Product Description: The Freshroast Plus 8 features a glass chamber for a 3.5 oz. roast batch and a fast roast cycle. Ideal for a household of 1 to 2 coffee drinkers, it takes just 5-7 minutes to roast the green coffee beans with a 2 minute cool-down cycle. The Freshroast Plus has a mechanical timer and the chaff collector is simple yet effective. Because the roast chamber is smaller and the roast cycle is shorter than other home coffee roasting machines, it uses less energy to roast a batch of beans. Because of its basic design, this is the roaster that will outlast all the fancy, computer chip controlled machines out there. If you are a serious home coffee roaster, it is worth having one of these just in case your other roaster fails. Because of the mechanical timer and the fast roast time, this unit requires a little more attention to achieve your favorite roast. This is a simple matter of monitoring the bean color and aroma, then manually turning the machine to cool when the beans are perfect. Typically, in a Freshroast the beans roast a little darker on the outside and the coffees bright notes and aroma are accentuated, while deeper tones can sometimes be muted because of the fast roast time. The roast time will vary between coffee types, but results can be duplicated by recording the roast time for each type of coffee you roast. Includes a pound of our Fair Trade certified organic Ethipian Yirgacheffe green coffee.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - OKAY, BUT NOTHING SPECIAL
The FreshRoast is a decent little roaster for someone who doesn't try to do anything fancy. It really doesn't do anything more than a hot air popcorn popper does, but costs a whole lot more.
You have to be very careful with the amount of beans you put in, as overloading it at all will result in lots of smoke and burned beans.
My only real complaint is that this thing is very fragile. I have had the bottom come off when removing the roasting chamber, making a huge mess. The roasting chamber will also break without much provocation, and they are about $25 to replace.
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Rating: - An OK starter roaster.
This is our second coffee roaster. Our first was a Hearthware (pre I Roast) We purchased the FreshRoast approximately 2 years ago. It died 2 months ago. The roaster basket developed a crack a few months back and after a call to the company they shipped me one for free. That was nice. I appreciate that kind of customer service. A week or so after that the heating element went out. I have not made a decision on a new roaster yet. I don't want to spend more money on a roaster that will go to the land fill in two years or less. Maybe I have high expectations. The choices for inexpensive home roasters ... Read More
Rating: - Okay, but overpriced
I thought I'd give this a try, since it seemed like a good bargain. It stopped seeming like a bargain when I opened the box and my husband remarked that he expected more of something that cost $90.00. So it was in theory a good bargain compared to the iRoast 2, but the FreshRoast is more expensive than it should be ($40-$50 would be a price more in line with the quality and complexity of the machine). The inner chamber is very small -- enough to make one pot of coffee. I didn't like the small capacity. It would have required me to roast every day. The machine had many other annoying aspects, and these ... Read More
Rating: - Great when it works
I purchased this roaster, the FreshRoast Plus, a little over a year ago. In that year I used it roughly every two days and after a bit of a rough start had no problem getting just the roast I wanted. Thats not to say that you can just turn the dial and get the same roast each time. Slightly different amounts of beans or different types could require 2 to 3 minutes less to roast often because the first crack was so exothermic that it caused a very rapid second crack. Still, with some experience and good timing the variables were easy to adjust for.
Unfortunately, just days after the 1 year warranty ... Read More
Rating: - It worked for one batch
I also received this for Christmas, used it once and now I am sending it back since it no longer has power when the timer is turned on.
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