Mmm, coffee

I am in whole hearted agreement! Stated very well.

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Jeez, somebody takes their coffee seriously!

I am thinking the same thing!

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Here's the thing, I enjoy process.  The doing of things rather than the mere getting things done.  The journey as much or more than the destination.  Its partly why I shave the way I do, its about more than the mere removal of the daily stubble.  The other thing is that joy and pleasure are found in small, simple things, a great cup of coffee, an awesome shave, a sunrise, a sunrise while drinking a great cup of coffee   I can say with confidence that when I'm sipping my morning brew that the cup of coffee I'm having at that moment is probably better than the morning cup of coffee being consumed by over 90% of the people in the world.  Probably.  Coffee should be enjoyed, straight up and black - cream and sugar just mask bad coffee and spoil the good stuff.  Would you add cream and sugar to a glass of red wine?

No I wouldn't but I might consider adding more red wine to red wine already in the glass,  (And no offense taken, Mark.  I vaguely remember the character and gathered what you were getting at. )

Marko, I've been disappointed at the number of local roasters that don't know how to roast very well. Once you figure out how to roast at home other peoples coffee has a hard time measuring up.  I get my beans from Sweet Maria's as well.  They never disappoint.

Regarding the two models of the hottop, there is $500 difference.  In looking at the differences I see two things that I would like.

First, you can connect it to your computer if you want to graph everything, which would be nice.  Folks add that to the less expensive model and I don't think it is that hard. Some quick Googling would let you know more about that.

The other nice thing is that they have two heat sensors in the more expensive one.  One is for the air temp, same as the less expensive.  The other for for the bean temp, which would be nice if it works.  I wonder how well it works.

I'm not convinced that the ability to have more control over the heat, fan, etc.... would add much.

$500 is a lot of money.  I would have to really be convinced that the bean temp probe is accurate to think about it, and then wouldn't be convinced.  

I think a couple of other things to consider is whether you can afford the $500 and how important those things it adds are.  

I also think the less expensive one in combo with the info in the book below will carry most folks where they want to go.


https://www.sweetmarias.com/product/the-...-scott-rao

I like your idea of getting the old one re-furbed, you might even do it yourself if you are reasonably handy. I mention this due to cross border shipping costs. I have found Hottop to be very helpful.

I actually make a coffee soap and it's pure coffee nothing else roasted coffee

Pete123 I'm going to do a little more research, however, you have a point about the utility of the features on the higher priced model. When I bought my current Hottop more than 10 years ago I got the programmable model which I believe was only about $100 more than the basic model coming in around $600. The price has increased a lot since then but the thing is, I never used the programming features, I ran it in basic mode and roasted by sight and sound, mainly sound. When it got to where I wanted it I dumped the beans and that was it. Some beans I'd take closer to second crack but I rarely went to or past second crack unless I was doing an espresso roast. If I can see a clear connection between the ability to manipulate the fan speed, temperature and so forth and the quality of my roast I'd probably go for it. The extra $500 could pay for the refurbishment of the older one though.

I agree with you as to local roasters, its hit and miss. There's more to roasting coffee than just growing a hipster beard and putting a grommet in your earlobe. You have to respect the bean and make sure you do right by it. When you look at the journey that coffee beans undergo from growing to picking, processing shipping and roasting and the fact that a great bean can be ruined at any point along that journey, its a wonder that we can even get a decent cup of coffee. So if you get some green beans its up to you to do your utmost to achieve their potential and if you ruin it, well then you're just a jerk. And if you then sell those ruined beans as "artisanal" locally roasted coffee, you're worse than a jerk. Although if you sell them in a cool bag with a funky logo on it then its ok right?

So here is where I'm at - part of me says, you never used the advanced features on your old hot top so what are the odds you'll use them on a new one? And the savings can pay for refurb the old machine. The other part of me says - you know you haven't been maximizing the potential of the beans you've been roasting so stop disrespecting the bean and do right by them and take your roasting to the next level.

