and made it all the way to the second crack.
Since I am very new and haven't used any other roasters, I will just share my first experience.
After a long wait, the box arrived from California's Sweet Maria.
Pretty straight forward and i read up and knew what to expect.
I was really close to the Iroast, but after Evan recommended the Freshroast 8, I started comparing the 2 and found nothing but praise for the FR and some complaints about uneven roast on the Iroast, but lots of good stuff as well.
The FR is half the price, roasts half the amount and has a fraction of the controls. Since I am pretty much a 1-2 person coffee household, it seemed ok for now.
Reviews calling the FR a workhorse and lots of bigger roasters holding onto theirs for backup and travel was a defite plus.
I just didn't feel right trying the popcorn route and feared I would give up.
For an extra 12 bucks, I opted for the 4 pound espresso sampler, biught a 2 pound bag, and went for the pressure relief jar. All in all, about 110 bucks on my Visa.
Putting the FR together was a snap and I set up on my patio for my first try.
Just in case, I put a fire extinguisher within reach and also set up a collander ontop a fan, as I saw someone do.
Now the roasting.
2 scoops in the FR, which is 43cc, and yields 3 ozs of roasted coffee, and they say 14-16 cups of cofee, which I can't personally see....
4 minutes, in things started getting brown, and the first crack was easy to hear.
The new FR goes to 8 and apparantly the old one went to only 6, which is 6 minutes, with a 2 minute cool down, leaving the operator to put on another 2 minutes manually for full city plus or French Roast I am told.
The controls on the FR couldn't be asier, just a knob that goes to 8 and you can turn it to cool anytime you want to stop the roast.
I set the timer to the recommended 6 but at 6, I wasn't satisfied with the darkness and put on the extra 2, but stopped it at 7 minutes, as the second crack just started.