# IKAWA Professional Sample Roaster



## NickdeBug (Jan 18, 2015)

Has anyone used this? http://www.ikawacoffee.com/professional/

Not the soon to be released home version, but the version marketed as a sample roaster for commercial use.

We will be embarking on a project looking at coffee aromas early next year and need something that will be able to roast very small quantities to a consistent, repeatable profile.

This looks of interest, but it would be great to hear of any actual experience with it.

Replies/pm's much appreciated.

Cheers

Nick


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Saw a demo at Cup North, looks like a great little machine. Was given the freshly roasted beans that came out of it as well (which were nice). The profile can be changed on the fly as its on an iPad app, very interesting to watch (and taste).


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

I was massively impressed by this machine after a demo at Cup North. Followed profiles with no fuss at all, very accurate and quick. I'm thinking of investing in one myself.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

IIRC they retail at £650, though there is a home version in the pipeline as well. Think it produces enough for approx 4 doubles.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Rhys said:


> IIRC they retail at £650, though there is a home version in the pipeline as well. Think it produces enough for approx 4 doubles.


It's the home version that is £650.

I seem to remember in the other thread someone saying the pro version was in the thousands.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Ah right. Home version pre-order is £600 or £650 with 12 packs of greens. Pro version is p.o.a..


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Yeah, over 2k plus Vat. Will roast 50-60g at a time.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Rhys said:


> IIRC they retail at £650, though there is a home version in the pipeline as well. Think it produces enough for approx 4 doubles.


Mmmm...no not 4, capacity is 60g of green, so you will get around 50g back. A double is around 16-20g depending on the updose used. So around 3 doubles at best, assuming no wastage. if you are roasting a new untried bean or a different roast level, it might take1 or 2 doubles to properly dial in the grinder....maybe even 3. As a practical home roaster, I don't really think it hits the mark, as a value for money home roaster...it's simply bonkers. I would also think roasting to get 50g of roasted at a time, would soon get pretty old and pretty difficult to forward roast to let the beans rest sufficiently.

However, I'd love to hear about forum members experiences, should someone buy one.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

I don't think it would make a viable home roaster either really. It's strength is as a sample roaster. It's the consistency and control that pretty much sets it apart from other small roasters. You can draw a profile on an iPad app and the roaster just follows it. Could be good for commercial roasters to use as a relatively cheap way of testing out the effects of a small change to a roast profile without binning loads of coffee at a time. 50g is good for cupping, an EK shot and a brew.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

DavecUK said:


> would also think roasting to get 50g of roasted at a time, would soon get pretty old and pretty difficult to forward roast to let the beans rest sufficiently..


Maybe, although once you've got the profile how you want it, it's just a case of filling it with beans and hitting the button, repeat as needed. No other interaction required. I was pretty impressed with the results - took some beans home with me and they were stunning. It's the repeatability and consistency that appeals to me. The alternatives are crude by comparison (I mean sample roasters).


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Trouble is as a home roaster, you still have to rest the beans I would've thought. So 2, maybe 3 shots at the most and wait a week? As said, cupping maybe we that's what it's meant for I guess.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Rhys said:


> Trouble is as a home roaster, you still have to rest the beans I would've thought. So 2, maybe 3 shots at the most and wait a week? As said, cupping maybe we that's what it's meant for I guess.


Not to claim it's ideal, but you could just do the same roast over and over until you had the amount you wanted.


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## Kofe (May 4, 2014)

Dylan said:


> It's the home version that is £650.
> 
> I seem to remember in the other thread someone saying the pro version was in the thousands.


£2200 ☺


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Dylan said:


> Not to claim it's ideal, but you could just do the same roast over and over until you had the amount you wanted.


I wouldn't buy one for that, I'd get a bigger roaster. You don't make a fish supper by frying one chip at a time..


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Rhys said:


> I wouldn't buy one for that, I'd get a bigger roaster. You don't make a fish supper by frying one chip at a time..


You might if you could only fit one chip in your frier.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Dylan said:


> You might if you could only fit one chip in your frier.


True, I could do to go on a diet lol.

Its ideal however if you don't drink much coffee (my dad for instance, only had one cup a day) and you can swap and vary beans every couple of days.


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## NickdeBug (Jan 18, 2015)

Thanks for the feedback guys.

This is for work rather than play, so the pro version is probably the one we would purchase.


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

Wonder what the differences are between the pro and home versions.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Rhys said:


> Wonder what the differences are between the pro and home versions.


