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ljguitar
 
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Default What roaster to buy?

I own an Alpenrost and 3 FR+ modded with aluminum bases and on
individual Variacs.

2 of our friends (at our recommendation) bought Z&Ds in the past few
months and love them...rave about them actually. No smoke/in the house
roasting in one case.

Another acquaintance has a 5 kilo Deidrich (sp?) and gets great results!
He also sells a bunch of coffee.

I store the Alp on a shelf most of the time, because every 2 months it has
to be opened and 'adjusted' using the volt ohm meter and an allen wrench...
and the roasts are too dull for my liking. I do have the benefit of comparing
the taste of the roasts between my setups. The Alp is limited to roasting
beans of adequate size as well...small beans stick/burn and fall through
the screen in the drum.

The throughput on the Alp is about the same as the 3 FR+. I can turn out a
pound an hour with the FR+ and slightly less with the Alp.

The FR+ have thousands of roasts on them now, and I have been toying with
the idea of looking into a 1 pound BBQ setup as long as it can handle smaller
loads... I only roast ½ pound at a time, and prefer to have 2-3 types of beans
and 2 espresso blends on hand all the time. I have not seen an 8-12 oz
BBQ roaster.

L a r r Y

(Thomas Reat) wrote in message . com>...
> Is the Alpenrost a good roaster, or is the $250-$300 better spent? Is
> the HotTop worth the $600? Is a Zach and Dani's so much worse (at
> about $150, though infomercials make me suspicious)? I don't care how
> big a batch it makes, but I do want a very good one.