It would be nice if I had a coffee Yoda Jedi Master that I could consult. I've been doing this coffee roasting thing alone for the past 20+ years. I've not found any useful forums, although to be fair I haven't looked in a long time so maybe some have popped up since then. I've read articles and books and done a lot of trial and error. Maybe its time I got serious about it.

Its funny, when I first started roasting I was happy to share my beans with family and friends. As I got better at it I became a little more discriminating as to who was worthy of my coffee and eventually got to the point where virtually nobody is worthy of my best beans. They want the whole pound ground before you give it to them, they never clean their brewing equipment, they adulterate it with sugar and "whitener" and otherwise screw everything up and then you hear through a third party that they don't think your coffee is all that great. No **** Sherlock, no beans for you! I'm not saying that other people should or shouldn't do anything differently, its their life and they can live it how they want and if bad coffee makes them happy who am I to judge them? This is what I do and what I like and it makes me happy and I'm certainly not going to waste my time and good beans on people who won't appreciate it.

Pete123 I'm going to do a little more research, however, you have a point about the utility of the features on the higher priced model. When I bought my current Hottop more than 10 years ago I got the programmable model which I believe was only about $100 more than the basic model coming in around $600. The price has increased a lot since then but the thing is, I never used the programming features, I ran it in basic mode and roasted by sight and sound, mainly sound. When it got to where I wanted it I dumped the beans and that was it. Some beans I'd take closer to second crack but I rarely went to or past second crack unless I was doing an espresso roast. If I can see a clear connection between the ability to manipulate the fan speed, temperature and so forth and the quality of my roast I'd probably go for it. The extra $500 could pay for the refurbishment of the older one though.

I agree with you as to local roasters, its hit and miss. There's more to roasting coffee than just growing a hipster beard and putting a grommet in your earlobe. You have to respect the bean and make sure you do right by it. When you look at the journey that coffee beans undergo from growing to picking, processing shipping and roasting and the fact that a great bean can be ruined at any point along that journey, its a wonder that we can even get a decent cup of coffee. So if you get some green beans its up to you to do your utmost to achieve their potential and if you ruin it, well then you're just a jerk. And if you then sell those ruined beans as "artisanal" locally roasted coffee, you're worse than a jerk. Although if you sell them in a cool bag with a funky logo on it then its ok right?

So here is where I'm at - part of me says, you never used the advanced features on your old hot top so what are the odds you'll use them on a new one? And the savings can pay for refurb the old machine. The other part of me says - you know you haven't been maximizing the potential of the beans you've been roasting so stop disrespecting the bean and do right by them and take your roasting to the next level.

It would be nice if I had a coffee Yoda Jedi Master that I could consult. I've been doing this coffee roasting thing alone for the past 20+ years. I've not found any useful forums, although to be fair I haven't looked in a long time so maybe some have popped up since then. I've read articles and books and done a lot of trial and error. Maybe its time I got serious about it.

Its funny, when I first started roasting I was happy to share my beans with family and friends. As I got better at it I became a little more discriminating as to who was worthy of my coffee and eventually got to the point where virtually nobody is worthy of my best beans. They want the whole pound ground before you give it to them, they never clean their brewing equipment, they adulterate it with sugar and "whitener" and otherwise screw everything up and then you hear through a third party that they don't think your coffee is all that great. No **** Sherlock, no beans for you! I'm not saying that other people should or shouldn't do anything differently, its their life and they can live it how they want and if bad coffee makes them happy who am I to judge them? This is what I do and what I like and it makes me happy and I'm certainly not going to waste my time and good beans on people who won't appreciate it.

Marko, I don't use any of the programmable features either. In my view, their is a coffee Yoda Jedi Master, the author of the book I mentioned. I would encourage you to get that book before deciding on the extra $500.

