I decided to upgrade my FreshRoast after several months of dutiful use for a few reasons: The first is that it does bigger batches. The second is that is roasts more consistently. It also has a lot of other features, but these are the two most important to me. I would recommend this roaster if you want to roast beans only once or twice a week and want a bit more control and consistency in your roasting. In Canada, your best bet is the Green Beanery for purchasing one.

Pros

• This machine does batches that are 2-3 times bigger than the FreshRoast, so you don’t need to roast as often.
• It roasts very, very consistently. All the beans will appear to have been roasted to the same degree. So say goodbye to burnt beans. (Or, at least, if you burn them they’ll all be burnt.)
• The chaff collector and cooling cycle is quite effective. There is no need to pour the beans into a colander to get rid of excess chaff, and when you take the top off no chaff gets spewed back into the beans.
• You have much greater control over the roast: you can custom-program roast cycles, program them into memory, etc. (Truthfully, I have never used these features. It wasn’t a big sell for me, but it doesn’t hurt to have them.)
• There is an attachment so you can attach a dryer exhaust hose and vent it directly out your stove hood.
• Everything “clicks” together on this machine quite solidly so nothing will fall off on you.

Cons

• Is that an airplane taking off!? You have to pay much closer attention in order to hear the cracks. And you will definitely wake anyone still sleeping with those early-morning roasts. (I guess this is a pro for those of us who like a passive-aggressive method of getting sleeping spouses out of bed in the morning.)
• It takes upwards of 20 minutes to complete a roast. You definitely want to be roasting beans before you need them—especially if they’re for your morning cuppa.
• Reliability may be suspect: the first one I bought didn’t work right out of the box. I brought it home, and it started smoking. In a bad, electrical-smell kind of way. I had to bring it back for an exchange. This one seems to work flawlessly, but that first defective unit doesn’t foster a relationship of trust.

Tips

• If you’re going to buy some dryer exhaust hose for that nifty attachment, for God’s sake don’t use a plastic one! This was learned through (in restrospect) quite an amusing experience for me: I decided to exhaust it directly to my oven hood vent using the special attachment using some plastic dryer exhaust hose purchased from the local Home Hardware. Shortly into the roast the hose started expanding steadily as the heat increased – so soon the hose length that I had thought to be “just about perfect” kept getting longer, and longer, until I had to scoop it all up so it didn’t snake it’s way across the counter. Then it started to melt. So, in summary: use the metal kind. Apparently this thing puts out a lot more heat than a clothes dryer!
• Yes, the digital controls offer a lot more precision. But don’t leave it unattended. Ever. I started doing something else in the kitchen for a few minutes and before I knew it the beans were well on their way to a dark, oily, and incredibly smoky (hey, there goes the fire alarm) roast. Once again: voltage plays a big factor on how fast or slow these things roast. If you want to be able to really control your roasts, invest in a voltage regulator. (I haven’t. I just make sure to keep a close eye and ear on the darn beans as they roast.)

August 2009 Update: At nearly four years old my iRoast 2 went to that big coffee-roastery in the sky. I had it running one afternoon and it never made it to first crack. It was getting warmish, but pushing the "temperature" button showed it at a mere ~160F which is about half the temperature needed for roasting. I imagine that one of the heating coils failed. I'm a bit disappointed since I was hoping it would last longer but it gave me the opportunity to upgrade to the Gene Cafe roaster. (Much to the chagrin of my wife since it's more than twice the price of a new iRoast!) I'll post a review of it once I've had more of a chance to play.

Readers have left 3 comments.

 No.3  Untitled

I have been using a Gene for almost three years. We are inveterate coffee addicts and press at least 10 cups a day. We roast in the neighborhood of five batches a week, typically in one marathon roast (allowing an hour of cool down between batches).
At 225 grams per batch (approx. 8 oz) we have batched about 75 pounds of coffee through the Gene.
Regular cleaning is essential. Our cleaning ritual follows every marathon session. Absolutely essential is regular chaff collector cleaning. There are two chaff collectors available for the Gene. Ours came with the smaller one and it requires dissassembly for cleaning. Not a big deal but I would have engineered it for toolless disassembly. I have no experience with the larger collector.
At this writing we are waiting for our second replacement heating element to arrive. The first replacement was purchased in July 09 when the machine was a little over two years old. It lasted nine months. Googling the issue reveals that this is not uncommon. I am guessing that a manufacturing QC lapse is the culprit and hope that the new element will last longer. The good news is the replacement activity is simple with a phillips head screwdriver and instructions available all over the net.
So, 75 pounds of coffee roasted- 600 dollars invested, inclusive the replacement elements, equates to an adder of 8$ a pound to the bean cost. Even factoring in the cost savings of green beans these numbers make Gene Cafe roasted coffee orders of magnitude more expensive than store bought coffee. This is a floating number and can be mediated by further roasting with low repair cost. Electricity cost has not been factored in though, nor can I quantify the subjective value of the satisfaction coming from home roasting.
The Gene batches a fine cup evenly, it's fun to use, you can see and hear your efforts evolving, you can duplicate successes (and failures) and the machine requires attention and input to deliver a top quality product. I recommend it for the self styled artisan, not so much for the inattentive or uncommited to the process, and not at all for the bargain hunter.

Guest (Unregistered) • 2010-05-02 12:04:43

 No.2  Untitled

Anyone coffee geek, or someone needing a gift for a coffee geek, could hardly make a better investment in the quality of their future coffee-drinking than the Hearthware I-Roast 2, a home coffee roaster. It's about the size and shape of a blender and roasts about a cup of beans at a time. Rookies can roast simply by pushing a button for one of two pre-set roasts (a moderate cinnamon-colored roast and a much darker one). In 10-12 minutes or so, you will have the world's freshest coffee. Although sophisticated roasters would look down their noses at the pushbutton experience, if you have not had genuinely fresh-roasted beans before, you will be cosmically impressed.

Edward Green (Unregistered) • 2010-01-19 06:22:49

 No.1  MR

Hi I'm considering buying either an iRoast 2 OR a Gene Cafe so I'd be very keen to hear your experience with the Gene Cafe and how you think it compares to the iRoast 2. It does LOOK like a higher quality machine... but for that extra $$$ you'd have to hope so!

CaffMe (Unregistered) • 2009-11-01 20:59:24

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