Awesome roasts but durability needs to be addressed.
Positive Product Points
- ! great tasting roasts, especially for lighter roasts! I favor central american type coffees. - smokeless - relatively good chaff collection - easy to use, almost set-and-forget
Negative Product Points
- noisy - not as durable as we hoped - relatively small capacity for heavy coffee users - needs heatproof handle - large footprint - chaff collecting device is not easy to empty without spilling chaff on the floor
Detailed Commentary
First let me say that this machine has served my fiancee and I well. We drink coffee every day and love the coffee we have roasted with it. We were completely happy with the machine until a button recently broke on it.
We have had this roaster for 1 year, but hoped that it would last at least two. I admit, we've been doing some heavy roasting this christmas season, roasting a lot for family member gifts (at least 5 lbs). But we recently found that our "Cool" button has stopped working. Which is pretty important because now when we know the roast is done but we didn't estimate to set the timer completely accurately, we have to unplug the machine in order to stop the roast. It also inhibits our ability to use the cooling cycle, which really does cool the beans quite a bit.
Another pet peeve is that the handle for the canister the beans are roasted in gets too hot to hold during the roasting process. It would be nice if they'd anticipate this and put a better handle on, because you always have to grab the canister with a potholder when the roast finishes, as well as taking off the chaff collecting device with a potholder.
I know that coffee roasters are overpriced in general, but I think that the Zach and Danis machine could be a bit more durable given the investment. For $150 I expect a machine that will last more than 1 year. Less plastic parts (maybe some stainless steel, even), more durable buttons, and heat resistant handles would give me incentive to repurchase. A plus would be a less messy chaff device.
Buying Experience
Was a gift. Item came carefully packaged. We buy all of our green coffee from Sweet Marias and love them.
