As for cutomer sevice being great... I dispute that. Not every customer has the same experieince. About a month after I received my new i-roast the chaff collector lock tab broke off the top. Four 4 emails and a few phone calls got me a new top. It took over a month to get here. The replacement broke soon after. You guessed it... took about a month to get another replacement. (CS actually asked me if I broke it on purpose.) After 18 months of one batch per day my i-roast is dead. When the machine malfunctioned in July 06 I explained to Customer Service that my i-roast completes the roasting cycle but doesn't roast the beans. Air at the top is uncomfortable to my hand but apparently isn't hot enough to roast beans. CS said the i-roast wouldn't work because I had taken the glass bean pot apart to clean it and disturbed the thermo reflector in the center. Customer Service said I need a new bean pot. I purchased a new bean pot. Unfortunately i-roast moved so it took over a month to get the new bean pot and the roaster still won't roast. Now that the new bean pot didn't fix it CS has no answers. Sent the bean pot back today. My cast iron skillet is much more reliable.
Dam that just sucks!! I'm not talking about customer service & I don't see where anyone else is either. I look after my roaster & keep it clean, especially the two motor bearing supports & the motor's brushes & commutator.
I'm not implying that others don't look after their roaster or abuse it.
Dam that just sucks!! I'm not talking about customer service & I don't see where anyone else is either. I look after my roaster & keep it clean, especially the two motor bearing supports & the motor's brushes & commutator.
I'm not implying that others don't look after roaster or abuse it.
Spot on Marc! I've been using it for a few months and it is good value for the money. I was using a poppery with a variac before and my roast profile was the way you described poppery roasting...kicked the heat up very high a first and then dropped it back so the beans didn't go flying (I never did get around to separating the fan and heater.) The I-roast2 works well and some of the changes they made were critical (for example saving profiles when unplugged.)
For the full review I'd like to see how the displayed temperature correlates to a reading by a temp probe (thermocouple) inside the pot with a batch of beans. I did this with my iRoast to figure out what temp to set the machine at to actually get the temp I wanted. (I rigged up a paperclip inside to hold the thermocouple where I wanted it) The noise should also be mentioned. And perhaps even a comparison of roasts between the iroast 1 & 2, and a drum roaster like the hottop. I'm sure it'll be months before you get a full review done if you included everything we wanted :)
On the longevity issue, I will provide a "Backward Glance" style review. My Hearthware Precision lasted about a year and half. My iRoast 1 lasted about a year and half. (And in fairness, I had no problems with it, other than its untimely demise) My use was moderate, eg 4 - 130g roasts per week. Cost of each was about $CAD250.
I don't think that is an adequate cost to longevity ratio. While I agree the iRoast roasts good coffee, I don't think I could recommend a Hearthware product when my experience is that it won't last much longer than a $15 popcorn popper. (The Toastess lasted about 1 year).
"Give me a rocks on the rocks - and put it in a dirty glass" - Cary Granite
Not a bad idea! I'm not sure about "at a glance", but something similar.
Problem is, it would require some restructuring of the website, and new graphics, headers, layout templates, etc, which is something I can't invest any time in right now.
But for the next revision of the website - it's a good idea!
Problem is, it would require some restructuring of the website, and new graphics, headers, layout templates, etc, which is something I can't invest any time in right now.
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