I wonder this too, considering 3.5x the price


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

AFAIK, there are some internal differences, but looking at the vids on their website they both work in the same way so I don't know.. They are quiet though and smoke free, the beans are cool to the touch when they come out as well.


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## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

The home version does not link to a device for profiling, plus the heater fan is in a different place so you do not have as much control over the roast.

I understand the pro version and from what i have read online it appeals to test roasting and roasting in situ, like on a farm.

But the home version does not stack up at all for me, thats 2 x Gene 101s!!


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

froggystyle said:


> The home version does not link to a device for profiling, plus the heater fan is in a different place so you do not have as much control over the roast.
> 
> I understand the pro version and from what i have read online it appeals to test roasting and roasting in situ, like on a farm.
> 
> But the home version does not stack up at all for me, thats 2 x Gene 101s!!


In the vid for the home version, it shows it's linked to an app on an iPhone and you choose a profile. Whether these can be altered I don't know.


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## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

Not what the man at Cup north said..

I stand by my previous comment, it doesn't stack up for the home user.


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

yeah, I dont get the point of it as a home version .... that is a crap load of money to spend just to roast 3 shots at a time. that sort of tech and roast profiling in a new Gene 101 "D" would rock though

fingers crossed they do a 200g - 300g version


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## Rhys (Dec 21, 2014)

I think it'll appeal to someone who doesn't drink much coffee, but likes good coffee. Maybe has a kilo of greens and has a few drinks on a weekend. Would be a waste of fresh beans in the long run. Great idea for the pro in the field (so to speak, 'punintentional'©) other than that, grasping at straws tbh. Lovely machine though, and works very well.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

h1udd said:


> fingers crossed they do a 200g - 300g version


Agreed. This level of control on a 250-300g machine would be a real game changer for the home roaster. Honestly, the coffee we roasted on it was close to perfectly roasted in my opinion, so good. Very surprising. I was expecting the machine to be flawed in some way but perfect for some pretty specific applications.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Someone has modded a gene cafe with arduino control and installed their own thermocouples and bean mass probe to read temps and create profiles for the machine to run automatically to a set profile. It's open source and not that complicated to carry out, somebody used to hacking auberins timers into grinders shouldn't find it intimidating.


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## jtldurnall (Mar 16, 2015)

I am currently researching this device as I am keen to start roasting my own beans. I found a list of the main differences between the pro version and the home version on their website that I thought y'all might be interested in. Have copied and posted it below:

The IKAWA Home Roaster is designed to make roasting coffee as easy as boiling a kettle so coffee lovers who may not have coffee roasting experience enjoy perfectly roasted coffee. It also gives users the ability to adapt roast profiles and learn how changing the roast recipe effects the flavour of the coffee. Profiles can be shared so users build a collective knowledge from the crowd.

The Professional Roaster on the other hand is designed as a business tool for coffee professionals who use it for roasting samples of coffee. This is common in the coffee trade where samples of coffee are "cupped" to determine the quality. In this market the unique benefit of the roaster is that it makes coffee roasting recipe (called the profile) automated repeatable. This means professionals can e-mail roast profiles between offices and roast coffee while they do other things. The roaster is also very easily transportable (it fits in hand luggage) and easy to set up and install in comparison to traditional sample roaster.

Ok, so what what's the difference?:

THE APP:

The roast profile of the Professional Roaster can be set to 20 separate temperature points, and has a maximum roast duration of 20 minutes. The fan speed can include 10 points during the roast and a point that adjusts the cool down fan speed.

For the home roaster there are 5 roast points plus the cool down point. The maximum duration of a roast is 10 min which is ample for our recommended roast recipes.

The Pro Roaster enables the users to export data to CSV files that can be analysed in a spreadsheet and enables sharing of the profile via e-mail or social media. Home Roaster App is ideal to share your favourite roast recipes by email and social media, but does not offer the .csv download.

In addition to the above App interface of the Pro Roaster and Home Roaster will look a bit different but will function in a similar way. To get an idea of that app is like we suggest you download the Pro app from i-tunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/ikawa-ltd./id930831986.
THE MACHINE:

The temperature sensors in both Pro and Home roasters are of top quality, using a grade A PT1000 sensor element. We have used this type of sensor rather than a thermocouple as they are more accurate and don't change the reading over time.

