500g Automatic Coffee Roaster Machine for Home Use Wth Smoke Filter(Suitable for Light Roasting), The Smoke Pipes (Suitable for Medium and Dark Roasting) and Chaff Collector

I've been a home roaster for about 25 years. I've used hot air corn popper, the iRoast (i-roar), Gene Cafe and now this skywalker clone machine. This machine has some quirks but I've adapted it to be a very capable roaster. I'm using a TC4 Arduino interface with Artisan Scope open source software. This machine is great for a diy maker/hacker. I have full computer control of this roaster and can better track and reproduce roast profiles. The included controller works okay, but the user interface is confusing and takes practice. The auto-roast (mode 3) over-roasted a few batches, so I went with the computer interface instead. It makes a good bit of smoke, and I use it outside on a patio with one of the included vent ducts bent into an "L" shape. I don't use the electric cooler/filter. I made a few adjustments which help resolve some shortcomings of this machine. People complain of a few left over burned beans from previous batch -- that the drum does not fully empty when dumping. When I dump beans, I put a small 1-inch strip of wood under the back of the machine which tilts the end up so all the beans empty when I dump beans at the end of the roast. I keep the roaster on a 1-inch board which lifts up the machine and allows the cooling track to pull out easily. I put thick tape under the edge of the cooling drawer so the bottom metal sharp edge doesn't scratch my table. When cleaning after roasting, I use a small shop-vac vacuum to suck out the internal chaff bits, and use the vacuum exhaust to blow into the machine while vacuuming the sides. I get it really clean this way. The cooling fan works alright, but for complete bean cooling I remove the metal cooling tray with beans and place it on top of a small 8-inch round fan tilted to blow "up" onto the tray. The drum is single speed, which works well. It seems to require about 150 grams minimum load so the beans will touch the internal RTD sensor to register the bean temperature. The fan and heat settings adjust in 10% steps, so each has 0 - 100% settings. The separate "cool" mode turns on fans for the cooling drawer and is simple on/off button. The heating element seems to be an IR halogen tube. While it's roasting I can see bits of chaff stick to and burn on the bulb. I think it might reduce bulb life, but it's working now. The heater is **inside** the drum. Beans get radiant and convection heating which is PWM controlled. Sometime soon, I plan to replace the RTD Bean Temperature sensor (BT) with a thermocouple. I also plan to add an extra sensor for Environment Temperature (ET) which the unit does not have. There are plenty of forums and projects about hacking this style of roaster. Overall I'm very happy with the capability of this machine, and look forward to learning more about the craft of home roasting my own coffee beans. UPDATE (Jan 2026): I've discovered this machine Bean Temperature (BT) reads about 15 degress low when roasting batches of 150-200 grams. I reach First Crack Start (FCs) at around 172C. I use a flashlight to view the beans in the tiny window to look for Dry End (DE) or Yellow stage. The flashlight helps to verify no green is left, at around 150C. This machine uses Infra Red (radiated) heating (not convection or conduction via heated drum), so the beans will heat sooner than the probe. I burned a lot of beans pushing to BT=202C before realizing this. I'm now using batch sizes of 250gram which give more reliable (and still low) reading on BT probe. I removed and compared the existing RTD BT probe against two good thermo-couples with hot/cold water, and the BT probe is accurate. I still use and enjoy this machine, but which I knew about the low probe readings at first.

I have been using this roaster for seven months now, roasting 400 gram batches every 1-2 weeks. Overall, I am very pleased with the product. I bought it to replace a Behmor roaster, and this roaster outperformed the Behmor in multiple ways. It roasts a 400 gram batch to Full City+ in around 10 minutes. It gives a consistent roast every time. The chaff tray makes for easy cleanup. There are a couple of things I don't like. The motor that drives the roasting drum is noisy, which makes it difficult to hear first crack and impossible to hear the second crack. The smoke filter cannot handle the heat of a Full City roast and will fail after a few roasts. This is not mentioned in the users manual, but when I contacted the company they said the filter should only be used for light roasts and the exhaust pipe used for darker roasts. I purchased a replacement filter and some hi-temp resistant foam filter sheeting. I cut the foam to size and put a couple of layers under the filter and one above it. I haven't done enough roasts to see if this fixes the problem. Be aware that a lot of smoke and smell will come from dumping the beans after roasting, which cannot be avoided. I highly recommend using the Assist mode when roasting, as you need to control when to stop the roasting , especially if you are doing a darker roast. The instructions in the manual are OK, but it is difficult to refer to refer to them while in the middle of the roast. I created my own instruction checklist which I will attach to this review. You can see my setup in the photo. I roast on my range so I can vent directly to the range hood.

