September 2003

Ed,

Your site has inspired me to build my own coffee roaster.

Here is a picture of a home roaster I built recently. I got the idea from an antique Italian roaster that was on sale at e-bay. It looked like a cast iron skillet with a lid and a hand cranked stirrer.

Well, I've pretty much adopted the same concept, except for a hand cranked stirring mechanism, I used a drill powered one. For the "roasting chamber" I used a standard Lodge 2 quart cast iron pot, and the heat source is a $20 propane burner I found in a local camping supply store.

It does an amazing job roasting coffee. I can adjust the drill speed and amount of heat to change the roasting profile. I can roast up to 3/4 lb of beans at once with fairly good consistency. Roast time depends a lot the heat and drill speed settings and can be as short as 10 min to so far up to 30 min. I am currently working on a lid assembly, which will have a thermometer and side windows to view the coffee being roasted.

Thanks for putting up the site, and happy roasting!

Leonard from Austin, Texas