all of the other expensive and unnecessary options out there. Go outside and have a little fun.

I'm new to roasting my own beans so I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something I didn't know I was going to use. This little cofee roaster is exacatly what I needed. It' s simple to use and does a great job of it. My first batch took about 10 minutes and the beans turned out perfectly. I have no complaints and I would recommend this little roaster to anyone.