I've been using a Gene Cafe roaster for years but decided I wanted more control so I looked at the reviews of this product and bought it. It arrived last night and I unpacked it. The only issue I had was that the tools and control unit were packed inside the bean output drawer and became jammed...like desk or cabinet draws can be when something is sticking up too high. I had to take part of the unit apart to unstick the drawer. If you wonder where the tools (scoop, spoon, brush, and control panel) are pull out the bean output drawer. If it won't open turn the unit on the side and remove the bottom screwed enough to pull the bottom plate off a bit to unstick the drawer. My advice to the manufacturer is to package theses in another box and not in the drawer. This morning I did a test roast. I roasted about 400 grams of wet hulled Indonesian Flores Kamodo beans from Smokin Beans. I used the automatic mode 033 for dark roast wet hulled beans and followed the directions. The roast was perfect! The smoke filter was great and didn't set my garage fire alarm off the way the GeneCafe usually did. I like having the unit preheated so the beans are not baked as the temperature increases the way it does in a GeneCafe. Same with the cool down as the beans are spread out in the cooling tray as soon as the roast is complete. I'm looking forward to working up to a complete manual roast with the detailed control over temperature, power, fan speed and time. This roaster gives you everything from full automatic to full manual with an assist mode in between. The footprint is a bit larger than the GeneCafe and the power cord could be a bit longer but overall it looks like it's going to give me more control over the roast and I can roast a full pound of beans unlike the GeneCafe. It is also considerably cheaper than the GeneCafe...until new tariffs on China go into effect that is.

Sin duda un muy tostador de buena calidad, para unos tal vez un poco caro, pero sin duda que vale completamente la pena, yo lo compre para un emprendimiento de una cafeteria, para tostar mi propio cafe, afortunadamente el negocio prospero muy rapido y se me quemo el tostador en 1 mes exacto, tostaba 1 a 2kg por dia, pero dandole su uso domestico que es pera lo que es, vale mucho la pena.

It took me two roasts to get it right. The first one burned the beans. Reviewing the instructions didn’t help a terrific amount, so I reviewed You Tube to get more of a hands on sense of how this roaster behaves. The second roast worked out very well! This beats my Gene Cafe by a country mile. Better more even roasts and a greater capacity.

This is the only roaster I found that has all of the features a professional roaster would have, yet at a very affordable price: - Drum Roaster - Dropping beans mechanism - Cooling tray that can be removed for an easy beans transfer. - Manual control of the electrical heat source and fan - Smoke suppressor (that does a phenomenal job) as well as two pipes that also come with the roster in case you want to use those instead. I have experience great customer service so far. Make sure to get the model that has the quartz tube (comes already with the newly manufactured roasters), otherwise you will have some burned beans in the roast. It has automated modes for beginners. You can still choose to do your roast manually or in an assisted mode where you control when to stop the roast. The automated modes are a bit fast but still do a good job. The end result tends to be a bit darker than what you are aiming for, however, this can be controlled if you are roasting in a manual mode or assisted mode. Make sure to lead the roaster with at closer to 350g-400g to get best results. Loading it with 100g for sample roasting would make the roast very quick. Best roaster I found for its price. Recommended.

Es una maravilla de aparato, lo mejor de todo es que el fabricante está al pendiente de los daños o defectos de fabricación, tienen muy buena disposición y una muy buena atención, me enviaron refacciones nuevas sin costo!! Gracias!!

Apenas hoy lo empecé a usar siguiendo la recomendación del instructivo de 350 a 400 grs en el modo automático los tueste en menos de 7 min el tueste es uniforme sin granos quemados una gran compra sin duda para sacar diferente perfiles de tueste