The sensor is positioned in the roasting chamber for the Pro Roaster which allows a temperature that is influenced by the bean temperature. The sensor in the Pro Roaster needs to be in a quite delicate position in order to sense temperature changes quickly and most accurately to control the roast temperature using the PID algorithm. We feel this will be a problem for the Home Roaster as it would get broken. So for the home roaster element will be tucked away inside the roaster where it is less exposed and will control the roast using the air temp rather than the temperature bean influenced temperature.

The user interface on the Home and Pro roasters will also be different. To use the home user simply put coffee in the roaster and press go. This means roast recipes start at 50 degrees Centigrade. By contrast, the Pro Roaster enables users to pre-heat the roaster in a way more similar to traditional sample roasters that they are accustomed to.

AVAILABILITY:

Finally, the Pro Roasters are available now, where as the Home Roaster will be delivered to backers in February 2016.


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## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

Thanks for that, although it has pi**ed me off reading it.

Home - £600

Pro = No price on site, but expected to be over £2.2k

Difference in parts, zero.

How can they justify a difference of over £1500 for some software differences and the temp sensor located in a different part of the machine?


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## jtldurnall (Mar 16, 2015)

This is exactly what led me to do the research. A slightly more precise app and a different sensor placement seems hard to justify for the price increase. As I'm looking to get the home version I'm fairly happy about the minimal differences, however if I'd shelled out over two grand for the pro I'd be peeved. It looks as though the pro was a more expensive prototype and now they've got production up and running they can cut costs on the home?

Hoping to get a look at one up close at London coffee festival so will have a few questions ready for the guys manning the stand.


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

£600 for a 'popcorn' roaster is somewhat expensive.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

I'll let everyone know how it pans out. Ours arrives in a couple of weeks.


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

Rob1 said:


> £600 for a 'popcorn' roaster is somewhat expensive.


depends how well off you are


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## jtldurnall (Mar 16, 2015)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> I'll let everyone know how it pans out. Ours arrives in a couple of weeks.


I presume you are getting the pro?


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

jtldurnall said:


> I presume you are getting the pro?


Yes, was wavering for months but decided to go for it in the end.


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## jtldurnall (Mar 16, 2015)

I'll be very interested in hearing your thoughts.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Yeah, I'll do a min- review it once we've got to grips with it. Impressed with what I have seen so far.


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## PeterL (Aug 5, 2015)

I had a look at this at the LCF, very cute, very interesting, my wife has a 'no more hobbies' thing going at the moment and this would get under the radar.

If it did 100g in a go I would already own it but the home version is definitely going to be limited on profiles and with the probe on the inlet temperature and not the chamber it will mean less precise control.

Each batch is 7 minutes plus ramp down, no need for cool off so in theory you could turn over 6 batches an hour aka 360 grams..

How are you getting on with it?


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

PeterL said:


> I had a look at this at the LCF, very cute, very interesting, my wife has a 'no more hobbies' thing going at the moment and this would get under the radar.
> 
> If it did 100g in a go I would already own it but the home version is definitely going to be limited on profiles and with the probe on the inlet temperature and not the chamber it will mean less precise control.
> 
> ...


Well actually 300g after an hour of roasting...I would have thought it more sensible to get a lightly used Quest M3 for the same money, or a Gene for a lot less and roast 275 to 300g in one batch. However, I will be very interested to know how you get on with it.


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## Stevie (Nov 18, 2015)

From what I gathered from them - the home version is significantly cheaper and the main differences were purely the software had a little less flexibility on creating completely custom profiles, and the temperature sensor was outside the chamber rather than in it...


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Stevie said:


> From what I gathered from them - the home version is significantly cheaper and the main differences were purely the software had a little less flexibility on creating completely custom profiles, and the temperature sensor was outside the chamber rather than in it...


Well the home version is £600 +25 delivery...I still think that's quite expensive for what it is?


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

DavecUK said:


> Well the home version is £600 +25 delivery...I still think that's quite expensive for what it is?


It most probably is if you are comparing capacity and complexity. I've taken the plunge and pre ordered one. I am really looking forward to it. I wish it were cheaper but that's the price. I might be wasting my money, i might not. Anyway isn't "wasting" money what hobbies are for?

My reasoning is that i think it potentially has some significant advantages for the low volume brewed coffee user like me.

It can roast in your kitchen. No need to go outside into a cold shed/garage to awaken the smoky behmoth.

Small footprint. Similar to a water jug.

Easy to use (apparently).

60g of coffee is more than i would use in a typical day.

You can run different profiles on each 60g and find what one you like best without potentially "wasting" a lot of beans.

There is the potential to have a wider variety of coffees on the go at any one time without them going stale.