Here is what I can say about the book. I roasted coffee for a long time and got decent results. After reading the book and putting a few of his suggestions in place, I started producing a brew that can only be matched by one of the many roasters here in Nashville. One of the things I learned is that following the directions in the Hottop manual caused me to drop the beans well before the temp was high enough to produce the needed results.

Another thing I learned is that you want to be as smooth as possible, if you were graphing, in achieving a decreasing rate of temperature fall throughout the roast. You do that by graphing. I did manual graphs for a while taking readings every 30 seconds, though it was a pain. I got the feel of it and stopped graphing. The more expensive model has the USB so you can export the data and have many more data points in the graph.

I also learned that the start of the first crack should be 75-80% of the total roast time.

These three things, which are only a little bit of what is in the book, made a huge difference.

I'm with you on sharing beans. I produce a brew that is so good that I couldn't image adding cream or sugar. I have a lot of networking meetings at places like Panera Bread. The only way I can get that nasty concoction down is with cream and sugar. I don't drink now, though used to love high end single malt scotch. Putting cream and sugar in great coffee is like taking awesome scotch and mixing it with Coke or juice.

Thanks Pete123 I'm going to pick up that book. I agree with you that no matter how long you've been doing something or how good you think you might be at it, you can still learn something from others about it. Its pretty easy to get complacent.

I'm wondering if some of the problems I've had lately has't been with my power supply. Back when I started out roasting I used a variac (voltage regulator) to ensure I was getting a decent and uniform power supply. My variac eventually crapped out and I didn't replace it but now I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Marko , I don't think it is complacency as much as the lack of available information.  The folks that know how to do it really well aren't posting on the online forums.  They are guarding their secrets.  At least, that's what I'm told by a professional roaster.  

Scott Rao is the only source I have come across that has been willing to share.  He took a scientific approach and analyzed data from thousands of roasts.  He's also a consultant to professional coffee roasters.

Here is his website:

https://www.scottrao.com/

Regarding the power supply, that isn't something I know about.  I've been thinking more about your unit that quit working. Do you know what gave out? If you work around your house with tools at all you can probably replace the part / parts that quit working yourself. The unit isn't super complicated.

Marko , I don't think it is complacency as much as the lack of available information.  The folks that know how to do it really well aren't posting on the online forums.  They are guarding their secrets.  At least, that's what I'm told by a professional roaster.  

Scott Rao is the only source I have come across that has been willing to share.  He took a scientific approach and analyzed data from thousands of roasts.  He's also a consultant to professional coffee roasters.

Here is his website:

https://www.scottrao.com/

Regarding the power supply, that isn't something I know about.  I've been thinking more about your unit that quit working.  Do you know what gave out?  If you work around your house with tools at all you can probably replace the part / parts that quit working yourself.  The unit isn't super complicated.

I think its the fan and I'll probably replace that myself. It could be one of those situations where I work my way towards the eventual problem if its not the fan. I'm more concerned with the general condition of the whole circuit board(s) as I've done 2 roast a week for over 10 years on it that would be 1000+ cycles. I don't think it owes me anything but the replacement cost has doubled in that time.

That doesn't surprise me that the experts aren't sharing, I mean, why should they? They earned their skills the hard way so I suppose the rest of us should too. What I would really like is to spend a year or so with a roasting guru learning at the feet of a master. There was this guy living out on one of the Gulf Islands (Thetis Island) of the west coast of Canada who had been in the coffee trade in San Francisco for his working life and then retired to this rustic, hippie island. He was doing mail order roasting back before online shopping was a thing. Thats the sort of guy I need to know

I just found their website and the fellow I was talking about passed away in 2005 http://www.potofgoldcoffee.com

The variac is a device that ensures a constant current of electricity - residential power supplies can fluctuate and some delicate electronics can't handle that. They're most often used with respect to lab instruments and things like that.

Yeah, I would love to hang out with someone like him - that would really take it to the next level.