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Coffee-Hub.biz - FreshRoast +8 Home Coffee Roaster with 5 lbs. Green Coffee
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List Price: $119.00
Our Price: $109.00
Your Save: $ 10.00 ( 8% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Freshbeans, Inc.
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Kitchen
Feature: The perfect home roasting machine for households with 1 or 2 coffee drinkers.
Label: Freshbeans, Inc.
Manufacturer: Freshbeans, Inc.
Model: 410
Publisher: Freshbeans, Inc.
Studio: Freshbeans, Inc.
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Features
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The perfect home roasting machine for households with 1 or 2 coffee drinkers.
Roasts 3.5 oz. Green coffee in about 7 minutes
A good machine for beginners at an affordable price.
Includes a 5 pound sampler of Fair Trade certified organic green coffee
Operates on standard 110 volt household current.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Instant Brewesta
Comment: This small fluid-bed appliance is one efficient; easy to use coffee bean roaster. You pour your Tolima Colombian green beans into the 43cc scoop twice, spilling them into the small roasting chamber. Plug it in. Turn the timer knob to seven minutes and that's it. A stream of hot air does the rest. It's virtually silent, emanates a nice rich smell and it's smoke-free--if you put the chaff collectors & the roast chamber into the dishwasher after each roasting project. The green beans slowly turn kaki, then light brown and finally (after the second crack) a dark shiny brown. Pour dem roasted coffee beans into the grinder cup of your automatic grind and brew coffee maker--pour in twelve cups of filtered water--set the timer--and it's incredibly fresh coffee in the morning! Too simple!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great when it works
Comment: 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 expired, the fan on the roaster started making strange noises and a couple roasts later a small flame shot through the center of the roaster. Only being able to get a year's worth of roasting and risking a major fire in the process more than outweigh the initial savings. I have since bought an I-Roast as a replacement. It roasts more at one shot but is much louder and smokier.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun and easy to use.
Comment: I love coffee and view my obsession as a hobby. Roasting ones own beans is almost an essential activity for one to be consider a coffee snob (or hobbyist). The FreshRoast plus 8 was a cost-effective way to proceed with my hobby.
After an experience in Peru roasting my own beans over a fire (poor results) I knew that good results would require a coffee roaster. I have friends who have tried using an air popper and the oven to roast green beans, with results mimicking my "open fire" experience.
The FreshRoast plus 8 is as close to being ready to use "out of the box" as possible. Using the supplied Sumatra beans, a six minute roast produced A) More smell than smoke B) a good "French press" roast. I was please with my first pot, although the first go-round only netted 32 oz. of coffee, not 48-60. This may be a reflection of taste on my part.
Adding a minute produced a darker roast with a slightly oily bean. I ground this into espresso. Excellent results. It is really hard to "mess up."
Observations: Coffee will need to be roasted outside. Even roasting under the kitchen exhaust fan failed to "clear the air" with my non-coffee drinking wife. On the bright side, clean up is easy, the cats enjoy watching the beans "bounce" while roasting and the smell is intoxicating for a coffee lover.
Customer Rating:
Summary: It fascinates the cats
Comment: I have the feeling that roasting is out of vogue as I could not find a local outlet to sell this critter. However I did not let that stop me.
A lot of the fun was unpacking the roaster and the accompanying bag of beans. I just scanned through the manual and any warnings. I later read it several times from cover to cover; however I was in a hurry to plug it in. Each piece fit together and was to speculate as to what its function was. The roster also came with a scoop and I had to laugh at the instructions; they said to fill the scoop up twice and then empty it into the roaster.
Because I read previous reviews I planed on the roaster producing smoke and I have alarms all over the house including those that are monitors. So I took it into the garage. There I found a safe place with nothing flammable around it. There the cats and I proceeded to follow the directions.
First try at 6 minutes plus cool down produced dark oily coated beans. And I noticed that there was a section in the top of the roaster to collect the chaff. The cats were fascinated with the beans fluffing up and moving around. And sure enough there was smoke.
Second try at three minutes produced almost even roasting with a few green tasting beans. So third time was the charm at three and a half minutes. Also not a lot of smoke was produced this time. Now I have some beans from a different location and will see if the same timing applies. The cats are sitting by waiting.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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 5-8 minutes to roast the green coffee beans with a 2 minute cool-down cycle. The Freshroast 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 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. Includes a 5 pound sampler of our most popular Fair Trade certified organic green coffees.
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