It should be simple to match supply and demand. I often find by the time i get to the end of a 250g bag the flavours are muted. For brewed coffee i find one day/overnight post roast often gives me the best brews.

A constant supply of small batches fresh coffee is a winner from where i stand and that's what i hope will make it value for money for my purposes.

I don't do espresso so don't have to wait a week or more to try out the coffee. I can see that for espresso the capacity maybe a disadvantage as you might lose a lot or all the sample dialling in. Easy enough to roast 2 or 3 batches though.

It's obviously not going to suit a higher volume user who wants to roast larger amounts, but it's not trying to compete with that type of roaster. It's a sample roaster designed for convenience. Hence, i suppose, the price. The quality of the roast will be the determining factor though. For £600, i'm expecting good results. Still it's a risk.


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## Ramrod (Feb 9, 2016)

Those are my reasons for pre-ordering as well


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

Ramrod said:


> Those are my reasons for pre-ordering as well


Nice to have some company to compare notes with! Have you heard anything yet from IKAWA about shipping times? It said to expect in May when i ordered but not heard anything since.


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## Ramrod (Feb 9, 2016)

I didn't ask about those. I contacted them about the android app being available for download at product launch & they assured me that it would be. They also said that the roaster would retail for between £750 & £1000 once it has been properly launched and the pre-order price offer had ended. :/

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Woohoo! Mine is arriving tomorrow! Happy days.


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## PeterL (Aug 5, 2015)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> Woohoo! Mine is arriving tomorrow! Happy days.


Thoughts? They are tres chic....


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## NickdeBug (Jan 18, 2015)

PeterL said:



> Thoughts? They are tres chic....


 @foundrycoffeeroasters.com

Interested in your thoughts too Lee

Still considering purchasing one for a project at work


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Well, I've managed to get it out of the box for 5 minutes so far. I'm actually planning a load of things I want to explore with it at the moment. I'll probably fire it up later today if I get chance, just to check that everything is working.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

First impressions? Impressed. It's going to take a bit of working out of course and we need to figure out how it fits in with what we are used to in terms of calibration etc. I've done maybe 10 roasts today. It's a really well made thing and seems to be very responsive, well thought through. Looking forward to getting to know it a bit better over the next few weeks.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Wondered whether people had any questions about this roaster? I've been playing around with it for a few days now and I'm really enjoying what it can do. Temperature control is really very good and I've managed to calibrate it so that we can hopefully transition what we are doing onto the larger roaster. At least the the point that we should be able to get straight into the ball park for a new profile and then it's just a tweak or two.

The roaster itself is faultless in operation and seems like it will run forever. It's much smaller than I remember it being but that's a good thing. With this version you also get access to more recipes that are being used by well-known people in the industry which is pretty interesting so it should work really well as a standard sample roaster. It's got a lot of potential, that's for sure and I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do over the next few weeks.


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## PPapa (Oct 24, 2015)

@foundrycoffeeroasters.com not entirely the roaster related question, but I'll ask anyway.

With such roasters showing up in the market, do you think it is possible for the industry to start selling greens AND the roast profiles for home roasters?

That might be interesting and might turn the current situation (roasting to order) by 180 degrees.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

I don't see why not. The main limit as far as I can see with it is that the quantities are so small that it may not make sense to a lot of people. You're not getting out much more than 40g of coffee each time as it stands which is maybe 2-3 drinks, if that. I'm sure it would appeal to some people though nonetheless.


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## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

PPapa said:


> @foundrycoffeeroasters.com not entirely the roaster related question, but I'll ask anyway.
> 
> With such roasters showing up in the market, do you think it is possible for the industry to start selling greens AND the roast profiles for home roasters?
> 
> That might be interesting and might turn the current situation (roasting to order) by 180 degrees.


Not sure roasters will share profiles, anyway the profile on a home roaster would be very different, and very difficult to copy i guess...


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## PPapa (Oct 24, 2015)

Yeah I don't think 40g output will be very reasonable for home roasters. Would probably work for people who drink 2 drinks per weekend or something like that.



froggystyle said:


> Not sure roasters will share profiles, anyway the profile on a home roaster would be very different, and very difficult to copy i guess...


Well, that's what I mean - is it possible that some professionals would start sharing their best recipes with their own greens? It could be somewhat protected (need to log-in to access the roast recipe, etc.).

I'm not talking about IKAWA roaster itself, something with a higher output might be better suited for that. As long as the roasts can be reproduced by roasters at home, it would be interesting to see.

It seems like home roasting is a lot more popular in the US, I wonder why.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Id be pretty happy to share a profile for one. It doesn't exactly just copy and paste over onto a production roaster. What is already clear is that it's pretty easy to develop a bean to much the same degree in either 5 minutes or 10 minutes so there are a lot of different ways you could approach it. It's a good idea and I guess it's happening to some extent already with the Ikawa roast library for example. Also, I don't think people are quite as secretive about profiles as they used to be. Cropster publishes them on their website in blog posts.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> Id be pretty happy to share a profile for one. It doesn't exactly just copy and paste over onto a production roaster. What is already clear is that it's pretty easy to develop a bean to much the same degree in either 5 minutes or 10 minutes so there are a lot of different ways you could approach it. It's a good idea and I guess it's happening to some extent already with the Ikawa roast library for example. Also, I don't think people are quite as secretive about profiles as they used to be. Cropster publishes them on their website in blog posts.


There will be a body of opinion that won't believe that you can develop a bean properly in 5 mins...

Thanks for the update, i'm really looking forward to getting the Home Roaster version and hope that it proves as capable. I think 10mins is the max roast time with the Home version. I wonder if profiles can be shared between the Pro and Home models?

One basic question for you. How does it deal with the smoke? Is there a filter inside?

I was reading that at a recent Barista Championship the winner roasted the bean to 2 different profiles then combined them. Sounds like the type of experiment the IKAWA would be good for.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

PPapa said:


> It seems like home roasting is a lot more popular in the US, I wonder why.


I'm not sure it is nowadays. There is a much bigger population?

Historically though, before the advent of coffee shops and raosters, home roasting coffee in the US was an everyday occurence. Citizens bought the central american greens cheaply at a local store, took it back home and roasted it in a pan. In europe we had the development of coffee houses that i assume did the roasting?


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

Not really sure about the smoke issue. It doesn't seem to emit much at all. I was using it in my kitchen at home last week and never felt the need to open a window of anything. The fan is pretty powerful. I guess if you were pushing the beans to second crack, you may well start to get some smoke but I haven't tried that.

Morten Münchow has developed two profiles that both take a bean to the same Agtron level but using one profile that's really short, and one that's 10 mins or so. The cool thing is that it's really easy with this thing to run those sorts of experiments and see what happens in a really direct way.


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## Step21 (Oct 2, 2014)

foundrycoffeeroasters.com said:


> Not really sure about the smoke issue. It doesn't seem to emit much at all. I was using it in my kitchen at home last week and never felt the need to open a window of anything. The fan is pretty powerful. I guess if you were pushing the beans to second crack, you may well start to get some smoke but I haven't tried that.
> 
> Morten Münchow has developed two profiles that both take a bean to the same Agtron level but using one profile that's really short, and one that's 10 mins or so. The cool thing is that it's really easy with this thing to run those sorts of experiments and see what happens in a really direct way.


Thanks for the confirmation about the lack of smoke. I thought that was the case but curious to know how it was dealt with.

I had to look up what Agtron levels were. Sounds like something out of Star Trek! The profiles you are referring to take different times to get to the same agtron reading. I assuming the agtron level is not an indicator of taste but level of roast? So the two profiles will taste different athough they share the same agtron reading.


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

That's exactly the sort of thing that this machine should be able to explore. Agtron is just colour so would indicate degree of development. Of course, there are lots of ways to get to the end result but it'll be really interesting to see the differences.


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## SmithStCoffeeRoasters (Feb 23, 2016)

I'm in the market for a sample roaster but struggling to justify the return on investment shame as it does look a excellent bit of kit. How do you see it paying for itself & over what sort of time frame Lee ?


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## foundrycoffeeroasters.com (Jun 19, 2014)

SmithStCoffeeRoasters said:


> I'm in the market for a sample roaster but struggling to justify the return on investment shame as it does look a excellent bit of kit. How do you see it paying for itself & over what sort of time frame Lee ?


I'm hoping for three things really. Firstly, consistent sample roasting so that selecting greens will be easier. Secondly, just the ability to try out loads of stuff for not much cost and learning more about roasting. Thirdly, in some way I think the roaster may be able to save some time in the profile development phase. We have sometimes run 8 test profiles before deciding how to roast a new bean. We are hoping we'll be able to do this for a twentieth of the coffee cost in future. Even if all it does is save 2 or 3 roasts at the profiling stage it will have gone a good way towards paying for itself within a year or two.


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